Sima Qian and the Records of the Grand Historian: The Price One Man Paid to Finish China's First Great History

Sima Qian (c. 145 – c. 86 BC) was a Chinese historian of the early Han dynasty, considered the father of Chinese historiography for the Shiji, or Records of the Grand Historian, a general history of China covering more than two thousand years from the legendary Yellow Emperor to his own time under Emperor Wu. He completed it at a terrible personal cost: sentenced for defending a disgraced general, he accepted castration rather than death so that he could finish the work his father had begun.

A father's unfinished project

Sima Qian was born around 145 BC at Xiayang, near present-day Hancheng in Shaanxi. His father, Sima Tan, was appointed Grand Historian at the Han court, a post that combined record-keeping, astronomy and the calendar. Sima Tan conceived the ambitious plan of writing a complete history of China but had completed only an outline when he died. Before his death he urged his son to carry on, and Sima Qian inherited both his father's post and his mission.

Travels and preparation

As a young man Sima Qian travelled widely across the Han empire, visiting historical sites, collecting stories and seeing the landscapes he would later describe. He later accompanied Emperor Wu on tours of inspection as a palace attendant. As Grand Historian he had access to the imperial archives, and he combined official documents, older chronicles and the oral traditions he had gathered on his journeys.

The Li Ling affair

In 99 BC disaster struck. The general Li Ling, leading a campaign against the Xiongnu nomads in the north, was defeated and captured. Emperor Wu blamed Li Ling, and the officials at court joined in condemning him, but Sima Qian spoke up in his defence. The emperor was furious. Sima Qian was sentenced and given the choice between execution and castration. He chose castration so that he could finish his history. In a culture where a disgraced gentleman was expected to take his own life, this was a deeply humiliating decision. In his famous Letter to Ren An he explained that every person must die, but a death can be weightier than Mount Tai or lighter than a goose feather, and that he could not die before his work was done.

The Shiji

After his release from prison, Sima Qian continued to serve at court as a palace archivist and completed the Shiji. The work is divided into 130 chapters in five parts: basic annals of rulers, chronological tables, treatises on subjects such as music, the calendar and economics, histories of hereditary houses, and, most famously, biographies of individuals. These biographies cover not only emperors and generals but also philosophers, assassins, merchants, jesters and fortune-tellers, written with vivid scenes and dialogue. Stories such as the Hongmen banquet between Xiang Yu and Liu Bang owe their lasting fame largely to his telling.

A model for two thousand years

The Shiji's structure, with history organised around the lives of people, became the model for China's official dynastic histories for the next two thousand years. Its lively style also made it a classic of Chinese prose that students still read today, and many common Chinese idioms come from its stories.

A historian with a point of view

What makes Sima Qian unusual is that he does not hide his own voice. At the end of many chapters he adds a short comment beginning "The Grand Historian says", where he judges the people he has described, admits doubts about his sources, or shares what he saw when he visited the places involved. He wrote with sympathy for those who failed nobly, such as Xiang Yu, and with a sharp eye for the cruelty and vanity of the powerful, including emperors of his own dynasty. Some readers have seen his own suffering behind his feeling for people who were treated unjustly. This mix of careful research and personal judgement is one reason the Shiji still feels alive more than two thousand years later.

Learn with Sima Qian: Chinese idioms

Chinese	Meaning	Example
重于泰山 (zhòng yú Tàishān)	weightier than Mount Tai	His sacrifice was weightier than Mount Tai.
史记 (Shǐjì)	Records of the Grand Historian	我在读《史记》。
历史 (lìshǐ)	history	我喜欢历史。
破釜沉舟 (pò fǔ chén zhōu)	to burn your bridges (from the Shiji)	他破釜沉舟去创业。
鸿门宴 (hóng mén yàn)	a banquet with a hidden trap	那次聚会像鸿门宴。

Try this: Write three English sentences about something you would sacrifice a lot to finish, then learn the idiom 重于泰山.