Běi shǐ 北史
The History of the Northern Dynasties by 李延壽 (Lǐ Yánshòu, fl. 618–676); Qing collation notes by 孫人龍.
About the work
The fifteenth of the Twenty-Four Histories, in 100 juǎn (12 jì, 88 lièzhuàn; no zhì and no biǎo). Covers the Northern Wèi (386–534), Eastern Wèi (534–550), Western Wèi (535–557), Northern Qí (550–577), Northern Zhōu (557–581), and Suí (581–618) — 232 years of northern history — as a single unified narrative. Companion to the Nán shǐ (KR2a0024). Presented to Tang Gāozōng in 659 with subsequent revisions through 676.
Tiyao
By Lǐ Yánshòu of the Táng. Yánshòu in his presentation memorial gives 12 juǎn of běnjì and 88 of lièzhuàn, totalling the Běi shǐ — matching the present count. The Wénxiàn tōngkǎo’s 80 is in error. Yánshòu had been on the Suí shū compilation team, and being himself a northerner with closer first-hand knowledge, his work on the Běi shǐ is unusually deep — the narrative is detailed and dense, the form orderly.
(The tíyào enumerates strengths: recording Yuán Sháo’s profiteering, Péng Lè’s bravery, the integrity of Guō Wǎn and Tàlóngchāo — all in distinct tè bǐ (special pen-strokes); moving Lì Dàoyuán out of Kùlì (cruel officials), attaching Lù Fǎhé to Yìshù (arts) — clearly his own biéqí (separate judgement). Quite different from the Nán shǐ’s more passive following of the originals. Weakness: organising biographies by clan-name, with no firm method of juǎn division; like the Nán shǐ using WángXiè, this work uses CuīLú clan-lines — old families through the generations enumerated together; reading the names alone they look like father-and-son, but checking the dynasty they each have their own ruler: confused beyond easy distinction. Even more, Zhǎngsūn Jiǎn is appended to the Zhǎngsūn Sōng biography; Xuē Dàohéng to Xuē Biàn — distant lineage extended down to descendants. The arrangement of lièzhuàn by Yánshòu first puts the imperial-clan kings of Wèi, then Wèi ministers, then imperial-clan kings of Qí and Qí ministers, down to Zhōu and Suí — so that to set out one dynasty start to finish, the limit is clear; only with one or two great families does he disrupt his own canon. As to Yáng Sù father and son, vital to Suí rise-and-fall — because they were of the Hóngnóng line, attached after the Wèi Yáng Fū biography; and Wèi Shōu and Wèi Chángxián etc., not father-and-son — because of the same surname Wèi, combined into one juǎn. — Particularly problematic. Yánshòu’s xùlì says “where there is generational succession, all called jiāzhuàn”; he cannot have known that the jiāzhuàn form is not appropriate for guó shǐ.)
Examining: although the Nán shǐ and Běi shǐ are formally two books, they are in substance one author’s work; hence Yánshòu in the Péi Yùn biography says “the grandfather Zhīpíng’s father Jì, the Nán shǐ has biography”; in the Wáng Bān biography, “the father Sēngbiàn, the Nán shǐ has biography” — explicit cross-pointing. Yet the Nán shǐ has Jìnxīwáng Chàng biography, and the Běi shǐ has Liú Chàng biography again; the Nán shǐ has Póyángwáng Bǎoyín biography, and the Běi shǐ has Xiāo Bǎoyín again; the Nán shǐ has Yùzhāngwáng Zōng / Lèliángwáng Dàyuán, and the Běi shǐ has Xiāo Zàn (= Xiāo Zōng entered Wèi and changed his name to Zàn) / Xiāo Dàyuán again. Zhū Xiūzhī, Xuē Āndōu and others — the Nán shǐ takes from Sòngshū, the Běi shǐ from Wèishū — without combining or reducing. Probably his concentration on the Běi shǐ left no time to follow up and correct the Nán shǐ, and these errors result.
But from the Sòng on, the Wèishū, Běi Qí shū, Zhōu shū are all damaged; only this work has just one juǎn (Mài Tiězhàng biography) with lacunae and the Xún Jì biography missing several lines — the rest is in good juǎn order, complete in start and end. For verification of Northern affairs, the work is the foundation; so although the eight individual zhèngshǐ are listed, this and the Nán shǐ are also kept in circulation.
Abstract
The Běi shǐ, like its companion Nán shǐ, breaks the duàndài 斷代 limit. Where the Nán shǐ is largely an editorial compression of four already-written southern zhèngshǐ, the Běi shǐ is, by Lǐ Yánshòu’s own statement, the more original work — based on extensive private research in northern materials, including documents preserved at the Tang court that did not make it into the Wèishū, Běi Qí shū, or Zhōu shū. Lǐ Yánshòu had access to: the unpublished historiographical drafts of his father Lǐ Dàshī (who died in 628 with the project unfinished), the Tang court archives, and a wide range of northern biéshǐ and jiāshǐ (clan histories) including the Hòu Wèi shū of Wèi Dàn 魏澹 and Zhāng Tàisù 張太素 (now lost).
The work was begun at Lǐ Yánshòu’s father’s death in 628 and pursued in his spare time during his tenure on the Suí shū committee (629–636) and subsequent posts. The Nán shǐ was completed first (presented in 659); the Běi shǐ was presented in the same year but continued to be revised through 676.
The work has 12 jì (covering the Northern Wèi Wèi běnjì with the Tuòbá ancestral Xùjì on the model of the Wèishū; then Eastern Wèi, Western Wèi, Northern Qí, Northern Zhōu, Suí) and 88 lièzhuàn organised partly by dynasty and partly — as the Sìkù compilers note critically — by jiāzhuàn (clan-line) for major lineages. The work’s distinctive contribution beyond the originals: corrected biographical placement (e.g. Lì Dàoyuán moved out of Kùlì, Lù Fǎhé into Yìshù); preservation of the only surviving substantial fragments of Wèi Dàn’s Hòu Wèi shū — used by the Northern-Sòng compilers to patch the present Wèishū; integration of Western-Wèi materials largely missing from Wèi Shōu’s text; and the Xīyù zhuàn on the Northern dynasties’ contacts with Sasanid Persia, the Hephthalites, and the Western Turks.
The work’s principal historiographical innovation — pursued more systematically here than in the Nán shǐ — is the unified treatment of the Běi cháo as a continuous polity culminating in the Suí. This was the foundation of the later medieval doctrine that the Suí–Tang reunification was the natural and inevitable culmination of northern, not southern, dynastic continuity.
The Wényuāngé text further carries Qing kǎozhèng by Sūn Rénlóng 孫人龍 (catalog meta gives 50 juǎn of kǎozhèng). The standard modern punctuated edition is the Zhōnghuá Shūjú Běi shǐ (10 vols., 1974, ed. Tāng Qiúfǔ 唐求父).
Translations and research
No complete translation. Standard partial translation: David A. Graff, Medieval Chinese Warfare 300–900 (Routledge, 2002), uses Běi shǐ extensively; Scott Pearce, “Northern Wei,” Cambridge History of China vol. 2 (CUP, 2019). Standard Chinese-language scholarship: Wáng Zhòngluò 王仲犖, WèiJìn NánBěicháo shǐ (Shanghai Rénmín, 1979–80); Tián Yúqìng 田餘慶, Tuòbá shǐ tàn (Shēnghuó Dúshū Xīnzhī Sānlián, 2003); Hú Bǎoguó 胡寶國, Hàn-Tang jiān shǐxué de fāzhǎn (Shāngwù, 2003).