A Twenty-Four Histories I don't know where to start (Zi Yue Shi Yun)
Two hundred years ago, the German philosopher Hegel sighed: Chinese history writers emerge in an endless stream and historical writings are continuous, which is truly unmatched by any other nation.
There's nothing wrong with that.
China has a profound tradition of writing history, and ancient history books are vast.
Just looking at the categories is amazing.
"Siku Quanshu Zongmu" is divided into 15 categories of history books, namely official history, chronicle, chronicle book end, other history, miscellaneous history, imperial order, biography, historical banknotes, records, seasons, geography, official officials, and political books , catalogues, historical reviews.
The first-ranked official history is the backbone of Chinese historical writings.
Whenever dynasties are replaced and new dynasties are established, manpower must be organized to compile the history of previous dynasties, which is official history.
This name can be found in "Sui Shu·Jing Ji Zhi". By the Qing Dynasty, twenty-four histories were prepared, from "Historical Records", "Han Shu" to "Yuan History" and "Ming History", which lasted for more than 1,800 years, with a total of more than 3,200 volumes and 4,700 Million words.
The first few of the twenty-four histories were not acts of the state, but were written by individuals. Later, they were recognized as official histories by the state.
In the Tang Dynasty, the official history was included in official repairs, the state came forward, collected historical materials, selected scholars, set up a series of positions such as president, editor, supervisor, promotion, scripting, proofreading, etc., became a national cultural project, and those who participated in it, Mostly for a while.
For example, Song Qi of the Northern Song Dynasty wrote a famous sentence such as "the spring on the branches of red apricots", which is known as "the book of red apricots".
During the reign of Song Renzong, he and Ouyang Xiu wrote the "Book of Tang" together, which took 17 years to complete.
In order to distinguish the "Old Tang Shu" compiled during the Five Dynasties period, it is called "New Tang Shu".
When he was compiling history, Song Qi's work was transferred, and he went to Chengdu with the manuscript.
After dinner every night, he drew down the curtains, lit a candle and began to write.
"Those who watch from far and near know that Shang Shu Xiu "Tang Shu" has become a popular story.
The compilation of official histories is in the form of biography, and the prominent feature is that a large number of biographies are the central content.
In addition, there are also chronicle-style history books represented by Zuo Zhuan and Zizhi Tongjian—with time as the center, historical facts are arranged by year, month and day.
The chronology first originated in China and was created by historians of the Zhou Dynasty.
"Zuo Zhuan" perfected its style, Xun Yue's "Han Ji" in the Eastern Han Dynasty created the chronological style of dynasties, and Sima Guang of the Northern Song Dynasty established the chronological style of general history.
Other chronicle books, as well as daily notes, calendars, records and so on.
A chronicle like "Zizhi Tongjian" with a time span of 1362 years is only recorded year by year, just like an account book.
If one thing has happened for many years in a row, if you want to know the whole picture of something, you have to read through many volumes and pick and choose, which is very inconvenient.
In order to solve this difficulty, Yuan Shu of the Southern Song Dynasty gathered the materials of the same incident scattered in different years of "Zizhi Tongjian" and compiled the "Tongjian Chronicle".
This is where the genre of Chronicle Benmo was born—the main focus is to clarify specific events, not the age and characters.
Going back and talking about the twenty-four histories, it is rich in content. It is an encyclopedia with everything in it. The most valuable thing is its originality-because of the original materials based on which it was compiled, including archives, memorabilia, family biographies, inscriptions, and deeds. etc., most of which are the earliest records reflecting the historical facts of a certain dynasty.
Later, most of the original materials did not survive, and it was thanks to the official history that it was passed down to future generations.
Precisely because of the large amount of preserved historical materials, the twenty-four historical volumes are so numerous that the so-called "flying snow after reading one article".
When the predecessors wanted to express the meaning of "the situation is complicated, there are many clues, and I don't know how to start", they often quoted the words of Li Baojia, a writer in the Qing Dynasty: "I don't know where to start when I taste a twenty-four history."
In this regard, the Southern Song scholar Zhu Xi has his own point of view.
When a student asked him how to read history, Zhu Xi said: "Zizhi Tongjian is ugly, it is better to read the "Historical Records" and "Han Shu". The things recorded in these two books are often intertwined, and the same thing is scattered in the Among the chronicles, biographies, tables, and records. The "Zizhi Tongjian" is a year-by-year record, looking at the past year by year, many things are intertwined, and it is not easy to find the clue of a certain thing."
The student asked him to talk about "how the official history says one thing in many places".
Zhu Xi said: "Take Liu Bang's visit to the Hongmen banquet as an example. "The Chronicles of the Great Ancestor" and the biographies of Zhang Liang, Guan Ying and others are narrated from different perspectives, and the meaning is detailed. Reading it makes people feel happy and easy to remember." "Zizhitongjian" refers to this matter at a certain point in the year, and then goes on to talk about other things before it is finished, to predict what will happen in the future, and you have to go to the next year to find it, and only people with good memory can read it."
Zhu Xi's opinion is reasonable.
Reading history, first reading official history, the harvest will be more significant, which is determined by the characteristics of official history.
He also has a general guide for reading history: "First read the "Historical Records", then read "Zuo Zhuan", then read "Zizhi Tongjian", and have spare capacity to study the whole history." There are not many people who have spare capacity, but this kind of The reading method of "focus first, then general" is suitable for most people.
Xiong Jian