Is there a research method in historical research called the "empirical method"?

Yes, there is. After all, it is said that historiography is historiography.

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One of the major differences between the study of history and the study of other social sciences is that the historian conducts research on the basis of the materials and traces left behind by history. Historical materials and their handling then become a key to the study of history. The historian's understanding of historical materials and the choice of their treatment reflect the evolution of historiography itself. Traditional historiography is a kind of historiography focusing on political and personal activities, and its material sources are mainly all kinds of narrative materials. 19th-century empirical historiography shows that this kind of traditional historiography has reached its peak: in terms of the composition of the historical materials, the empirical historians collected all kinds of governmental and private archives, documents, official letters, financial records, documents, diplomatic documents, judicial records, and other kinds of historical materials directly and indirectly related to the political events and activities of the personalities. In the composition of historical materials, empirical historians collect various types of political events, personalities, activities, and other direct and indirect relationship with the historical materials; in the historical material processing, empirical historians and documentary evidence school combined with the historical materials for internal and external evidence of the two sides of the evidence.

The external evidence is to rely on inscriptions, paleography, linguistics and other auxiliary disciplines to eliminate the errors of the historical materials, to identify their authenticity, while determining their age, date. The internal evidence analyzes the completeness and unity of the content of the historical materials and compares and contrasts them with other historical materials of the same period to determine their reliability and value. At the end of this verification process, the historian then organizes the materials according to the dates and the sequence of events revealed, and prepares a book.

Jiang Dachun, Chen Qineng, eds. The Dictionary of Historical Theory. Hefei: Anhui Education Publishing House. 2000. pp. 468-470