Chapter 9 3. Writings during the Han and Three Kingdoms periods

The Han Dynasty was a period of further development of my country's unified multi-ethnic country and further consolidation of feudal centralization.Due to the basic stability of the society and the development of social productive forces, the national strength is strong, which is reflected in the cultural and academic prosperity. Beginning with Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, "abandoning all schools of thought and respecting Confucianism alone", Confucianism has dominated the field of thought.The Confucian School at that time was divided into the Modern Literature School and the Ancient Literature School. Representative figures and representative works include:

The Modern Literature School represented by Dong Zhongshu.His representative work is "Spring and Autumn Fanlu".The book advocates the Spring and Autumn Gongyang Studies, expounds the thought of "unification of the Spring and Autumn Period", and mixes the theory of Yin-Yang and Five Elements, clings to nature and human affairs, and establishes a mystic ideological system of "relationship between heaven and man", which includes the thoughts that were later ruled by feudalism in the past dynasties. The "Three Cardinal Guidelines" and "Five Constant Principles" advocated by scholars.It has a profound impact on the formation and development of my country's feudal system and its ethics.Another important work is "Baihu Tongyi" compiled by Ban Gu and others in the Eastern Han Dynasty, which synthesized all modern literature at that time and is a political summary of modern literature.

The School of Classical Classics focused on the interpretation of Confucian classics in the pre-Qin period. "Erya" and "Shuowen Jiezi" are two important works of the ancient Chinese classics school in the Han Dynasty. "Erya" is actually the earliest monograph explaining the meaning of words in my country, which was edited and supplemented by scholars in the early Han Dynasty based on relevant materials.The first three chapters "Shi Gu", "Shi Yan" and "Shi Xun" use synonyms to explain the general words; "Shi Qin", "Shi Gong" and "Shi Qi" are about explanations of various names and objects. This is an important book for textual research on word meanings and ancient names and objects, and it is one of the "Thirteen Classics"."Shuowen Jiezi" written by Xu Shen, a master of Confucian classics in the Eastern Han Dynasty, has 9,353 characters and 1,163 heavy texts. According to the shape and radical structure of the characters, it is divided into 540 volumes , the first radical arrangement method.Xiaozhuan script is the main font, and there are variants such as Guwen and Zhenwen, which are listed as heavy texts.The explanation of each word starts with the meaning of the word, and then the physical structure and pronunciation, based on the six books, namely, pictographic, referring to things, knowing, pictophonic, Zhuanzhu, and borrowing, to explain the text.It is the first calligraphy book in my country that systematically analyzes the shape of characters and pays attention to the origin of characters, and it is also one of the earliest calligraphy books in the world.

Historiography had great development and important creations during the Han Dynasty.Sima Qian's "Historical Records" is an immortal masterpiece in Chinese history.Sima Qian (about 135 BC~?) was an outstanding historian and writer in the history of our country.During the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, he inherited his father's position as Taishiling. Starting from 104 BC, he spent 14 years, went through untold hardships and endured corruption, and finally completed the epoch-making masterpiece - "Historical Records". "Historical Records" is the first general history of our country. It describes the history of more than 3,000 years from ancient times to the time of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty. "Historical Records" has a total of 130 chapters. It mainly focuses on the biographies of characters, and records the monarch's major political affairs and major events chronologically as "Benji"; other biographies of characters are "family" and "biography"; "Table" respectively records the laws and regulations and the political, economic, cultural, artistic and other aspects, creating the biographical genre of Chinese history books.

The "Hanshu" (also known as "Former Hanshu") written by Ban Gu (32-92) in the Eastern Han Dynasty is the first biography-style dating history work in China.It narrates the history of 230 years from the first year of Han Emperor Gaozu (206 BC) to the fourth year of Emperor Wang Mangdi (23). Its style is developed and improved on the basis of "Historical Records", including twelve books , Eight Tables, Ten Chronicles, and Seventy Biographies, among which the "Ten Chronicles" were created, namely "Law Li Zhi", "Li Le Zhi", "Criminal Law Zhi", "Food and Huo Zhi", "Jiao Si Zhi", "Astronomical History" "Records of Five Elements", "Records of Geography", "Records of Gouwei" and "Records of Art and Literature" are important documents for the study of ancient Chinese laws and regulations.In particular, the creation of "Yiwenzhi", which was based on "Qilue", deleted the explanations of each book, moved the major and minor prefaces included in the "Compilation" to the big and small categories, and added the "Qilue" "The works of the next thirty years. "Yiwenzhi" created a precedent for the official history of Yiwenzhi, and recorded the prosperity of book collection for a generation. Later, all history books included "Jingjizhi" and "Yiwenzhi", so that people can know the richness of Chinese cultural classics, and can guide people how to read these ancient books classified into categories .

In the Eastern Han Dynasty, there was also a collective history book "East View of Han Ji", compiled by dozens of people after more than 100 years, with a total of 143 volumes. "East View of Han Ji" started from the Eastern Han Ming Emperor Ban Gu, Chen Zong, Yin Min, Meng Yi, etc., and was edited by An Emperor Liu Zhen, Li You, Fu Wuji, Huang Jing, etc., Huan Emperor Yuanjia (151～152) Shi Fu ordered Bian Shao, Cui Shi, etc., and Lingdi Xiping (172-177) ordered Ma Ridun, Cai Yong, Yang Biao, etc. to participate in the compilation and completion. "Dong Guan Han Ji" now only has 24 volumes in the series.

In addition, in the Eastern Han Dynasty, there were "Wuyue Chunqiu" written by Zhao Ye and "Yuejueshu" written by Yuan Kang, which were dedicated to local allusions, creating a precedent for local chronicles, and had a great influence on later local chronicles and their development. In terms of philosophy, Wang Chong's (approximately 27-97) "Lunheng" is a philosophical work fighting against theological superstition in the Han Dynasty. It has 85 chapters and more than 200,000 words.The book first denies the mystery of heaven, and believes that everything in the world exists naturally and is not created by heaven.Wang Chong opposes the idealism of "being born with knowledge", and believes that there is no such thing as a saint who "knows a thousand years before and knows the future".Wang Chong not only criticized some views of Han Feizi in "Lunheng", but also dared to criticize "sages" like Confucius and Mencius, pointing out that many of their words and deeds were contradictory and absurd.His thoughts and views shine with the brilliance of materialism everywhere.

The development of ancient Chinese literature reached a very high level in the Han Dynasty, especially in the Three Kingdoms period at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty. "Book of the Later Han Dynasty" specially set up "Wenyuan Biography", which shows that literature has been separated from Confucianism in general and has become a professional profession of literati. The literary forms of the Han Dynasty include prose, Fu, Yuefu poems and ancient five-character poems, which have a great influence on the literary works of later generations.Jia Yi and Chao Cuo's political theories in the early Han Dynasty, Sima Qian's "Historical Records" in the middle of the Western Han Dynasty, and Ban Gu's "Hanshu" in the early Eastern Han Dynasty can all be called outstanding prose works of the Han Dynasty.Han Fu is a kind of long rhyme in the Han Dynasty. It was developed from Chu Ci. It pays attention to skills and has gorgeous words. Liangdu Fu and Zhang Heng's Erjing Fu, etc.Yuefu poems were collected and processed from Yuefu, an institution in charge of music established by Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty.Among them, the Yuefu poems from the folk, represented by Peacock Flying Southeast, are the highest achievement of Western Han poetry and are deeply loved by readers of all ages.There are more than forty Yuefu poems in existence, and the compilation compiled by Guo Maoqian, a Song native, is the most complete collection of Yuefu poems.The "ancient poetry" in the Han Dynasty is a five-character poetry form produced and developed under the influence of folk songs and Yuefu folk songs, which has great significance in the history of Chinese poetry development.Collected in Liang Dynasty Xiao Tong's "Zhaoming Wenxuan" is its representative work.

From the Jian'an period of Emperor Xiandi of the Eastern Han Dynasty to the early Wei Dynasty, it was the "Jian'an period" in the history of Chinese literature.During this period, Cao Cao unified the north, and social life was more stable than before. Moreover, due to the advocacy and support of Cao's father and son and their own attainments in literature, literary creation flourished.Many works of Jian'an literature draw nourishment from Han Yuefu folk songs, reflecting social unrest and the pain of people's displacement.The representative figures of writers in the Jian'an period were Sancao and Qizi.Sancao refers to Cao Cao (155-220) and his two sons Cao Zhi (192-232) and Cao Pi (187-226). Because of their political status and literary attainments, they are the leaders of Jian'an literary world.The Seven Sons refer to Kong Rong, Wang Can, Liu Zhen, Ruan Yu, Xu Gan, Chen Lin, and Ying Yu, who occupy a certain position in the history of Chinese literature.In addition, there is a famous female writer Cai Yan (Cai Wenji), who has handed down "Poems of Sadness and Indignation" and "Eighteen Beats of Hu Jia".With the development of literary creation, the Jian'an period also created a fine style of study of literary criticism. Cao Pi's "Allusions · Essays" is the first monograph of literary criticism in my country.

In terms of economic thought, there is the famous "On Salt and Iron" written by Huan Kuan of the Western Han Dynasty.His works on science and technology include Zhang Heng's astronomy work "Lingxian"; on mathematics, there is "Nine Chapters on Arithmetic".In terms of agriculture, there is "The Book of Fansheng".In terms of medicine, there are medicinal works in the Western Han Dynasty, and "Treatise on Febrile and Miscellaneous Diseases" by Zhang Zhongjing, a medical scientist and "medical sage" in the Eastern Han Dynasty. In our country's classical literature, as a very important category of books, it is a unique reference book, which is very useful for readers to search for information.Cao Pi once ordered the compilation of my country's first class book - "Huang Lan", which can be called the ancestor of my country's class books, but unfortunately it has been lost.