Ming Dynasty Chronicles

Author: Cai Dongfan
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-01-01
Features: A popular historical masterpiece that has gained fame both at home and abroad. Renowned historian Cai Dongfan used official history as the backbone and anecdotes as the weft. After ten years of painstaking effort, he vividly portrayed five thousand years of Chinese history in a chapter-by-chapter format, with simple and witty writing, insightful commentary, and a true-to-life depiction of the tumultuous evolution of Chinese civilization. It portrays the emperors like Qin Shi Huang and Han Wudi, Tang Taizong and Song Taizu, the customs and livelihoods during dynastic changes, and the survival wisdom amidst centuries of warfare and court intrigues. Among the ancient histories, many are beautiful and comprehensive, but the history of the Yuan Dynasty is particularly lacking, not due to the historians' negligence, but because of insufficient records. The Yuan Dynasty originated from the northern deserts and lacked early records. After its establishment, some records were created, but they were often in vulgar language and exclusively Mongolian and local dialects, making them difficult for scholars to understand. By the time of Emperor Shizu, the first official chronicles appeared, continuing until Emperor Ningzong, covering thirteen dynasties. However, there were still many omissions before Emperor Shizu's reign. After his reign, the records often focused on praising the virtuous while overlooking the wicked, as historians tended to shield the state from blame, which was not surprising. When the Yuan Dynasty fell and the Ming Dynasty rose, in the second year of Hongwu Emperor's reign, the Ming court obtained the chronicles of the thirteen Yuan dynasties and ordered the compilation of The History of the Yuan Dynasty.