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The Underrated Literary and Historical Master: Zuo Qiu Ming

The Records of the Grand Historian (史记), which Lu Xun called "The Records of the Grand Historian" (史记), is a "masterpiece of the historians, and an unhypnotic departure" (无韵的离骚). For more than 2,000 years, Sima has been the first to be recognized in literature and history. However, more than 200 years before Sima Qian, a great work of literary and historical value no less than the "Records of the Grand Historian", a chronicle spanning more than 240 years and with more than 180,000 words, "Zuo's Spring and Autumn Annals" (also known as "Spring and Autumn Annals of Zuo's Biography", or Zuo Chuan for short), was quietly released, and its author is Zuo Qiuming, a great master of literature and history and the founder of the traditional Chinese historiography.

Zuo Qiu Ming was a native of the state of Lu, probably contemporary with Confucius (or a little later than Confucius), and was a historian of the state of Lu. Legend has it that Confucius held Zuo Qiu Ming in high esteem. Gongye Chang", Zi said: "Coquettish words and colors, enough to respect, Zuo Qiu Ming shame, Qiu also shame. The anonymous grudges and friends of his people, Zuo Qiu Ming shame, Qiu also shame." This means that Zuo Qiu Ming lived at about the same time as Confucius. The Historical Records of China calls Zuo Qiu Ming a "gentleman of Lu", and his hometown, Feicheng, is also known as the "capital of the gentleman".

The author says that Zuo Qiu Ming is an "underestimated scholar of literature and history" for two reasons:

The first reason is that Zuo Zhuan is the first real history book in China.

Before Zuo Zhuan, there were two history books in circulation. The first was the Shangshu, the most ancient book in China, which recorded the historical facts of the legendary "Five Emperors and Three Generations". However, the content of "Shangshu" is fragmented and unsystematic, and can only be regarded as a "collection" of the words and important documents of the emperors and ministers of the Yu, Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties, similar to the nature of the archives, which can not be regarded as the complete meaning of the history of the book. The second is the "Spring and Autumn Annals", the first Chinese chronicle of the history of the state of Lu, which is said to have been revised by Confucius according to the historical materials of the state of Lu. "Spring and Autumn Annals" was originally Lu's history of the countries collectively, the author is the country's historians (too history), and many of the vassal state historians or family hereditary system (according to the "Mengzi, Li Lou," contained in the words of Meng Zi: Jin people called the history of the book for the "multiplication of", the people of Chu called the history of the book for the "blockhead"). According to Mencius, the Jin people called the book of history "multiply", the Chu people called it "blockhead", and the Lu people called it "spring and autumn". According to legend, Confucius revised and integrated the Spring and Autumn Annals based on the "Spring and Autumn Annals" of the State of Lu prepared by Lu's envoys and mixed with his personal views, praise and criticism of historical events (later called "Spring and Autumn brushwork"), which made the history of the State of Lu into a separate family. This is how the "Spring and Autumn" era came to be known. However, because the Spring and Autumn Annals was compiled by Confucius, it showed too much of Confucius's own ideological tendencies, and its style of "writing with a pen, cutting with a brush, and not being able to be praised by the people of Yuxia," had already deviated from the historian's "writing with a straight brush" style. Therefore, later generations often listed the Spring and Autumn Annals as a book of scripture rather than a book of history.

Zuo Zhuan, one of the three biographies of the Spring and Autumn Annals, has long been regarded as a monograph used to play and elaborate on Confucius' Spring and Autumn Annals (Jing). However, it is not difficult to find that, unlike the Gongyang Chuan and Gu Liang Chuan, the content of the Zuo Zhuan has clearly exceeded the scope of the Spring and Autumn Annals. The content of the book includes the historical facts of the Zhou royal family and Jin, Chu, Qi, Lu and Wei, and it also contains some historical facts of other small countries such as Song, Wei, Zheng, Wu and Yue at that time. It can be seen that the author possesses quite rich historical materials, and the important figures and events of various countries during the 240 years are almost all included. The length of Zuo Zhuan is more than 180,000 words, while the Spring and Autumn Annals only contains more than 18,000 words. From the perspective of writing techniques, Zuo Zhuan is purely based on straight writing and narrative, recording historical facts objectively and clearly, with praise and blame in the narrative, which is obviously different from Spring and Autumn and the other "two biographies". Therefore, the "Zuo Zhuan" interpretation of the "Spring and Autumn Annals" is not credible, "Zuo Zhuan" should be Lu "Spring and Autumn Annals", hole "Spring and Autumn Annals" outside, a self-contained system of a history book.

From the ideological point of view, "Zuo Zhuan" has a certain people-oriented thinking, its value orientation is basically Confucian. It attaches importance to the values of "benevolence", "faith" and "propriety", and provides a more reasonable explanation of the reasons for the success or failure of many historical events. The book sharply criticizes the ruling class for their extravagant, extravagant and brutal behaviors, while some politicians, scholars, and even lower-class civilians who have made a difference are not sparingly portrayed in chapter and verse in a meticulous manner. Throughout the ancient and modern historical books, I am afraid that only the Historical Records can be comparable to it. Its position in China's historiography can be said to be irreplaceable.

The second reason is that Zuo Qiu Ming was the first literary scholar in the true sense of the word in China. Literary works before Zuo Zhuan can be divided into two categories: first, the "poems" that reflect the reality of life (there are about 3,000 poems, later compiled into the "Book of Poetry", with 3,005 poems in existence), whose literary value is very high, but the authors are mostly unknown; second, the texts that record the history of various countries, such as the "Book of the Shang" and the history of various countries, which have a high value of historical materials, but a lower literary value. The second is the text that records the historical facts of various countries, such as "Shangshu" and the history books of various countries, which have high historical value but low literary value. Zuo Zhuan, on the other hand, is a work of history as well as an excellent literary masterpiece. Its literary attainments can be said to have reached the highest level of historical prose.

Zuo Zhuan is objective and accurate in its narration, with a clear vein, focusing on important historical events, often seizing the important links of events or typical historical facts to develop a description, so as to achieve a concentrated material, a complete structure, and a clear narration. Zuo Zhuan is particularly good at portraying numerous historical figures and analyzing the numerous social conflicts. Especially in describing wars, it is able to accurately explain the causes, passages and results of wars, especially in the description of large-scale war scenes, which is particularly evocative. Zuo Zhuan does not simply write about military actions and gruesome killings, but often focuses on combining political, economic, military, diplomatic and other factors of the war, so it is often able to make a more pertinent judgment on the causes, processes and results of the war. For example, the record of the "Battle of Bi" between Jin and Chu, the original text is about 3500 words, but it describes the words and deeds of 39 generals of the armies of Jin and Chu (Jin 21, Chu 18). The author used a lot of space to describe in detail the words and performance of the two armies of Jin and Chu in the three stages of pre-battle, battle and post-battle, revealing that the generals of the Jin army were not in harmony, had different opinions, were out of control in command, and fought their own battles, etc. This contrasted sharply with the early stage of the battle when the Chu army, though having different opinions, was able to share the same enemy, and revealed the root cause of the Jin army's failure in the battle. The whole battle is vividly depicted, the narrative is well organized, the plot is brilliant, and the writing is flexible. The indecisiveness of Xun Linfu, the commander of the Jin army, the victory of the vice-commander Xian Gao, the resourcefulness of Shi Hui, the youthfulness and ignorance of the Zhao brothers, the disregard for the overall situation of Wei Qi and Zhao Chans, the decisiveness of Sun Shou Ao, and the sophistication of the King of Chu are all vividly depicted in the story. The narrative technique is pure, rich in storytelling, plot and drama. In such a short period of time, the large-scale war scenes depicted so vividly, the author thought that although the "Records of the Grand Historian" is not as good.

It is precisely because of the unique literary and historical value of Zuo Zhuan that later generations of literary and historical writers have drawn nourishment from it. We read the "Records of the Grand Historian", "Book of Han", "Zizhi Tongjian", often found in the shadow of "Zuo Zhuan". The author thinks that only Zuo Zhuan and Shiji are the only ones who can "become a family of words" in our country's vast historical books that really belong to the independent revision of history. And from the perspective of language and literature to consider, it seems that "Zuo Zhuan" is also higher than "Shi Ji" a chip.