History of the Northern Dynasties (Complete in Ten Volumes)

The History of the Northern Dynasties, in one hundred chapters, was compiled by Li Yanshou of the Tang dynasty and is a comprehensive history in the annals-and-biographies form covering the Northern Dynasties through the Sui. It runs from the first year of the Dengguo era of Emperor Daowu of Northern Wei (386) to the second year of the Yining era of Emperor Gong of Sui (618), covering the rise and fall of Northern Wei, Eastern Wei, Western Wei, Northern Qi, Northern Zhou and Sui over some two hundred and thirty years. The work is divided into twelve chapters of annals and eighty-eight chapters of biographies; together with the History of the Southern Dynasties it forms the Histories of the North and South, compiled by Li Yanshou by abridging and reworking eight dynastic histories, including the Book of Wei, Book of Northern Qi, Book of Zhou and Book of Sui. Its format breaks down dynastic boundaries and organizes material by family lineage, often linking figures through family biographies, so it records the genealogies, marriages, official careers and family traditions of the great aristocratic clans in exceptional detail and preserves much historical material not found in the original histories. The Zhonghua Book Company punctuated edition uses the Baibai edition as its base text, collates throughout against the Southern Directorate and Wuying Palace editions, consults the Northern Directorate and Jiguge editions, and checks the Song fragments held by the National Library, along with several related histories, making it the current standard and most convenient scholarly edition. Ten volumes in traditional characters and vertical layout; the first volume contains chapters one to eight, the annals, and subsequent volumes follow with the biographies, the last reaching chapter one hundred.