Table Of ContentRECORDS OF THE GRAND HISTORIAN:
HAN DYNASTY II
REVISED EDITION
This edition is published with the aid of the
C.C.K. Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange
NUMBER LXV OF THE RECORDS OF CIVILIZATION:
SOURCES AND STUDIES
RECORDS OF
THE GRAND HISTORIAN:
HAN DYNASTY II
REVISED EDITION
By Sima Qian
Translated by Burton Watson
A Renditions - Columbia University Press Book
Hong Kong New York
© 1961 Columbia University Press
Revised Edition © 1993 Columbia University Press
All Rights Reserved. ISBN 0-231-08166-9
ISBN 0-231-08167-7 (pbk.)
Library of Congress Number 92-210621
Published by
The Research Centre for Translation
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
and
Columbia University Press
This work has been accepted in the Chinese Translations Series of
the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO)
p 10 9 8 7 6 5
CONTENTS
Introduction xi
Translator’s Note xvii
Part I: Heaven, Earth, and Man
Shi ji 28: The Treatise on the Feng and Shan Sacrifices 3
Shi ji 29: The Treatise on the Yellow River and Canals 53
Shi ji 30: The Treatise on the Balanced Standard 61
Part II: Statesmen, Generals, and Foreign Peoples
Shi ji 107: The Biographies of the Marquises of Weiqi 89
and Wuan
Shi ji 108: The Biography of Han Changru 107
Shi ji 109: The Biography of General Li Guang 117
Shi ji 110: The Account of the Xiongnu 129
Shi ji 111 : The Biographies of General Wei Qing and 163
the Swift Cavalry General Huo Qubing
Shi ji 20: The Chronological Table of Marquises Enfeoffed 185
from the Jianyuan Era on: Introduction
Shi ji 112: The Biographies of the Marquis of Pingjin and 187
Zhufu Yan
Shi ji 113; The Account of Southern Yue 207
Shi ji 114: The Account of Eastern Yue 219
Shi ji 115: The Account of Chaoxian 225
Shi ji 123: The Account of Dayuan 231
Shi ji 116: The Account of the Southwestern Barbarians 253
Shi ji 117: The Biography of Sima Xiangru 259
Shi ji 120: The Biographies of Ji An and Zheng Dangshi 307
Vlll Han Dynasty II
Part III: The Plotters of Revolt
Shi ji 118: The Biographies of the Kings of Huainan 321
and Hengshan
Part IV: The Collective Biographies
Shi ji 121 : The Biographies of the Confucian Scholars 355
Shi ji 119: The Biographies of the Reasonable Officials 373
Shi ji 122: The Biographies of the Harsh Officials 379
Shi ji 124: The Biographies of the Wandering Knights 409
Shi ji 125: The Biographies of the Emperors’ Male Favourites 419
Shi ji 127: The Biographies of the Diviners of Lucky Days 425
Shi ji 129: The Biographies of the Money-makers 433
Finding List of Chapters of the Shi ji 455
Index 457
Map
China and Its Neighbours in the Former Han 506
HAN DYNASTY
VOLUME II
INTRODUCTION
The chapters of the Shi ji translated in this volume deal principally with the
reign of Emperor Wu, the period of Sima Qian’s own lifetime. The historian is
here no longer copying and systematizing the written accounts of ancient China,
as he had done in the chapters on pre-Qin history, nor relating the somewhat
romanticized tales of the founding and early days of the Han that had been
handed down to him. He is writing about “the present emperor”, the ruler at
*
whose court he spent his adult life, about the nobles and ministers he knew there,
about his friends, and about his enemies.
Sima Qian was in an excellent position to gather material for a history of
his age. Undoubtedly he heard the speeches of many of the men he describes,
listened to the deliberations of the courtiers, consulted files of official docu
ments kept in the palace, and observed the effects of various government
policies when he accompanied the emperor on tours through the provinces. He
had personally visited some of the barbarian lands that were being brought under
Han rule by Emperor Wu’s foreign conquests, and in other cases he no doubt
heard from the generals themselves the accounts of their wars and hardships.
Even his description of penal conditions under Emperor Wu is based, we may
be sure, upon personal experience, since he himself was imprisoned for a time.
Regarding this last it may be well to review here the facts of Sima Qian’s
melancholy brush with the law. In 108 BC Sima Qian succeeded his father, who
had died two years earlier, in the post of grand historian at the court of Emperor
Wu. During the years immediately following, he was engaged in revising and
correcting the calendar. At the same time he seems to have been busily at work
writing his history of China’s past, a task which his father had begun and had
charged him to complete. In 99 BC, however, his fortunes, like those of so many
of the officials he describes, took an unexpected and disastrous turn.
This year a large force of Chinese cavalry and infantry was sent to attack
the Xiongnu, one of a long series of expeditions launched by Emperor Wu in
an attempt to break the power of these troublesome northern tribes. One of the
commanders, Li Ling, won a brilliant initial success against the enemy, news
of which was received with rejoicing at the court. Later, however, when
Xll Han Dynasty II
reinforcements failed to arrive and his troops had been decimated by a running
battle, he was surrounded by the enemy and persuaded to surrender. Emperor
Wu expected his unsuccessful generals to die with their men, and when word
of Li Ling’s capitulation reached him he was sick with rage. The other courtiers
united in condemning Li Ling’s action, but Sima Qian, who had known Li Ling
personally, attempted to speak on his behalf, pointing out the glory which the
general had won before he was overwhelmed by superior numbers, and suggest
ing that he had surrendered only in hopes of finding some opportunity to escape
and return to China.
But the emperor was in no mood to listen to palliative arguments and
summarily had Sima Qian handed over to the law officials for “investigation”.
Knowing what was expected of them, they found him guilty of attempting “to
deceive the emperor”, a crime punishable by death. With a sufficient amount of
money Sima Qian might have bought commutation of the sentence, but this he
did not possess. No one raised a hand to help him. According to Han custom, a
gentleman of honour was expected to commit suicide before allowing himself
to be dragged off to prison for investigation — which meant torture until the
victim confessed. But Sima Qian declined to take this drastic step because, as
he himself states, he hoped at all cost to finish writing his history. In the end he
was sentenced to undergo castration, the severest penalty next to death and one
which carried with it a peculiar aura of shame. Whether the emperor considered
him too learned and valuable a man to execute, or whether Sima Qian himself
requested to undergo this disgrace in preference to death and the end of his hopes
for literary fame, we do not know.
After his punishment the emperor made him a palace secretary, a position
of great honour and trust that could be filled only by a eunuch, since it involved
waiting upon the emperor when the latter was at leisure in the women’s quarters.
At this time Sima Qian seems to have completed his history. We do not know
when he died, though it was probably around 90 BC, a few years before the
death of his sovereign.1
Obviously a man who had suffered such a punishment would have every
reason to hate the ruler who inflicted it and to despise his fellow courtiers who
had been too timid or callous to come to his aid. For this reason many critics
have eyed the sections of the Shi ji relating to Emperor Wu and his court with *
For a more detailed account of the Li Ling affair and Sima Qian’s life, see Watson,
Ssu-ma Ch’ien: Grand Historian of China (New York, Columbia University Press, 1958).
