The 101st anniversary of Bai Yang's birth was published 20 years after the completion of the "Bai Yang Edition of the Chronicle of the Chronicle"

Recently, Zhang Xianghua, the widow of the famous writer Bai Yang, made it clear that the book "Ugly Chinese" will never be released again.

News Review〉〉"Ugly Chinese" will stop publishing forever? Exclusive interview with Zhang Xianghua, The Wife of Bai Yang: This is Bai Yang's last wish

Bai Yang's life's works are equal, and Zhang Xianghua has authorized Bai Yang's iconic works in history, "Bai Yang Vernacular Edition Zizhi Tongjian", "Bai Yang Edition Tongjian Chronicle", and "Bai Yang Yue" to be published by Oriental Publishing House.

"The End of the Chronicle of the General Chronicle of the Baiyang Edition"

"Bai Yang Edition Tongjian Chronicle End" has been 20 years since the completion of the manuscript, a few days ago, the Oriental Publishing House solemnly launched the "Bai Yang Edition Of the Chronicle of the End of the Chronicle" (all ten volumes) hardcover collection edition to commemorate the 101st anniversary of Mr. Bai Yang's birth.

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It follows the title of the Yuan Shu edition of the Song Dynasty

The perfect choice for getting started with zizhi tongjian

"Since 2005, I have been the editor of Mr. Bai Yang's books, and I have great respect for Mr. Bai Yang, and this time I can get the copyright of Mr. Bai Yang's historical works, which is a dream of my 16 years." Mr. Bai Yang's historical works amount to tens of millions of words, and the book "Bai Yang Edition of the Chronicle of the Chronicle" alone reaches nearly 9 million words, in order to make this set of books, our team has worked diligently for two years, often without rest on holidays. In the process of forming this book, the original design layout and cover were all torn down twice. This is done, first, to pay homage to the classics, and second, to give Mr. Bai Yang's loyal readers a surprise: a set of the most beautiful version. Wang Lili, the editor-in-charge of the "Baiyang Edition of the Chronicle of the Chronicle" and the editor-in-chief of Dongyin Publishing House, told reporters.

The Zizhi Tongjian is one of the two most valuable history books in China, and is a historical masterpiece that embodies the laws of political operation in ancient China. Reading the Zizhi Tongjian is like reading a newspaper issued at that time, and you can see the astronomical ups and downs of history at every moment, the joys and sorrows of the world, the bloody battles on the battlefield, and the political conspiracies and struggles. Sima Guang's job was to sort out these "newspapers" and bind them into volumes, which became the "bound editions" we see today, the Zizhi Tongjian.

However, it is impossible for a newspaper to publish a single message, and if there is a continuity of news, it is impossible for a newspaper to report only on this one news every day. Therefore, if readers want to obtain a complete report of a certain event from the "Zizhi Tongjian", they often have a lot of confusion. This limitation was immediately revealed after the publication of the Zizhi Tongjian. It was not until a hundred years later, in the twelfth century, that Yuan Shu first created the "Chronicle of the End of the Chronicle" and solved this problem: he singled out all the related events in the Zizhi Tongjian, recombined and pasted them in chronological order, and the work sounded easy, but it took him at least two years to complete the preliminary completion and named it "The End of the Chronicle of the General Chronicle". In modern language, it is also "zizhi tongjian historical story".

The Tongjian Chronicle is not a substitute for the Zizhi Tongjian, just as a newspaper scrapbook cannot replace a newspaper bound edition. However, after the publication of Yuan Shu's edition of the Tongjian Chronicle, it was no less popular than the Zizhi Tongjian itself. The Zizhi Tongjian is like a vast sea, with tens of millions and tens of millions of fish; the Chronicle is like a series of ponds, and although there are also tens of millions of fish in each pond, they are all fish of the same nature and the same species. This kind of event-centered, event-centered, selected related historical events, and combined into a chronological order of historical style can provide readers with a lot of convenience, so that readers can clearly understand the ins and outs of the overall event (no matter how many years it lasts) in a relaxed way. Because of this, after bai yang translated the Zizhi Tongjian for ten years, he also adopted the end of the chronicle and re-edited the "Baiyang Vernacular Version of the Zizhi Tongjian", and he used the name of Yuan Shu's work "The End of the Chronicle" as the title of the book to commemorate it.

It is worth noting that although the Baiyang Edition of the Chronicle of Tongjian takes the name of Yuan Shu's work, it does not translate Yuan Shu's original work: what Yuan Shu's edition of the Chronicle of the End of the Chronicle does is a simple reorganization and cut-out of the original text of the Zizhi Tongjian, with only a small number of innocuous deletions. The passage of the "Baiyang Edition of the Chronicle of tongjian" is taken from Bai Yang's own translation of the "Zizhi Tongjian", and in the chapters, it has its own new division of the Baiyang version.

For the first time, the Hardcover Collector's Edition was launched

Condensed Bai Yang's painstaking efforts on the "Zizhi Tongjian"

According to the editor-in-charge, the "Zizhi Tongjian" compiled by Sima Guang adopts a chronology, takes time as the main axis, and records history according to the year, month and day, which can clearly reflect the background of the era in which each historical event occurred and developed, and brings a clear concept of time to the reader. However, limitations also come with it, because major events in history often span a large time span, and the content of the chronicle is fragmented, and it is difficult to grasp the complete picture of intricate historical events. Therefore, in the "Bai Yang Edition of the Chronicle of the Chronicle of the General Jian", Bai Yang adopted the end of the Chronicle, centered on the event, and recounted the history covered by the Zizhi Tongjian in the form of a continuous story and in the vernacular.

In the "Bai Yang Edition of the Chronicle of the General Chronicle", there are several features that are undoubtedly worthy of attention:

The first is time. In ancient China, the era name was mainly used, and the dry branch was used. Contemporary readers often do not know the specific time referred to when reading, and need to be repeatedly calculated, so Bai Yang does not shy away from time in the text, changing the imperial year number to the Common Era year, which is clear at a glance; for the dry branch date, it is all calculated and converted into a digital date, meticulously. The second is official positions. The names of official positions in Chinese dynasties often have allusions and are strange and grotesque to read, so all the ancient official titles that Appear in Bai Yang's book are compared with modern titles that are familiar to contemporary people, so that readers can clearly understand the power position of ancient officials. The third is place names. There is no map in the history books, and the reader looks at historical figures and historical events as if they are hanging in mid-air, and there are actors and no stages, and they look ethereal. To this end, Bai Yang has equipped almost every important event in the book with a personal map, marking the main routes, important areas and the overall situation of major nodes such as conquest, migration, siege, and escape at that time, so that the reader can more easily understand the whole event.

In addition, the "Baiyang Edition of the Chronicle of the Chronicle" not only translates the ancient text into modern vernacular, but also recreates it on the basis of loyalty to the original. In addition to objectively recording history, Bai Yang often injects historical views and comments into the notes, making unique observations and comments on historical facts from a broader perspective, expressing his understanding and feelings as a modern person. "The long river of Chinese history is very magnificent and tortuous and mighty, and in the process of rewriting, I must carefully 'pass' the recorded historical events, not only read and translate, but also seriously think, use modern democratic ideas to analyze the causes and consequences of historical events, inject my personal views, let readers read this book, understand history, understand what is feudal despotism, and see the mentality and power of the ruling class from it." Mr. Sima Guang wrote this book for the emperor's ministers to read, and I rewrote this vernacular version for today's officials and ordinary people, so that they can see what is the righteousness of the Chinese nation, what is the suppression of feudal despotism, and the deceit and hypocrisy of the treacherous and evil people, and let readers draw historical lessons and benefits from life. ”

In 1983, Bai Yang, who began to translate the Zizhi Tongjian, was sixty-four years old and already had white hair; by the time the "Baiyang Vernacular Version of Zizhi Tongjian" had become a 10,000-word foreign grand view, Bai Yang was already seventy-three years old, with white hair. By the end of the "Baiyang Edition of the Chronicle of the General Review", it was the beginning of the 21st century. As the last work in Bai Yang's "Zizhi Tongjian" series of works, "Bai Yang's Edition of Tongjian Chronicle" condenses all of Bai Yang's previous efforts to "Zizhi Tongjian". The "Baiyang Edition of the Chronicle of tongjian" has also become the most convenient and preferred reading book for contemporary readers to read and study the Zizhi Tongjian.

Known as the greatest essayist after Lu Xun

Ten years of history is wide

Born in 1920 in Kaifeng, Henan Province, Bai Yang was originally named Guo Dingsheng. As a famous contemporary Writer in China, his works include more than 170 works, including novels, essays, poems, reportage, and historical works, in addition to the collection of essays "The Ugly Chinese" and the historical work "Bai Yang Vernacular Edition zizhi Tongjian", which are well known to readers. The style of his works is most praised for his extensive knowledge, sharp writing and profound content. In the second half of the 20th century, Bai Yang made earth-shattering waves among Chinese people at home and abroad with his works, and was even considered to be the greatest essayist after Lu Xun.

Bai Yang once laughed and said that he was "an old man who has gone through vicissitudes." Like the intellectuals of his contemporaries, Bai Yang experienced national difficulties and successive civil wars; he also faced a dilemma, and finally left his hometown and hung alone; and later because of a pair of bones, he collided with the situation and broke his head and bleeded, and even fell into prison. But the reason why Bai Yang became Bai Yang is because of his turbulent and displaced fate, which has never taken away his conscience of telling the truth. Bai Yang has long completed the transcendence of the identity of writers and historians, not only as a witness to history, but also as an actor in cultural and social reform. The vicissitudes of this "old man" are worth recording because this history deserves to be remembered, and this brave and fearless soul is also worthy of consolation and tribute.

From today's point of view, Bai Yang's ten-year translation of "Zizhi Tongjian", his dialogue with history, dialogue with Sima Guang, and dialogue with many Confucian elites, is undoubtedly another important achievement, following Hu Sansheng's "Zizhi Tongjian Yin Notes", Yan Yan's "Zizhi Tongjian Supplement", Wang Fuzhi's "Reading Tongjian Theory", etc., "Tongjian Learning" has added more achievements in the twentieth century.

On April 29, 2008, Bai Yang died of respiratory failure at the age of 89. According to Mr. Li's last wishes, the family scattered his ashes in the waters near Green Island. Two years later, escorted by his wife and children, part of Bai Yang's ashes were buried in the cemetery of Xinzheng Fushouyuan in his hometown of Xinzheng, Henan.

Red Star News reporter | Chen Mou

Edited | Duan Xueying

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