Records of The Three Kingdoms - Origin and Structure

Origin and Structure

Together with the Records of the Grand Historian, Book of Han and Book of the Later Han, Records of the Three Kingdoms is part of the early four historiographies of the Twenty-Four Histories canon. It contains 65 volumes and about 360,000 words which are broken into three books. The Book of Wei contains 30 volumes, the Book of Shu contains 15 volumes while the Book of Wu contains 20 volumes. Each volume is organised in the form of one or more biographies. The amount of space a biography takes up is dictated by the importance of the figure.

The original author was Chen Shou, who was born in present day Nanchong, Sichuan, in the state of Shu. After the fall of Shu in 263, he became the Gentleman of Works, and was assigned to create a history of the Three Kingdoms. After the fall of Wu in 280, his work received the acclaim of senior minister Zhang Hua. Earlier to the period, the states of Wei and Wu both had their own histories and it was with these works as basis that he began his work. But since the state of Shu lacked a history of its own, the data was composed by him according to what he could remember, as well as primary documents, such as the works of Zhuge Liang, which he had collected. The book used the date after the fall of the Han Dynasty in 220 as standard for the state of Wei. The Book of Wei referred the rulers of Wei as emperors, whilst the rulers of Shu were referred to as lords, and rulers of Wu only by their names or with the title 'the Wu ruler'. This is to uphold the legitimacy of the imperial court of the Jin Dynasty (265–420) as inheritor of the Mandate of Heaven from Wei. The use of title 'lord' for the rulers of Shu shows in part his sympathy towards his native land.