Tong Chao

Tong Chao was born in 1938 in Xuzhou, Jiangsu, with ancestral roots in Shaoxing, Zhejiang. He graduated from the Department of History at Peking University and later pursued graduate studies in history at Sichuan University. He long devoted himself to the study of ancient Chinese history, serving as a researcher and deputy director of the Institute of History at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, as president and editor-in-chief of the journal Chinese Historical Studies, and as vice president of the Chinese Society for the History of Wei, Jin, and the Southern and Northern Dynasties. His scholarly work focuses on the history of the feudal land system and the military system in China, and in 1992 he received a special government allowance from the State Council. For general readers, he edited the Visible Chinese History series, which presents China's long history from its earliest beginnings to the Qing dynasty in an illustrated, accessible format. Separate volumes cover the Shang, Western Zhou, Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, Qin, Han, Three Kingdoms and Southern and Northern Dynasties, and other eras, combining solid historical sources with visual materials in plain language and a clear structure that helps ordinary readers grasp the overall course of ancient Chinese history.