Editing Chinese literature (section)

== Historical texts, dictionaries and encyclopedias ==
{{Main|Chinese historiography}}
{{Further|:Category:Chinese encyclopedias|Chinese dictionary}}
[[File:Si maqian.jpg|thumb|upright|left|[[Sima Qian]] laid the ground for professional [[Chinese historiography]] more than 2,000 years ago.]]
The Chinese kept consistent and accurate court records, and although their calendars varied from court to court, these disparate records could be aligned without evident contradiction by the year 841 BC, at the beginning of the [[Gonghe Regency]] of the [[Western Zhou dynasty]]. The earliest known [[narrative history]] of China was the ''[[Zuo Zhuan]]'', which was compiled no later than 389 BC, and attributed to the blind 5th-century BC historian [[Zuo Qiuming]]. The ''[[Book of Documents]]'' is thought to have been compiled as far back as the 6th century BC, and was certainly compiled by the 4th century BC, the latest date for the writing of the [[Guodian Chu Slips]] unearthed in a [[Hubei]] tomb in 1993. The ''Book of Documents'' included [[History of geography|early information on geography]] in the ''[[Yu Gong]]'' chapter.<ref name="needham volume 3 500 501">{{cite book|last=Needham|volume= 3|pages= 500–501|first = Joseph|title = Science and Civilisation in China|isbn = 978-0521058018|publisher = Cambridge University Press|date = 1959}}</ref> The ''[[Bamboo Annals]]'' found in 281 AD in the tomb of the King of Wei, who was interred in 296 BC, provide another example; however, unlike the ''Zuo Zhuan'', the authenticity of the early date of the ''Bamboo Annals'' is in doubt. Another early text was the political strategy book of the ''[[Zhan Guo Ce]]'', compiled between the 3rd and 1st centuries BC, with [[Mawangdui Silk Texts|partial amounts of the text]] found amongst the 2nd century BC [[Mawangdui|tomb site]] at [[Mawangdui]]. The oldest extant [[dictionary]] in China is the ''[[Erya]]'', dated to the 3rd century BC, anonymously written but with later commentary by the historian [[Guo Pu]] (276–324). Other early dictionaries include the ''[[Fangyan (book)|Fangyan]]'' by [[Yang Xiong (author)|Yang Xiong]] (53 BC&nbsp;– 18 AD) and the ''[[Shuowen Jiezi]]'' by [[Xu Shen]] (58–147 AD). One of the largest was the ''[[Kangxi Dictionary]]'' compiled by 1716 under the auspices of the [[Kangxi Emperor]] (r. 1661–1722); it provides definitions for over 47,000 characters.

Although court records and other independent records existed beforehand, the definitive work in early Chinese historical writing was the ''[[Shiji]]'', or ''Records of the Grand Historian'' written by [[Han dynasty]] court historian [[Sima Qian]] (145 BC – 90 BC). This text laid the foundation for Chinese historiography and the multiple official Chinese historical texts compiled for each dynasty thereafter. Sima Qian is often compared to the Greek [[Herodotus]] in scope and method, because he covered Chinese history from the mythical [[Xia dynasty]] until the contemporary reign of [[Emperor Wu of Han]] while retaining an objective and non-biased standpoint. This was often difficult for the official dynastic historians, who used historical works to justify the reign of the current dynasty. He influenced the written works of a number of Chinese historians, [[Book of Han|including the works]] of [[Ban Gu]] and [[Ban Zhao]] in the 1st and 2nd centuries, and even [[Sima Guang]]'s 11th-century compilation of the ''[[Zizhi Tongjian]]'', presented to [[Emperor Shenzong of Song]] in 1084 AD. The overall scope of the historiographical tradition in China is termed the [[Twenty-Four Histories]], created for each successive Chinese dynasty up until the [[Ming dynasty]] (1368–1644); China's last dynasty, the [[Qing dynasty]] (1644–1911), is not included.

Large encyclopedias were also produced in China through the ages. The ''[[Yiwen Leiju]]'' encyclopedia was completed by [[Ouyang Xun]] in 624 during the [[Tang dynasty]], with aid from scholars [[Linghu Defen]] and [[Chen Shuda]]. During the [[Song dynasty]], the compilation of the [[Four Great Books of Song]] (10th century&nbsp;– 11th century), begun by [[Li Fang (Song dynasty)|Li Fang]] and completed by [[Cefu Yuangui]], represented a massive undertaking of written material covering a wide range of different subjects. This included the ''[[Taiping Guangji]]'' (978), the ''[[Taiping Yulan]]'' (983), the ''[[Wenyuan Yinghua]]'' (986), and the ''[[Cefu Yuangui]]'' (1013). Although these Song dynasty Chinese encyclopedias featured millions of written [[Chinese characters]] each, their aggregate size paled in comparison to the later ''[[Yongle Encyclopedia]]'' (1408) of the Ming dynasty, which contained a total of 50 million Chinese characters.<ref name="ebrey 272">Ebrey (2006), 272.{{full citation needed|date=February 2024}}</ref> Even this size was trumped by later Qing dynasty encyclopedias, such as the printed the ''[[Complete Classics Collection of Ancient China]]'' (1726), which featured over 100 million written Chinese characters in over 800,000 pages, printed in 60 different copies using [[copper]]-metal Chinese [[movable type]] printing. Other great encyclopedic writers include the polymath scientist [[Shen Kuo]] (1031–1095) and his ''[[Dream Pool Essays]]'', the agronomist and inventor [[Wang Zhen (official)|Wang Zhen]] ([[floruit|fl.]] 1290–1333) and his ''[[Wang Zhen (official)#Life and works|Nongshu]]'', and the minor scholar-official [[Song Yingxing]] (1587–1666) and his ''[[Song Yingxing#Written works|Tiangong Kaiwu]]''.