Old Five Dynasties History Revised and Verified (Complete Twelve Volumes)

Author: Chen Shangjun (compilation and editing)
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2005-12-01
Features: The New Compilation and Verification of the Old Five Dynasties History (12 volumes) is a new compilation of the Old Five Dynasties History, one of the Twenty-Four Histories. The Old Five Dynasties History is the only book among the Twenty-Four Histories. The current standard edition was compiled by Shao Jinhán during the Qianlong era of the Qing Dynasty when the Siku Quanshu was being edited, based on materials from the Yongle Dadian and the Cifu Yuangui, rather than the original text. This compilation was highly praised by Liang Qichao, but it suffered from serious omissions due to negligence in selecting documents and arbitrary alterations to the original text due to political taboos. Before the War of Resistance, the great historian Chen Yuan had proposed the idea of revising this book. In the nearly two decades since, scholars on both sides of the Taiwan Strait have also called for such a revision, but due to the vast and complex nature of the documents involved, the work has never been completed. Professor Chen Shangjun accepted an invitation from Fudan University Press in 1994 and spent eleven years completing it. The entire book contains approximately 3.75 million words, with significant additions and revisions. According to incomplete statistics, 53 chapters and biographies were recompiled, 60 new biographies were added, 9 chapters mistakenly included by Qing scholars were removed, several tens of thousands of missing texts were supplemented, nearly 10,000 changes, corrections, deletions, and emendations were made to the historical text, the original arrangement of the book was appropriately adjusted, and more than 1 million words of from the Five Dynasties Records used for compilation were appended. The academic value of this book lies in three aspects: first, it provides a relatively complete and reliable text of this historical record, representing a new edition after the Twenty-Four Histories were standardized in the Qing Dynasty; second, it comprehensively clarifies the complex historical events of the Five Dynasties period; and third, it provides a large number of historical documents based on the Five Dynasties Records, revealing the basic nature of the documents used and excluded during the compilation, setting a new example for annotated editions of the Twenty-Four Histories.