I find FADEX's point about site context to be really interesting. You're right in that I wouldn't really expect to find that many
historical historical novels in SH, and specifically I wouldn't be
looking for them here. This is a place where I wouldn't expect much fact-hunting and -checking in the stories, given the push to publish daily.
That said, I'm not camp "a real place named with real people etc in the story". Granted, online I mostly read Chinese webnovels-- I have different mindset regarding traditionally published western novels, because it's just a different literary culture-- but a lot of "historical" Chinese webnovels I read (about... governing... during locust plagues and holding court where people just recite poetry...) base a lot of their government, for example, off a specific dynasty without carrying everything else over. While some novels wouldn't say that it's Tang dynasty the nth year of Kaiyuan or really namedrop a certain emperor, if it deals with Tang-era customs, Imperial Exams, government official hierarchy etc, even if it doesn't set itself on Chang'an but a vague "Capital City" then I would still go with it having a historical genre. Two reasons: I feel like giving some leeway to writers who are partially doing this for their own enjoyment as well is important, we're not machines, and secondly, history carries baggage with it not every story is there to address. Sometimes, you just really want to write a story where a third of a chapter is the MC contemplating how to write a poem for the emperor's birthday and it has to be a certain rhyme with certain "season words" and with adequate contrast of imagery between each two lines or whatever. (I really really love these novels)
This line from Wikipedia on Historical Fiction probably sums up my opinion:
An essential element of historical fiction is that it is set in the past and pays attention to the manners, social conditions and other details of the depicted period.
As someone who really enjoys historical fiction (both accurate and more fictional), frankly I'm more interested in the details of the setting being correct rather than explicit mentions of eras/real events and figures. Of course I'm delighted when it does actually have real events and real historical figures, but it's not where the bar is for me.
That said, with my bar being this low, I do still find myself often disappointed LOL
