Three kingdoms
The Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms was written by Chen Shou and is a history of the Cao Wei, Shu Han, and Eastern Wu dynasties of the Three Kingdoms period of China, and is called the "First Four Histories" together with the "History of History", the "Book of Han" and the "Book of later Han".
Like the first three histories, the Romance of the Three Kingdoms is also a private revision of history, which took 10 years, which shows Chen Shou's perseverance and skill.
As we all know, Chen Shou came from the Shu Han Dynasty, and after the three families returned to the Jin Dynasty, Chen Shou became an official in the Jin Dynasty and completed the Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms during the Jin Dynasty.
Chen Shou was born in 233, twelve years after the founding of shu Han, ten years after Liu Bei's death, twelve years after Zhang Fei's death, and thirteen years after Guan Yu's death.
In the Book of Jin, Chen Shou's father was a member of Ma Mo's army, and Ma Mo was reprimanded by Zhuge Liang after he lost the street pavilion, and Chen Shou's father was also tortured.
Skullding is a punishment of shaving off all or part of a person's hair, which in ancient times was a punishment that was not very harmful, but was extremely insulting.
Because in addition to honoring "the parents who suffer from the skin of the body, do not dare to be damaged", they also practiced that "soldiers can be killed and not disgraced". Perhaps because of this, the father of Chen Shou was not of high status, so Chen Shou did not mention his father in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
The Battle of the Street Pavilion took place in 228, that is, Ma Mo also died in 228, and Chen Shou's father was also affected by the loss of the Street Pavilion, after which he returned home, and it took 5 years for Chen Shou to be born.
Chen Shou
Academically, Chen Shou was able to achieve such an achievement because he was eager to learn when he was young, and he was able to teach the same county university scholar Tan Zhou.
When it comes to the Week, the reputation is mixed. He studied the Six Classics intensively, knew quite well astronomy, was actually a Great Confucian of Shudi, and was also an anti-war person, opposing Jiang Wei's Northern Expedition, writing "The Theory of National Hatred", and even during Deng Ai's attack on Chengdu, he urged Liu Chan to surrender, so he "had the merit of the whole country", but he was also suspected of surrendering.
After Chen Shou became an adult, he successively served as the chief bookkeeper of the Shu Han Wei general, Dongguan and Secretary Lang, Scattered Horse, Yellow Gate Waiter, Dongguan Secretary Lang, and Guan Ge Lingshi. The latter two were similar to the positions of historical officials, and because Chen Shou was proficient in the "History of History" and "Book of Han" when he was young, both laid a solid foundation for his future compilation of the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms".
In 263, after the fall of the Shu Han Dynasty and The fall of Chen Shou into Wei, the Wei and Jin dynasty ministers and literary leagues advocated Hua to appreciate his talent, elected him as a filial piety, and conferred the title of Official Zuo ShuLang, and successively served as the Commander of Yangping County, the Zhishu Shu Yushi and other positions.
In 280, the Jin Dynasty destroyed Wu and unified the world. Chen Shou was forty-eight years old at the time and began to write the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which was finally completed after ten years of hardship.
Seven years later, Chen Shou died of illness at the age of 65.
"Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is good at narrative, the writing is concise and simple, and it has been praised by many celebrities after it was written.
For example, Xiahou Zhan, who was at the same time as Chen Shou, was writing the Book of Wei at the time, and after seeing the Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms, he destroyed his original work.
Later generations even more highly respected the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", comparing Chen Shou's "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" with the "History of History" and the "Book of Han".
One thing to be clear is that the Romance of the Three Kingdoms honors Wei as orthodox.
Because Chen Shou was a courtier of the Jin Dynasty in the second half of his life, Jin inherited Wei and won the world, with Wei as the orthodox, this is also Mingzhe's strategy to protect himself.
Therefore, only the Book of Wei has a benji, while the Shushu and Wushu have no benji, only a column biography. For example, for Cao Cao, Cao Pi, and Cao Rui, they wrote the Records of Emperor Wu, Emperor Wen, and Emperor Ming, respectively, liu Bei was the biography of the first lord, and Ji Sun Quan was called the main biography of Wu.
Xiahou Zhan
In addition, the Romance of the Three Kingdoms also has an important feature, that is, the simplicity of the text.
First of all, the whole book does not record the "table" of the lineage of princes and hundreds of officials, nor does it record the "zhi" of economy, geography, officials, ritual music, and legal calendar.
Secondly, Chen Shou took the material and did not make any pretentious comments, which made the Romance of the Three Kingdoms more historical, but it also caused the shortcomings of insufficient historical records of key figures due to over-briefness, especially the Book of Shu.
The Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms is about 360,000 words and consists of 65 volumes, including 30 volumes of the Book of Wei, 15 volumes of the Book of Shu, and 20 volumes of the Book of Wu.
In terms of length, the Book of Wei accounts for about one-half of the whole book, the Book of Wu accounts for about one-third, and the Book of Shu accounts for nearly one-sixth.
Because before Chen Shou wrote the Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms, there were already some historical works about Wei and Wu, such as wang Shen's "Book of Wei" by Guan xiu, "Wei Luo" written by Yu Feng privately, and Wei Zhao's "Book of Wu" by Guan Xiu, and these historical books can all be used as reference materials for Chen Shou.
However, the history of the Shu Han Dynasty is difficult to find, and it is said that because he did not have a special position as a historian or a private history, Chen Shou could only collect it on his own, which took a lot of effort, and even some fragments of fragments were also carefully searched, and only fifteen volumes were obtained.
Therefore, the deeds of many important figures in the Book of Shu are very briefly recorded.
For example, the "Shushu Guan Yu Biography" is only more than 1,200 words, the Shushu Zhang Fei Biography is only more than 800 words, and the Shushu Zhao Yun Biography is only more than 400 words.
Zhao Yun
The theory that the Shu Han Dynasty had no historical officials is a bit incredible, but this statement comes from Chen Shou's "Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms" and "The country does not ignore history, and notes that there is no official." So it's authoritative.
In fact, the Shu Han Dynasty continued the official system of the two Han Dynasties, and there were historical officials, one was the Taishi, and the other was the internal dynasty officials represented by Lantai and Dongguan. For example, chen Shou served as the secretary of the Eastern Temple, Lang, the Lingshi of the Guan Ge, and other internal dynasty historians in the Shu Han Dynasty.
So, what does Chen Shou mean when he says that "the country does not ignore history, and the annotation has no official"?
It should be referred to that the historians of the Shu Han Dynasty were mainly responsible for matters such as celestial phenomena, lacked annotators responsible for recording words and deeds, and did not have official revisions of history books.
The State of Wei had the Book of Wei edited by Wang Shen and the Book of Wu edited by Wei Zhao, both of which were officially revised.
Let's talk about the intersection of time and space between Chen Shou and Zhuge Liang.
Zhuge Liang died in 234, when Chen Shou was only two years old, and he could only admire Zhuge Liang. Therefore, after the fall of the Shu state and Chen Shou entered the Jin Dynasty, he also specially wrote the "Zhuge Liang Collection" and reported it to the imperial court.
Some people say that after the Battle of Jieting, Zhuge Liang was sentenced to death by Chen Shou's father, so Chen Shou deliberately belittled Zhuge Liang in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
And look at Chen Shou's evaluation of Zhuge Liang in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms:
Zhuge Liangzhi is a country, caressing the people, showing etiquette, covenanting official duties, following the system of power, being open-minded, and preaching justice; those who are loyal and beneficial will be rewarded although they hate, those who break the law and slacken off will be punished, those who serve crimes and lose their feelings will be released, those who are skillful in their words will be killed even if they are light; good is not rewarded, and evil is not delicate and not degraded; things are refined, the physical essence, according to the name and responsibility, hypocrisy is not despised; finally within the state, salty and loving, although the criminal government is harsh but has no complaints, with his intentions and peace, he advises mingye. It can be said that it is a good talent for knowledge and governance, and it can be said that Guan and Xiao are a good person. However, after years of moving the crowd, failing to succeed, the cover strain will be slight, not its strength!
Chen Shou praised Zhuge Liang almost throughout the text, and the last sentence pointed out the slight flaws of Bai Yu: However, after years of moving the crowd and failing to succeed, Gai Strain will be slight, not his strength!
The failure to succeed in building the division for many years is probably because of the military's temporary response and military strategy, which is not where his strengths lie!
No one is perfect, is Chen Shou's evaluation of Zhuge Liang not pertinent enough?
Zhuge Liang