How did the official history books come into being?

Long before the Tang Dynasty historians compiled the Book of Jin, there were many works about the history of Jin, at least 18.

Before the Tang Dynasty, most history books were written by private individuals. After writing it, it was handed over to the official. After being officially certified, it can be included in the official history. Historical Records, Hanshu and The History of the Three Kingdoms were born in this way. The ancestor ratified by the rulers of the Tang Dynasty was Li Hao, the monarch of Xiliang during the Sixteen Countries Period in Wuhu. Chen Yinque said that the ancestor of the Li family was not Li Xiliang, but. "If it weren't for the collapse of Zhao Junli, it would be a fake brand in Zhao Junli." With so many good dishes on the table, we have to start a new stove. Li Shimin asked historians to rewrite the Book of Jin, just for grandstanding and fooling the right people.

Some historians believe that Li Shimin rebuilt the Book of Jin for practical needs. Why do you say that? This has to talk about the situation of Li Shimin in his later years. In his later years, Li Shimin was overwhelmed by the problem of establishing a prince, and even jumped into bed with anger and drew his sword and stabbed himself. In order to compete for the throne, Li Chenggan and Lee Tae cultivated their confidants, made enemies, and killed their faces, almost repeating the farce of the Eight Kings Rebellion in the last years of the Western Jin Dynasty. In view of this, I decided to take history as a mirror and re-compile the Book of Jin.

These statements are reasonable, but they can't stand scrutiny, because they are all speculations about Li Shimin's subjective consciousness. No one knows what Li Shimin thinks, so let's assume that these statements are desirable. In addition, from an objective point of view, simply talk about the reasons for re-editing the Book of Jin.

This is what Chen Yinque said. Is that really the case? Professor Yue Chunzhi of Nankai Normal University has done some interesting textual research.

For example, Wang Yin's Book of Jin has bright spots, but its writing style is not good, miscellaneous but not precise, and there are too many absurd things recorded. The original book is 93 volumes, and only 86 volumes remain in the early Tang Dynasty; Yu Yu's Book of Jin, the original book is 44 volumes, only 26 volumes in the early Tang Dynasty; Zhu Feng's Book of Jin, the original book was not finished, only 14 volumes were written, and only 10 volumes were left in the early Tang Dynasty; He Fa-sheng's "Jin Zhong Xing Shu" records the whole history of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, but its content is complicated and incoherent. Xie Lingyun's Book of Jin has not been finished, and there are many vain words; Xiao Ziyun's Book of Jin, the original book 102, only 1 1 in the early Tang Dynasty; Lu Ji's Book of Jin only records the history of Sima Yi, Sima Shi and Si Mazhao. ......

If one of these history books spans the Eastern and Western Jin Dynasties in a complete and detailed way, it is Zang Xurong's Book of Jin, which has a complete style and a total volume of 1 10. However, Zang is not an official history, but a hermit who has no intention of fame. His works are not the official history of serving politics, which is different from the official ideology. Moreover, the popularity of Zang's literature is relatively heavy, and the selection of materials is biased towards literati feelings, which also conflicts with the focus of history compilation, Emperor Taizong. In addition, Zang's Book of Jin is a personal work after all, which inevitably omits some important historical materials, such as the history of the coexistence of Sixteen Countries and the Eastern Jin Dynasty.

I once told Fang, the editor-in-chief of the Book of Jin, that I think the historians of Hanshu have included Ganquan Fu, Hunting Feather Fu, Zi Xufu, Shanglin Fu and Du Fu of Ban Gu. These things are just a bunch of flashy rhetoric, and complaints are complaints. What's the use of recording them in history books? Japanese scholar Kaifu Shimizu once compared Zang Xurong's Biography of Lu Ji with Tang Xiu's Biography of Lu Ji, and found that although both of them chose Lu Ji's articles, the former mainly chose articles highlighting Lu Ji's life experience and literary achievements, while the latter chose Lu Ji's political articles.

To sum up, Li Shimin arranged for historians to re-edit the Book of Jin, not only for the purpose of confessing one's ancestors to the ancestors, but also for learning from history. In other words, it is under the joint action of multiple subjective and objective factors, such as recognizing ancestors, taking history as a mirror, perfecting historical materials and applying what they have learned, that the recompilation of the Book of Jin was put on the agenda.

In March of the 20th year of Zhenguan (646), Emperor Taizong issued the No.8888 order of Emperor Taizong, officially announcing the reconstruction of the Book of Jin, and established the editorial department of the Book of Jin for this purpose. The editorial team is extremely luxurious:

Investor and Chief Planner (and author): Li Shimin.

Honorary Editor-in-Chief: Fang and Chu Suiliang.

Executive Editor: Xu

Consultants: Ling Hudefen, Jing Bo, Li, Li Huaiyan.

After more than two years of compilation, in the autumn of the twenty-second year of Zhenguan (about September), the Book of Jin was completed, with 65,438+032 volumes, 65,438+0 volumes of narrative cases and catalogues, 65,438+00 volumes of biographies (records of emperors) and 70 volumes of records of famous ministers, generals and martyrs. ). Later, the narrative and contents were lost, and now only 130 volumes are left.

When the book of Jin came out, it was a sensation. Tianya, Tigers, Everyone, Headlines, Netease, Sohu ... Historians from all walks of life have abandoned the old and used the new. There are a constant stream of people buying books in front of Xinhua Bookstore, and the Tang Empire also gave this great book of Jin as a national gift to Silla.

So, what is the level of official revision of the Book of Jin?

Biography, biographies, chronicles and records have their own advantages and disadvantages. If you take out every book, it is estimated that you will finish reading less than half a book. Let's talk about it in general here.

Let's talk about the advantages first.

First of all, it is comprehensive enough. Because there are many reference materials, more than a dozen books on the history of Jin Dynasty are available. Although they all have their own shortcomings, some only talk about the Eastern Jin Dynasty, some only talk about the Western Jin Dynasty, and some talk about both ends, but both ends are incomplete, lacking arms and legs, but combining these things is different. Such a huge database is difficult to be comprehensive! Zhao Yi, a historian in the Qing Dynasty, was very positive about this point and praised the Book of Jin, which was incomparable to other similar books. Today, we can clearly see the changes of the Jin Dynasty-Sima's usurpation of Wei, the founding of the Western Jin Dynasty, the Eight Kings Rebellion, the Five Rebellions in China, the relocation of Yi Jin to the south, the Northern Expedition in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, and the Changes of Sixteen Countries ... The editorial department of Li Shimin played an important role.

In addition to the integrity of the main history, the "auxiliary materials" of the Book of Jin are also very complete-mainly talking about the "ambition" in it. As mentioned above, the so-called ambition is actually the national system of etiquette, music, calendar, astronomy, diet, criminal law, five elements, geography and so on; In other words, they are the supporting "software" of a country. Sima Qian's Historical Records has this content, but Chen Shou's History of the Three Kingdoms does not. The Book of Jin made a corresponding supplement to this, not only recording the "ambition" of the Jin Dynasty, but also recording the "ambition" of the Three Kingdoms period before the Jin Dynasty. For example, Geographical Records records the evolution of geographical construction in past dynasties, and Tian Wen Zhi records three celestial bodies (the author of this part is to check for leaks and fill gaps, and will do the same work in the future).

Secondly, it creatively grasped the main line (Jin Dynasty) with the style of "observing discipline", and at the same time properly solved the problem of how to deal with the Wuhu regime. The history of Jin Dynasty is very chaotic. The five lakes and sixteen countries are in a mess. You ruined me, I ruined him, he ruined you, and you sang me. What was the introduction of the monarchs of the 16 countries in Wuhu? Listed in imperial discipline, isn't that orthodox disorder? Let's list them in the biography. They are not vassals of the rulers, and the rulers are also chaotic.

Members of the editorial department of the Book of Jin came up with an idea. They thought of a compromise strategy, set a "record" and turned the monarchs of the five lakes and sixteen countries into puppet regimes. People in the Jin Dynasty had strong ideas about China people and foreigners, but the Tang Dynasty was relatively open. Emperor Taizong believed in the unity of China people and foreigners, and China people and foreigners were the same in my eyes. Taking this opportunity, the editorial department of the Book of Jin not only carried forward the unified thought and highlighted the orthodox position, but also regarded the sixteen countries of Wuhu as a member of the Chinese family. This is a great progress. So in the Book of Jin, we can see Liu Yuan, Schleswig-Holstein, Murong Mu, Fu Jian, Yao Xing, Mu Rongchui and Lv Guang. ...

When the compliment is over, it's time to hit the board when you come down.

Then talk about the shortcomings of the Book of Jin.

The Book of Jin (132) took two and a half years to complete, and it took more than 900 days, with an average of 7 days. It seems that the court regarded this as an image project, which was very hasty.

First of all, the style of the Book of Jin is rather grandiose. Liu Zhiji in the Tang Dynasty said rudely that history is a strong man or a noble scholar, but what Fang gang did was to paint the strong man with rouge powder and put the noble scholar in powder clothes. What was popular in the early Tang Dynasty was a grandiose style of writing. For example, Shangguan Yi, a member of the editorial department of the Book of Jin, also created a poetic style with flamboyant style-Shangguanti. Even Emperor Taizong, who advocated simple and vigorous writing style, sometimes wrote small and fresh poems. This is the general trend, but he can't be perfect and be too harsh on editors. Of course, the style of writing is difficult to tune, depending on your own taste.

Secondly, there is a strong superstitious color. In fact, the history books of all ages are like this. All are dragons, all are visions, all are red lights, but the book of Jin is out of line. The jokes in the joke collection, Yu Lin and Shi Shuo Xin Yu, were stuffed in. Even anecdotes like you and Sue Ji Shen can add up to figures. I really admire you! "Old Tang Book" says that Fang Lingxuan and his gang are too gossipy and like to be too curious; Zhao Yi said that ghost stories and jokes are all in the official history, except the Book of Jin, which is really lost. Sikuquanshu is also speechless, saying that you are a ghost story for a while and an official story for a while. What are you doing?

Third, there are omissions. There was a man named Ma Yi in Jin Dynasty, who was very famous and was not included in biographies. There is a celebrity named Guo Qi who has never been received. Another example is Liu's adherents, He Zhen and so on. Most of these people are celebrities. Perhaps the members of the editorial department thought these people were of no practical value, so they stayed. If it is excusable to make such a choice, then the geographical mistakes in the Book of Jin are somewhat devastating. When it comes to Beijing, Dongcheng District is left out. Speaking of Hebei, I forgot to mention Shijiazhuang; Speaking of Henan, I forgot to say Zhengzhou; Speaking of Heilongjiang, there is no mention of Harbin ... Hong Qi of the Qing Dynasty said that this is not nonsense!

Fourth, there is redundancy and triviality. Some people said it once before, and then said it again. Chao of the Southern Song Dynasty said that if the Book of Jin was the second, no one would be ashamed to say that it was the first. Somebody else's Chao Wu Gong just paid lip service, but Mao Guoyu of the Ming Dynasty took it seriously. With a stroke of his pen, he deleted two-thirds of the original book and made a 40-volume book of Jin, but his old man's house deleted it a bit too much and even asked him to delete 20 volumes.

Finally, there are many inconsistencies in the book. It is said that this person is still alive this year, and it is said that this person has been dead for several years! It says here that this man was an official in Shanxi this year, and there it says that this man was transferred to Beijing a few years ago! It says here that something someone did was recorded in the official record. Look at the catalogue. Hey, there is no official record. We have been engaged for a long time. Oh, the official record is the official record, but if you look in the official record, there is no such person at all! For example, Huan Wen's "How can a man be inferior to a tree" said here that it happened during the second Northern Expedition and there said it happened during the third Northern Expedition. Jin Shu is this wayward, so I'm joking with you.

The reason why there are so many problems is that the Jin books are compiled collectively, not by one person, just like booksellers keep books, make a list, divide them into several copies, sort them out for each writer, and then merge them after writing, ok! The collective compilation of the Book of Jin has advantages. The advantage lies in that you can only appoint according to the quantity, and you can arrange what you are good at. For example, Li, the author of TuiBei Tu, likes what God talks about, so he was asked to write Tian Wen Zhi and Wu Xing Zhi. After all, a person's knowledge structure is limited, so it is naturally helpful to improve the breadth of the Book of Jin. But after the book was completed, no one could read it from beginning to end, and even the editorial department didn't seem to check it carefully, so that even laymen could see some mistakes, leaving a lot of permanent regrets after the book was completed.

Finally, of course, it is a summary.

How to evaluate the Book of Jin? There are many mistakes in this book, but there are also many highlights, and it will never fall to the bottom of the 24 th history. Moreover, the fault in the Book of Jin also exists in many historical books in later generations. It doesn't matter if you just tell jokes in major forums. If you are engaged in professional research, you must consult different materials and confirm each other. Specific to the book of Jin, the famous school-based is of course the best choice.

In the Southern Song Dynasty, Ye Shi said that the Book of Jin won 78% and lost 23%. 28% may be a bit flattering, but Sanqi's evaluation is still very loud.