Sima Guang Completes the Zizhi Tongjian

Sima Guang (1019–1086), courtesy name Junshi, from Xiaxian, Shanzhou (present-day Xiaxian, Shanxi), was a noted Northern Song historian and statesman. Fond of history from youth, he judged that the histories of the successive dynasties were so voluminous that rulers could hardly read them all, and resolved to write a concise general history to give rulers lessons. After Emperor Shenzong took the throne, he considered that the book “takes lessons from past events and aids the way of governing”, gave it the name Zizhi Tongjian (Comprehensive Mirror to Aid Governance) and wrote its preface himself. Because he opposed Wang Anshi's reforms, Sima Guang lived in retirement at Luoyang for fifteen years, devoting himself to the book. With assistants such as Liu Ban, Liu Shu and Fan Zuyu he divided the work: first collecting material into a “general index”, then arranging it into a “long draft”, and finally he himself edited and finalized the book, scrupulously. In 1084 the Zizhi Tongjian was complete, after nineteen years. In 294 chapters and over three million characters, it records 1,362 years of history from the early Warring States (the partition of Jin among three families in 403 BC) to the end of the Five Dynasties (959), spanning sixteen dynasties, and is China's first great general history in chronicle form. It records events in order of year and month, concentrating on politics, warfare and ethnic relations, drawing on wide sources and careful verification, using over three hundred kinds of historical materials, and adding comments after important events marked “Your servant Guang says”. It deeply influenced later historiography, and later writers composed works on its model, such as the Continuation of the Zizhi Tongjian.