One of Zhang Taiyan's Historiography Thoughts: How to Treat China's Ancient Historiography

From Sima Qian and Xun Yue to Wang Mingsheng and Qian Daxin, he commented on many influential historians. In the comments, what they did and didn't do was very simple and true, which contained dialectical understanding of the gains and losses of ancient historians. What is particularly rare is that Zhang Taiyan made a methodological evaluation of his predecessors, and thought that General Canon and General Examination of Literature were close to analytical method, while Zi Zhi Tong Jian and Song Lun were close to deductive method. He also affirmed Du You's "simplicity" and Wang Fuzhi's "elegance", and criticized Ma Duanlin's "light argument" and Wang Fuzhi's "carelessness". He thinks that the historical textual research of Ganjia period is "I don't know its source, attack its end", and so on. Generally speaking, Zhang Taiyan's analysis of traditional historiography is carried out on the premise of basic affirmation, neither affirming nor denying. Judging from the above comments, except for the evaluation of Wang and Qian, the theory is basically the same. Between the lines, there are also many "modern" consciousness and contexts, rather than discussing the ancient with the ancient. Because of this, we can have more reasons and sufficient basis to believe that Zhang Taiyan's historical thought has indeed played a role in connecting the past with the future in the process of China's historiography from tradition to modern times.