The Book of Wei, also known by its Chinese name as the Wei Shu, is a classic Chinese historical text compiled by Wei Shou from 551 to 554, and is an important text describing the history of the Northern Wei and Eastern Wei from 386 to 550.[1] Widely regarded as the official and authoritative source historical text for that period, it is one of the Twenty-Four Histories.
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Origin and reception
editThe Northern Wei dynasty was established in 386 by the Tuoba clan. The greatest accomplishment of the Northern Wei dynasty was the unification of Northern China in 439. An internal struggle resulted in a split which introduced the Eastern Wei and the Western Wei. The Eastern Wei dynasty was short-lived. Established in 534, several military campaigns were fought to try and reunite east and west but each failed. In 550, the area was taken over by Gao Yang who founded his own dynasty which he names the Northern Qi. It is the history of these two dynasties that Wei Shou attempted to record.[2]
In compiling the work, Wei Shou managed to withstand pressure, with the help of the Northern Qi emperor, from powerful elites who wanted him to glorify their otherwise disputed ancestral origins.[3] Detractors of the work referred to the book as Hui Shu (
Content
editThe content of the Book of Wei follows the format of previous standard histories. The first fifteen chapters are annals (
Annals (帝 紀 )
edit
# | Title | Translation | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
Chapter 1 | (Preface) | ||
Chapter 2 | Emperor Daowu | ||
Chapter 3 | Emperor Mingyuan | ||
Chapter 4 Part 1 | Emperor Taiwu | ||
Chapter 4 Part 2 | Emperor Taiwu, Emperor Jingmu | ||
Chapter 5 | Emperor Wencheng | ||
Chapter 6 | Emperor Xianwen | ||
Chapter 7 Part 1 | Emperor Xiaowen | ||
Chapter 7 Part 2 | Emperor Xiaowen | ||
Chapter 8 | Emperor Xuanwu | ||
Chapter 9 | Emperor Xiaoming | ||
Chapter 10 | Emperor Xiaozhuang | ||
Chapter 11 | Emperor Jiemin (Qianfei), Prince of Anding (Emperor Houfei), Emperor Xiaowu (Chu) | ||
Chapter 12 | Emperor Xiaojing of Eastern Wei |
Chapter 13 through 104 are biographies beginning with Chapter 13: Biographies of Empresses (
Wei Shou also includeds postitve descriptions of the dialog between Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism. For example, in Chapter 69 where the court official Pei Yanjun (裴延隽; d. 528) describes a knowledge of both Buddhism and Confucianism as being beneficial to social administration.[5] The whole of Chapter 114, "Treatise on Buddhism and Daoism" (
The book originally contains 114 chapters, but by the Song Dynasty some chapters were already missing. Later editors reconstructed those chapters by taking material from the History of the Northern Dynasties dated to the 7th century.
Translations
editDien translates parts of volume 59, which describes the dispute between the Northern Wei and Liu Song at Pengcheng.[6] Lee translates part of volume 111 describing the case of Liu Hui (
See also
editReferences
editCitations
edit- ^ The Road to Miran: Travels in the Forbidden Zone of Xinjiang, p. 204. (1994) Christa Paula. HarperCollins, Great Britain. Flamingo edition 1995. ISBN 0-00-638368-8.
- ^ Jamieson, John Charles (1964). The Biography of Wei Shou. University of California, Berkeley.
- ^ An example is Wang Songnian (
王 松年 ). Wang grew outraged at Wei Shou because the Book of Wei fully recorded the fact that his ancestor's claim to have come from the prominent Taiyuan Wang Clan was not believed by many at the time. See Book of Northern Qi, Volume 35 - ^ Wu & Zhen (2018), pp. 228–229.
- ^ Wu & Zhen (2018), pp. 233–234.
- ^ Dien (2014), pp. 57–84.
- ^ Lee (2014), pp. 181–184.
Sources
edit- Dien, Albert E. (2014). "The Disputation at Pengcheng: Accounts from the Wei Shu and Song Shu". In Swartz, Wendy; Company, Robert Ford; Lu, Yang; Choo, Jessey (eds.). Early Medieval China: A Sourcebook (e-book). New York: Columbia University Press. pp. 57–84.
- Lee, Jen-Der (2014). "Crime and Punishment: the Case of Liu Hui in the Wei Shu". In Swartz, Wendy; Company, Robert Ford; Lu, Yang; Choo, Jessey (eds.). Early Medieval China: A Sourcebook (e-book). New York: Columbia University Press. pp. 181–184.
- Wu, Huaiqi; Zhen, Chi (2018). An Historical Sketch of Chinese Historiography (e-book ed.). Berlin: Springer.
External links
edit- Book of Wei 《
魏 書 》 Chinese text with matching English vocabulary