The earliest collection of historical documents in China?

The earliest collection of historical documents in China is Shangshu.

Shangshu is listed as one of the important core Confucian classics, and "Shang" means "Shang". Shangshu is an ancient book. It is a compilation of ancient historical documents of China and some works tracing back ancient deeds, and it is the earliest compilation of historical documents in China.

The earliest title of Shangshu was Shu, which was written in the first five centuries. The traditional Shangshu (also known as Jinwen Shangshu) was handed down by Fu Sheng. Legend is left over from the "Three Graves and Five Codes" of ancient culture.

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According to legend, Shangshu was compiled for Confucius. In his later years, Confucius devoted himself to sorting out ancient books and collected all kinds of important documents from ancient Yao and Shun to Qin Mugong in the Spring and Autumn Period. After careful editing and selection, 65,438+000 books were selected, which is the origin of hundreds of history books. According to legend, after Confucius compiled Shangshu, it was used as a teaching material to educate students.

In Confucianism, Shangshu occupies an extremely important position. However, in fact, scholars in the Western Han Dynasty compared twenty-eight articles in Shangshu with twenty-eight lodges, and the theory of one hundred articles in Shangshu was later generations.

After Qin Shihuang unified China, he issued a book burning order, banning people from collecting books. Poems, books and hundreds of works collected by the people should be sent to the government for centralized burning. The burning of books in Qin dynasty brought a devastating blow to the spread of Shangshu, and almost all the manuscripts of Shangshu were burned.

Baidu encyclopedia-Shangshu