The Twenty-Four Histories are the general term for the Twenty-four Canonical Histories of Ancient China. Namely: "History", "Book of Han", "Book of Later Han", "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", "Book of Jin", "Book of Song", "Book of Southern Qi", "Book of Liang", "Book of Chen", "Book of Wei", "Book of Northern Qi", "Book of Zhou", "Book of Sui", "History of the South", "History of the North", "Old Book of Tang", "New Book of Tang", "History of the Old Five Dynasties", "History of the New Five Dynasties", "History of Song", "History of Liao", "History of Jin", "History of Yuan", "History of Ming".
The name "Zhengshi" first appeared in the Sui Shu Jing Zhi: "There are writings in the world, all of which are quasi-class and horse, thinking that they are zhengshi." The Qianlong Emperor of the Qing Dynasty approved the "Twenty-Four Histories", and the title of "Zhengshi" refers specifically to the "Twenty-Four Histories". According to the provisions of the "Four Libraries of the Whole Book", the canonical history category "those who have not been judged shall not be indiscriminately published." Gai Zheng Shi body respect, righteousness and scripture matching, not hanging
Order code, do not dare to add privately", that is, without the approval of the emperor, it must not be included in the canonical history.
The Twenty-Four Histories total 3249 volumes, with about 40 million words. The time it recounts, from the first "History" to the legendary Yellow Emperor, to the last "History of Ming" to the 17th year of Ming Chongzhen, lasted more than 4,000 years, and was written in a unified Benji and Liechuan jichuan. The content of the Twenty-Four Histories is very rich, recording the deeds of the economy, politics, culture and art, science and technology of the past, and we understand the rich materials of Chinese history.