Editing Sima Qian (section)

=== Innovations and unique features ===
Despite his very large debts to Confucian tradition, Sima was an innovator in four ways. To begin with, Sima's work was concerned with the history of the known world.{{sfnp|Hughes-Warrington|2000|p=294}} Previous Chinese historians had focused on only one dynasty and/or region.{{sfnp|Hughes-Warrington|2000|p=294}} Sima's history of 130 chapters began with the legendary Yellow Emperor and extended to his own time, and covered not only China, but also neighboring nations like [[Korea]] and [[Vietnam]].{{sfnp|Hughes-Warrington|2000|p=294}} In this regard, Sima was significant as the first Chinese historian to treat the peoples living to the north of the Great Wall like the Xiongnu as human beings who were implicitly the equals of the Middle Kingdom, instead of the traditional approach which had portrayed the Xiongnu as savages who had the appearance of humans, but the minds of animals.{{sfnp|Chin|2010|p=318–319}} In his comments about the Xiongnu, Sima refrained from evoking claims about the innate moral superiority of the Han over the "northern barbarians" that were the standard rhetorical tropes of Chinese historians in this period.{{sfnp|Chin|2010|p=320}} Likewise, Sima in his chapter about the Xiongnu condemns those advisors who pursue the "expediency of the moment", that is advise the Emperor to carry policies such as conquests of other nations that bring a brief moment of glory, but burden the state with the enormous financial and often human costs of holding on to the conquered land.{{sfnp|Chin|2010|p=321}} Sima was engaging in an indirect criticism of the advisors of the Emperor Wu who were urging him to pursue a policy of aggression towards the Xiongnu and conquer all their land, a policy to which Sima was apparently opposed.{{sfnp|Chin|2010|p=311–354}}

Sima also broke new ground by using more sources like interviewing witnesses, visiting places where historical occurrences had happened, and examining documents from different regions and/or times.{{sfnp|Hughes-Warrington|2000|p=294}} Before Chinese historians had tended to use only reign histories as their sources.{{sfnp|Hughes-Warrington|2000|p=294}} The ''Shiji'' was further very novel in Chinese historiography by examining historical events outside of the courts, providing a broader history than the traditional court-based histories had done.{{sfnp|Hughes-Warrington|2000|p=294}} Lastly, Sima broke with the traditional chronological structure of Chinese history. Sima instead had divided the ''Shiji'' into five divisions: the basic annals which comprised the first 12 chapters, the chronological tables which comprised the next 10 chapters, treatises on particular subjects which make up 8 chapters, accounts of the ruling families which take up 30 chapters, and biographies of various eminent people which are the last 70 chapters.{{sfnp|Hughes-Warrington|2000|p=294}} The annals follow the traditional Chinese pattern of court-based histories of the lives of various emperors and their families.{{sfnp|Hughes-Warrington|2000|p=294}} The chronological tables are graphs recounting the political history of China.{{sfnp|Hughes-Warrington|2000|p=294}} The treatises are essays on topics such as [[astronomy]], music, religion, hydraulic engineering and economics.{{sfnp|Hughes-Warrington|2000|p=294}} The last section dealing with biographies covers individuals judged by Sima to have made a major impact on the course of history, regardless of whether they were of noble or humble birth and whether they were born in the central states, the periphery, or barbarian lands.{{sfnp|Hughes-Warrington|2000|p=294}} Unlike traditional Chinese historians, Sima went beyond the androcentric, nobility-focused histories by dealing with the lives of women and men such as poets, bureaucrats, merchants, comedians/jesters, assassins, and philosophers.{{sfnp|Hughes-Warrington|2000|p=295}} The treatises section, the biographies sections and the annals section relating to the [[Qin dynasty]] (as a former dynasty, there was more freedom to write about the Qin than there was about the reigning Han dynasty) that make up 40% of the ''Shiji'' have aroused the most interest from historians and are the only parts of the ''Shiji'' that have been translated into English.<ref name="jay"/>

When Sima placed his subjects was often his way of expressing obliquely moral judgements.{{sfnp|Hughes-Warrington|2000|p=295}} [[Empress Lü]] and [[Xiang Yu]] were the effective rulers of China during reigns Hui of the Han and Yi of Chu, respectively, so Sima placed both their lives in the basic annals.{{sfnp|Hughes-Warrington|2000|p=295}} Likewise, Confucius is included in the fourth section rather the fifth where he properly belonged as a way of showing his eminent virtue.{{sfnp|Hughes-Warrington|2000|p=295}} The structure of the ''Shiji'' allowed Sima to tell the same stories in different ways, which allowed him to pass his moral judgements.{{sfnp|Hughes-Warrington|2000|p=295}} For example, in the basic annals section, the [[Emperor Gaozu of Han|Emperor Gaozu]] is portrayed as a good leader whereas in the section dealing with his rival Xiang Yu, the Emperor is portrayed unflatteringly.{{sfnp|Hughes-Warrington|2000|p=295}} Likewise, the chapter on Xiang presents him in a favorable light whereas the chapter on Gaozu portrays him in more darker colors.{{sfnp|Hughes-Warrington|2000|p=295}} At the end of most of the chapters, Sima usually wrote a commentary in which he judged how the individual lived up to traditional Chinese values like filial piety, humility, self-discipline, hard work and concern for the less fortunate.{{sfnp|Hughes-Warrington|2000|p=295}} Sima analyzed the records and sorted out those that could serve the purpose of ''Shiji''. He intended to discover the patterns and principles of the development of human history. Sima also emphasized, for the first time in Chinese history, the role of individual men in affecting the historical development of China and his historical perception that a country cannot escape from the fate of growth and decay.

Unlike the ''Book of Han'', which was written under the supervision of the imperial dynasty, ''Shiji'' was a privately written history since he refused to write ''Shiji'' as an official history covering only those of high rank. The work also covers people of the lower classes and is therefore considered a "veritable record" of the darker side of the dynasty. In Sima's time, literature and history were not seen as separate disciplines as they are now, and Sima wrote his ''magnum opus'' in a very literary style, making extensive use of irony, sarcasm, juxtaposition of events, characterization, direct speech and invented speeches, which led the American historian Jennifer Jay to describe parts of the ''Shiji'' as reading more like a historical novel than a work of history.<ref name="jay"/> For an example, Sima tells the story of a Chinese eunuch named [[Zhonghang Yue]] who became an advisor to the Xiongnu kings.{{sfnp|Chin|2010|p=325}} Sima provides a long dialogue between Zhonghang and an envoy sent by the Emperor Wen of China during which the latter disparages the Xiongnu as "savages" whose customs are barbaric while Zhonghang defends the Xiongnu customs as either justified and/or as morally equal to Chinese customs, at times even morally superior as Zhonghang draws a contrast between the bloody succession struggles in China where family members would murder one another to be Emperor vs. the more orderly succession of the Xiongnu kings.{{sfnp|Chin|2010|p=325–326}} The American historian Tamara Chin wrote that though Zhonghang did exist, the dialogue is merely a "literacy device" for Sima to make points that he could not otherwise make.{{sfnp|Chin|2010|p=328–329}} The favorable picture of the traitor Zhonghang who went over to the Xiongnu who bests the Emperor's loyal envoy in an ethnographic argument about what is the morally superior nation appears to be Sima's way of attacking the entire Chinese court system where the Emperor preferred the lies told by his sycophantic advisors over the truth told by his honest advisors as inherently corrupt and depraved.{{sfnp|Chin|2010|p=333–334}} The point is reinforced by the fact that Sima has Zhonghang speak the language of an idealized Confucian official whereas the Emperor's envoy's language is dismissed as "mere twittering and chatter".{{sfnp|Chin|2010|p=334}} Elsewhere in the ''Shiji'' Sima portrayed the Xiongnu less favorably, so the debate was almost certainly more Sima's way of criticizing the Chinese court system and less genuine praise for the Xiongnu.{{sfnp|Chin|2010|p=340}}

Sima has often been criticized for "historizing" myths and legends as he assigned dates to mythical and legendary figures from ancient Chinese history together with what appears to be suspiciously precise genealogies of leading families over the course of several millennia (including his own where he traces the descent of the Sima family from legendary emperors in the distant past).<ref name="jay"/> However, archaeological discoveries in recent decades have confirmed aspects of the ''Shiji'', and suggested that even if the sections of the ''Shiji'' dealing with the ancient past are not totally true, at least Sima wrote down what he believed to be true. In particular, archaeological finds have confirmed the basic accuracy of the ''Shiji'' including the reigns and locations of tombs of ancient rulers.<ref name="jay"/>