Sima Qian
Sima Qian was a Chinese historian during the early Han dynasty. He is considered the father of Chinese historiography for the Shiji, a general history of China covering more than two thousand years from the rise of the legendary Yellow Emperor and formation of the first Chinese polity to the reign of Emperor Wu of Han, during which Sima wrote. As the first universal history of the world as it was known to the ancient Chinese, the Shiji served as a model for official histories for subsequent dynasties across the Sinosphere until the 20th century.
Sima Qian's father, Sima Tan, first conceived of the ambitious project of writing a complete history of China, but had completed only some preparatory sketches at the time of his death. After inheriting his father's position as court historian in the imperial court, he was determined to fulfill his father's dying wish of composing and putting together this epic work of history. However, in 99 BC, he would fall victim to the Li Ling affair for speaking out in defense of the general, who was blamed for an unsuccessful campaign against the Xiongnu. Given the choice of being executed or castrated, he chose the latter in order to finish his historical work. Although he is universally remembered for the Records, surviving works indicate that he was also a gifted poet and prose writer, and he was instrumental in the creation of the Taichu calendar, which was officially promulgated in 104 BC.
Sima was acutely aware of the importance of his work to posterity and its relationship to his own personal suffering. In the postface of the Records, he implicitly compared his universal history of China to the classics of his day, the Guoyu by Zuo Qiuming, "Li Sao" by Qu Yuan, and the Art of War by Sun Bin, pointing out that their authors all suffered great personal misfortunes before their lasting monumental works could come to fruition. Sima Qian is also depicted in the Wu Shuang Pu by Jin Guliang.
Early life and education
Sima Qian was born at Xiayang in Zuopingyi. He was probably born around 145 BC, although some sources say he was born about 135 BC. Around 136 BC, his father Sima Tan was appointed to the position of "grand historian" at the imperial court. The grand historian was a relatively low-ranking official whose main duty was to formulate the yearly calendar, identifying which days were ritually auspicious or inauspicious, and present it to the emperor prior to the new year. His other duties included traveling with the emperor for important rituals and recording daily events both at the court and around the country. By his account, by the age of ten Sima was able to "read the old writings" and was considered to be a promising scholar. Sima grew up in a Confucian environment, and Sima always regarded his historical work as an act of Confucian filial piety.In 126 BC, around the age of 20, Sima Qian began an extensive tour around China as it existed in the Han dynasty. He started his journey from the imperial capital, Chang'an, then went south across the Yangtze to Changsha Kingdom, where he visited the Miluo River site where the Warring States–era poet Qu Yuan was traditionally said to have drowned himself. He then went to seek the burial place of the legendary rulers Yu the Great on Mount Xianglu and Shun in the Jiuyi Mountains. He then went north to Huaiyin to see the grave of Han dynasty general Han Xin, then continued north to Qufu, the hometown of Confucius, where he studied ritual and other traditional subjects.
As Han court official
After his travels, Sima was chosen to be a Palace Attendant in the government, whose duties were to inspect different parts of the country with Emperor Wu in 122 BC. Sima married young and had one daughter. In 110 BC, at the age of 35, Sima Qian was sent westward on a military expedition against some "barbarian" tribes. That year, his father fell ill due to the distress of not being invited to attend the Imperial Feng Sacrifice. Suspecting that his time was running out, he summoned his son back home to take over the historical work he had begun. Sima Tan wanted to follow the Spring and Autumn Annals, the first chronicle in the history of Chinese literature.It appears that Sima Tan was only able to put together an outline of the work before he died. The postface of the completed Shiji, there is a short essay on the six philosophical schools that is explicitly attributed to Sima Tan. Otherwise, there are only fragments of the Shiji that are speculated to be authored by Sima Tan or based on his notes. Fueled by his father's inspiration, Sima Qian spent much of the subsequent decade authoring and compiling the Shiji and completed it before 91 BC, probably around 94 BC. Three years after the death of his father, Sima Qian assumed his father's previous position as taishi. In 105 BC, Sima was among the scholars chosen to reform the calendar. As a senior imperial official, Sima was also in the position to offer counsel to the emperor on general affairs of state.
Li Ling affair
In 99 BC, Sima became embroiled in the Li Ling affair, where Li Ling and Li Guangli, two military officers who led a campaign against the Xiongnu in the north, were defeated and taken captive. Emperor Wu attributed the defeat to Li Ling, with all government officials subsequently condemning him for it. Sima was the only person to defend Li Ling, who had never been his friend but whom he respected. Emperor Wu interpreted Sima's defence of Li as an attack on his brother-in-law, Li Guangli, who had also fought against the Xiongnu without much success, and sentenced Sima to death. At that time, execution could be commuted either by money or castration. Since Sima did not have enough money to atone for his "crime", he chose the latter and was then thrown into prison, where he endured three years. He described his pain thus: "When you see the jailer you abjectly touch the ground with your forehead. At the mere sight of his underlings you are seized with terror... Such ignominy can never be wiped away." Sima called his castration "the worst of all punishments".In 96 BC, on his release from prison, Sima chose to live on as a palace eunuch to complete his histories, rather than commit suicide as was expected of a gentleman-scholar who had been disgraced by being castrated. As Sima Qian himself explained in his Letter to Ren An:
Later years and death
Upon his release from prison in 97/96 BC, Sima Qian continued to serve in the Han court as zhongshuling, a court archivist position reserved for eunuchs with considerable status and with higher pay than his previous position of historian.The Letter to Ren An was written by Sima Qian in reply to Ren An in response to the latter's involvement in Crown Prince Liu Ju's rebellion in 91 BC. This is the last record of Sima Qian in contemporary documents. The letter is a reply to a lost letter by Ren An to Sima Qian, perhaps asking Sima Qian to intercede on his behalf as Ren An was facing execution for accusations of being an opportunist and displaying equivocal loyalty to the emperor during the rebellion. In his reply, Sima Qian stated that he is a mutilated man with no influence at court. Some later historians claimed that Sima Qian himself became implicated in the rebellion as a result of his friendship with Ren An and was executed as part of the purge of the crown prince's supporters in court; however, the earliest-attested record of this account dates from the 4th century. Moreover, it has also been pointed out that Sima Qian would have been reluctant to render substantive aid to Ren An, given the severe consequences that he suffered for supporting General Li Ling, as well as Ren An's failure to act on his behalf during the Li Ling affair. Although there are many theories regarding the exact dating as well as the true nature and purpose of the Letter to Ren An, one common interpretation suggests that the letter, in part, tacitly expressed a refusal to play an active role in securing a reduced punishment for Ren An.
The early-20th-century scholar Wang Guowei stated that there are no reliable records establishing when Sima Qian died. He and most modern historians believe that Sima Qian spent his last days as a scholar in reclusion after leaving the Han court, perhaps dying around the same time as Emperor Wu in 87/86 BC.
''Shiji''
Format
The Shiji totals over 500,000 characters in length, organized into 130 chapters. While the style and form of Chinese historiography was not static over time, the Shiji created a permanent standard for quality and style for later scholars. Before Sima, histories focused on recounting particular events or the affairs of a specific region; his idea of a general history guided later historiographers, like Sima Guang and , authors of the Zizhi Tongjian and Tongzhi respectively. While the traditional format by which official histories would be organized was codified later by Ban Gu in the Book of Han, historians consider the Shiji to have informed Ban's work.The jizhuanti format divides a work into several different types of chapters, most prominently 'basic annals' and 'ordered biographies'. Benji contain biographies for each sovereign, ordered chronologically and organized by dynasty; liezhuan contain biographies of influential individuals outside the nobility, sometimes for one prominent individual, but often for two or more people who, in Sima's judgment, played comparably important roles. In addition to these namesake categories, there are chapters falling under the categories of 'tables' collating graphical chronologies of royalty and nobility, and 'treatises' giving historical accounts of topics like music, ritual, or economics. Most importantly, the 'house chronicles' document important events during each ruler's reign for each state within the Zhou dynasty, as well as histories of the noble houses established during the Han.
The Shiji includes 12 basic annals, 10 tables, 8 treatises, 30 house chronicles, and 70 ordered biographies; with the final ordered biography serving as the postface. This final chapter details the background of how the Shiji was composed and compiled, and gives brief justifications for the inclusion of the major topics, events, and individuals in the work. As part of the background, the postface provides a short sketch of the history of the Sima clan, from legendary times to his father Sima Tan. It also details the dying words of Sima Tan, tearfully exhorting the author to compose the present work, and contains a biographical sketch of the author himself. The postface concludes with a self-referential description of the postface as the 70th and last of the Ordered Biographies chapters.