Chapter 71 70 Sima Qian wrote "Historical Records"

In the second year of Su Wu's envoy to the Huns, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty sent Li Guangli, the general of the second division, with 30,000 troops to attack the Huns. They were defeated and nearly wiped out. Li Guangli fled back.Li Guang's grandson, Li Ling, served as the captain of the cavalry at that time, leading 5,000 infantry to fight against the Huns.Shan Yu personally led 30,000 cavalry to besiege Li Ling's infantry regiment.Although Li Ling's arrow skills are very good, and his soldiers are also very brave, five thousand infantry killed five or six thousand Hun cavalry, but the number of Xiongnu soldiers increased, and the Han army was outnumbered, and there were no rescuers behind, and finally there were only more than 400 Han left. The soldiers broke out.Li Ling was captured by the Huns and surrendered.

The news of Li Ling's surrender to the Huns shocked the court.Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty imprisoned Li Ling's mother, wife and children, and summoned ministers to discuss Li Ling's crimes. The ministers all condemned Li Ling for not being greedy for life and fearing death, and surrendering to the Huns.Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty asked Sima Qian, the Taishi Ling, to hear his opinion. Sima Qian said: "The infantry brought by Li Ling was less than five thousand. He penetrated deep into the enemy's hinterland and attacked tens of thousands of enemies. Although he was defeated, but he killed so many enemies, he can also explain to the people of the world. It must be his idea that Ken die immediately. He must also want to repay the emperor by atonement."

After hearing this, Emperor Wu of the Han thought that Sima Qian's defense of Li Ling was to belittle Li Guangli (Li Guangli was the elder brother of Emperor Wu's favorite concubine). With a yell, he moved Sima to prison and handed him over to Tingwei for interrogation. After the interrogation, Sima Qian was convicted and should be punished with corruption (a kind of corporal punishment).Sima Qian couldn't pay for atonement, so he had to be punished and put in prison. Sima Qian thought that being corrupted was a shameful thing, and he almost wanted to commit suicide.But he thought that he had an extremely important job unfinished, and he should not die.Because he was writing a book with all his energy at that time, which was the greatest historical work in ancient China-"Historical Records".

It turned out that several generations of Sima Qian's ancestors served as historians, and his father Sima Tan was also the Taishi Ling of the Han Dynasty.When Sima Qian was ten years old, he followed his father to Chang'an and read many books since he was a child. In order to collect historical materials and broaden his horizons, Sima Qian traveled all over the motherland since he was 20 years old.He has been to Kuaiji, Zhejiang, and saw the legendary place where Dayu convened tribal leaders for a meeting; he has been to Changsha, where he paid tribute to the patriotic poet Qu Yuan by the Miluo River; he has been to Qufu, and inspected the site where Confucius lectured; he has been to the hometown of Han Gaozu. , Listening to the elders in Peixian County about Liu Bang's rise of troops... This kind of tour and investigation enabled Sima Qian to acquire a lot of knowledge and absorb rich nourishment from folk language, which laid an important foundation for Sima Qian's writing.

Later, Sima Qian became an attendant of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, followed the emperor to tour various places, and was also ordered to inspect Ba, Shu and Kunming. After Sima Tan's death, Sima Qian inherited his father's position and became Taishiling. He read and collected more historical materials. When he was about to start writing, he offended Emperor Wu in order to defend Li Ling, so he was sent to prison and sentenced.He thought painfully: This is my own fault. Now that he has been tortured, his body has been destroyed and he is useless. But he thought again: Once upon a time, King Wen of Zhou was imprisoned in Yuli and wrote a "Book of Changes"; "Li Sao"; Zuo Qiuming was blind and wrote "Mandarin Language"; Sun Bin had his kneecap removed and wrote "The Art of War".There are another three hundred articles, most of which were written by the ancients when they were worried and angry.These famous works were all written when the author was depressed or when his ideals were not feasible.Why don't I use this time to write this history well?

Therefore, he compiled the history of the period from the legendary era of the Yellow Emperor to the second year of Taishi (95 BC) of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty into a huge book of 130 chapters and 520,000 characters. For "Historical Records". In his "Historical Records", Sima Qian gave a detailed account of the deeds of some famous people in ancient times.He spoke highly of Chen Sheng and Wu Guang, the leaders of the peasant uprising; he often expressed sympathy for the oppressed lower classes.He also rewritten the overly difficult text in ancient documents into the relatively simple text at that time.The description of the characters and the plot are vivid and the language is lively.Therefore, "Historical Records" is not only a great historical work, but also an outstanding literary work.

After Sima moved out of prison, he served as Zhongshuling.Later, he finally died depressed.But he and his book "Historical Records" enjoy a high status in the history of historiography and literature in our country.