Historical records of the Han Dynasty? Difference Between Hanshu and Shiji

The Records of the Historians is the first general history in Chinese history, originally known as the Taishi Gongshu, or the Taishi Gongji, or the Taishi Gongji. The author is Sima Qian in the Western Han Dynasty. Sima Qian, the word is long, his father Sima talked about Ren Taishi Ling, his wish to write a general history of ancient and modern times was not realized, and he wanted Sima Qian to complete his long-cherished wish on his deathbed.

Later, Sima Qian succeeded his father Taishi Ling and began to write the "Historical Records", which was completed after more than ten years. This book records the history of about 3,000 years from the Yellow Emperor to the fourth year of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty (101 BC). There are 130 chapters in the book, including 12 books, 10 tables, 8 books, 30 families, and 70 biographies, with a total of 526515 characters.

The purpose of the compilation of "Historical Records" is "to study the changes of heaven and man, through the changes of the past and the present, and become the words of a family". He also consulted many classics, including historical archives and folk books. And conduct on-site investigations and strictly screen relevant information.

After Sima Qian's death, "Historical Records" did not immediately become popular and was taken seriously. By the time of Emperor Xuan of the Han Dynasty, Sima Qian's grandson had worked hard and began to circulate, but by the time of the Eastern Han Dynasty, it was already mutilated. The Records of the Historian is the first general history of ancient China, which is not only huge in scale and complete in system, but also has a deep influence on the subsequent chronicles in the style of historical records, and the official histories of all dynasties are written in this genre.

At the same time, the vividness of the words in the book and the vividness of the narrative are also the highest achievements. It was called by Mr. Lu Xun as "the swan song of the historian, the rhyme of the separation." Mr. Lu Xun praised the "Records of the Historians" in his book "Outline of the History of Chinese Literature" as "the swan song of historians, and the rhyme of separation".

The author of the "Records of the Historians" is Sima Qian, while the "Book of Han" is written by Ban Gu. There are great differences between the "Records of the Historians" and the "Book of Han" in terms of historical viewpoints, language styles and systems: (1) Sima Qian's "Records of the Historians", although he used Confucius as the "Spring and Autumn Period" to make himself professed, he did not approve of the "Spring and Autumn Period" as "the venerable and the sage", and the sins of the emperors and nobles could be truthfully exposed.

He also did not judge people by success or failure, such as including Chen Shi in the "family" and Xiang Yu in the "Benji", and gave them a very high historical status. The Book of Han is an official letter written under the edict, and its position is to serve the feudal dynasty, so it does not have the strong critical spirit of the Historical Records. (2) In terms of language use, the "Records of the Historians" draws a lot of folk colloquialisms, proverbs and ballads, and has the characteristics of being fluent and approachable.

The author of the Book of Han, Ban Gu, is a famous Fu family in the Eastern Han Dynasty, who relays the arrangement, is still decorated with algae, and mostly uses the syntax of the puppet. The historian Fan Ye's remark that "the text is straightforward and the matter is the core, and the solid text is detailed and detailed" is pointing out the different styles of the "Records of the Historians" and the "Book of Han". (3) The "Records of the Historians" refers to various historical documents, runs through and summarizes the history of thousands of years from the beginning of history to Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, and uses the five styles of "Benji", "Family", "Table", "Book" and "Liebiography" to organize and cooperate to create a general history of the Ji Biography style.

The Book of Han is a history of the dynasties, which only records the history of the Western Han Dynasty, and its style mostly inherits the "Historical Records", but it is only changed to a chronicle, and the family is cancelled and incorporated into the biography. Although the "Book of Han" is not as grand as the "Records of the Historians", because the era is only more than 200 years old, and the "Records of the Historians" is used as a reference, the historical events recorded are more detailed.

I think the main difference is that the genre is different, the Han book is a dynastic style, and the historical book is a chronicle history book, which is the most fundamental difference, that is to say, the difference between them in this aspect is a representative, this is a representative work of the two genres, in addition, the Chinese writing is more difficult to understand, that is to say, the author's writing skills are relatively deep, and the words of the historical records are relatively simple and easy to understand, that is to say, the author's writing is a bit like a literary work.

The fundamental difference between Hanshu and Shiji is that the historical eras recorded in these two historical books are different.

The Book of Han mainly describes the historical events of 229 years from the first year of Han Gaozu (206 BC) to the fourth year of Emperor Mangdi (23 AD) of the New Dynasty. Since its content only covers the Western Han Dynasty, it is also known as the Book of the Former Han Dynasty

The Historical Records records the history of more than 3,000 years from the era of the legendary Yellow Emperor in ancient times to the first four years of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty.

There is a part of the overlap in their content, that is, the early Han Dynasty.