The ''History of the Southern Dynasties'' () is one of the official Chinese historical works in the ''
Twenty-Four Histories
The ''Twenty-Four Histories'' (), also known as the ''Orthodox Histories'' (), are the Chinese official dynastic histories covering from the earliest dynasty in 3000 BC to the Ming dynasty in the 17th century.
The Han dynasty official Sima Qia ...
'' canon. It contain 80 volumes and covers the period from 420 to 589, the histories of
Liu Song,
Southern Qi
Qi, known in historiography as the Southern Qi ( or ) or Xiao Qi (), was a Chinese imperial dynasty and the second of the four Southern dynasties during the Northern and Southern dynasties era. It followed the Liu Song dynasty and was succe ...
,
Liang dynasty
The Liang dynasty (), alternatively known as the Southern Liang () in historiography, was an imperial dynasty of China and the third of the four Southern dynasties during the Northern and Southern dynasties period. It was preceded by the South ...
, and
Chen dynasty. Like the ''
History of the Northern Dynasties
The ''History of the Northern Dynasties'' () is one of the official Chinese historical works in the ''Twenty-Four Histories'' canon. The text contains 100 volumes and covers the period from 386 to 618, the histories of Northern Wei, Western W ...
'', the book was started by
Li Dashi. Following his death,
Li Yanshou (李延壽), his son, completed the work on the book between 643 and 659. As a historian, Li Yanshou also took part of some of the compilation during the early
Tang dynasty
The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an Zhou dynasty (690–705), interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dyn ...
. Unlike the many other contemporary historical texts, the book was not commissioned by the state.
Content
Volumes 1–3 contain the annals of the Liu Song emperors beginning with Emperor Wu. Volumes 4–5 contain the annals of the Southern Qi emperors, volumes 6–8 contain the annals of the Liang emperors, and volumes 9–10 contain the annals of the Chen emperors. Volumes 11–12 contain the biographies of empresses and consorts. Volumes 13-69 contain biographies of figures from the Liu Song (13–40), Southern Qi (41–50), Liang (51–64), and Chen (65–69) dynasties. Volumes 70 through 80 contain other biographical content, including virtuous officials (70), Confucian scholars (71), literature (72), filial acts (73–74), recluses (75–76), favorites of nobles (77), foreign peoples (78–79), and treacherous officials (70).
Sources
Li Yanshou worked as a historical records assistant (直國史) and also as a compiler of historical records (修國史) in the Tang court. During that time he reorganized and supplemented his father's writings. He drew from other standard histories of the individual dynasties and from miscellaneous histories (雜史). With review by
Linghu Defen, Li Yanshou presented his work to the emperor in 659.
References
Citations
Works cited
*
*
External links
''History of the Southern Dynasties'' 《南史》Chinese text with matching English vocabulary
* Text of the ''History of the Southern Dynasties'', available fro
National Sun Yat-sen University
National Sun Yat-sen University (NSYSU; ) is a public research-intensive university renowned as an official think tank scholars' community, located in Sizihwan, Kaohsiung, Taiwan. NSYSU is listed as one of six national research universiti ...
.
See also
* ''
Twenty-Four Histories
The ''Twenty-Four Histories'' (), also known as the ''Orthodox Histories'' (), are the Chinese official dynastic histories covering from the earliest dynasty in 3000 BC to the Ming dynasty in the 17th century.
The Han dynasty official Sima Qia ...
''
** ''
History of the Northern Dynasties
The ''History of the Northern Dynasties'' () is one of the official Chinese historical works in the ''Twenty-Four Histories'' canon. The text contains 100 volumes and covers the period from 386 to 618, the histories of Northern Wei, Western W ...
''
Twenty-Four Histories
History books about the Northern and Southern dynasties
Tang dynasty literature
7th-century history books
Liu Song dynasty
Southern Qi
Liang dynasty
Chen dynasty
7th-century Chinese books
{{China-hist-book-stub