History of the Northern Dynasties
History of the Northern Dynasties | |||||||||||
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Chinese | 北史 | ||||||||||
Literal meaning | North History | ||||||||||
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The History of the Northern Dynasties (Chinese: 《北史》; pinyin: Běishǐ; lit. 'North History'') is one of the official Chinese historical works in the Twenty-Four Histories canon. The text contains 100 volumes and covers the period from 386 to 618, the histories of Northern Wei, Western Wei, Eastern Wei, Northern Zhou, Northern Qi, and Sui dynasty. Like the History of the Southern Dynasties, the book was started by Li Dashi and compiled from texts of the Book of Wei and Book of Zhou. Following his death, Li Yanshou (李延寿), son of Li Dashi, completed the work on the book between 643 and 659. Unlike most of the rest of the Twenty-Four Histories, this work was not commissioned by the state.[1]
Content
Volumes 1–5 contain the Wei annals including the Eastern Wei and Western Wei emperors. Volumes 6–8 contain the annals of the Northern Qi emperors, volumes 9–10 contain the annals of the Northern Zhou emperors, and volumes 11–12 contain the annals of the Sui emperors. Volumes 13–14 contain the biographies of empresses and consorts. Volumes 15–19 contain biographies of the imperial families of the Wei dynasties and volumes 20–50 contain the other Wei biographies. Volumes 51-79 contain biographies of figures from the Northern Qi (51–56), Northern Zhou (59–70), and Sui (71–79) dynasties. Volumes 80 through 100 contain other biographical content, including families of imperial consorts (80), Confucian scholars (81-82), literature (83), filial acts (84), recluses (75–76), exemplars of the loyal and righteous (85), virtuous officials (86), cruel officials (87), recluses (88), divination (89–90), exemplary women (91), favorites of nobles (92), foreign states and peoples (93–99), and a preface to the biographies (100).[2]
References
Citations
- ^ Wu & Zhen (2018), p. 273.
- ^ Graff (2015), pp. 18–19.
Works cited
- Graff, David (2015). "Bei shi 北史". In Dien, Albert E.; Chennault, Cynthia Louise; Knapp, Keith Nathaniel; Berkowitz, Alan J. (eds.). Early Medieval Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide. Berkeley, CA: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California. pp. 18–23.
- Wu, Huaiqi; Zhen, Chi (2018). An Historical Sketch of Chinese Historiography (e-book). Berlin: Springer.
External links
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4c/Wikisource-logo.svg/38px-Wikisource-logo.svg.png)
- Text of the History of the Northern Dynasties, National Sun Yat-sen University
- History of the Northern Dynasties 《北史》 Chinese text with matching English vocabulary
See also
- v
- t
- e
- Shiji (Sima Qian)
- Book of Han (Ban Gu)
- Book of the Later Han (Fan Ye)
- Records of the Three Kingdoms (Chen Shou)
- Book of Jin (Fang Xuanling et al.)
- Book of Song (Shen Yue)
- Book of Qi (Xiao Zixian)
- Book of Liang (Yao Silian)
- Book of Chen (Yao Silian)
- Book of Wei (Wei Shou)
- Book of Northern Qi (Li Baiyao)
- Book of Zhou (Linghu Defen et al.)
- Book of Sui (Wei Zheng et al.)
- History of the Southern Dynasties (Li Yanshou)
- History of the Northern Dynasties (Li Yanshou)
- Old Book of Tang (Liu Xu et al.)
- New Book of Tang (Ouyang Xiu, Song Qi et al.)
- Old History of the Five Dynasties (Xue Juzheng et al.)
- Historical Records of the Five Dynasties (Ouyang Xiu)
- History of Song (Toqto'a et al.)
- History of Liao (Toqto'a et al.)
- History of Jin (Toqto'a et al.)
- History of Yuan (Song Lian et al.)
- History of Ming (Zhang Tingyu et al.)
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