The ''History of the Northern 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. The text contains 100 volumes and covers the period from 386 to 618, the histories of
Northern Wei
Wei (), known in historiography as the Northern Wei (), Tuoba Wei (), Yuan Wei () and Later Wei (), was founded by the Tuoba (Tabgach) clan of the Xianbei. The first of the Northern dynasties, it ruled northern China from 386 to 535 during t ...
,
Western Wei,
Eastern Wei,
Northern Zhou
Zhou (), known in historiography as the Northern Zhou (), was a Xianbei-led dynasty of China that lasted from 557 to 581. One of the Northern dynasties of China's Northern and Southern dynasties period, it succeeded the Western Wei dynasty a ...
,
Northern Qi, and
Sui dynasty
The Sui dynasty (, ) was a short-lived imperial dynasty of China that lasted from 581 to 618. The Sui unified the Northern and Southern dynasties, thus ending the long period of division following the fall of the Western Jin dynasty, and la ...
. Like the ''
History of the Southern Dynasties'', the book was started by
Li Dashi and compiled from texts of the ''
Book of Wei
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 ...
'' and ''
Book of Zhou''. Following his death,
Li Yanshou (李延寿), son of Li Dashi, completed the work on the book between 643 and 659. Unlike most of the rest of the Twenty-Four Histories, this work was not commissioned by the state.
Content
Volumes 1–5 contain the Wei annals including the Eastern Wei and Western Wei emperors. Volumes 6–8 contain the annals of the Northern Qi emperors, volumes 9–10 contain the annals of the Northern Zhou emperors, and volumes 11–12 contain the annals of the Sui emperors. Volumes 13–14 contain the biographies of empresses and consorts. Volumes 15–19 contain biographies of the imperial families of the Wei dynasties and volumes 20–50 contain the other Wei biographies. Volumes 51-79 contain biographies of figures from the Northern Qi (51–56), Northern Zhou (59–70), and Sui (71–79) dynasties. Volumes 80 through 100 contain other biographical content, including families of imperial consorts (80), Confucian scholars (81-82), literature (83), filial acts (84), recluses (75–76), exemplars of the loyal and righteous (85), virtuous officials (86), cruel officials (87), recluses (88), divination (89–90), exemplary women (91), favorites of nobles (92), foreign states and peoples (93–99), and a preface to the biographies (100).
References
Citations
Works cited
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External links
Text of the ''History of the Northern Dynasties'' 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 ...
''History of the Northern Dynasties'' 《北史》Chinese text with matching English vocabulary
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 Southern Dynasties''
Twenty-Four Histories
7th-century history books
Sixteen Kingdoms
Northern Wei
Northern Zhou
Northern Qi
Sui dynasty
History books about the Northern and Southern dynasties
History books about the Sui dynasty
Tang dynasty literature
7th-century Chinese books
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