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Records of the Three Kingdoms

Records

Chen Shou’s history in annals and biographies: the books of Wei, Shu, and Wu, sixty-five chapters. Pei’s notes quote many lost works and are longer than the text. Not every quotation is equally sound.

Drawn from the Records of the Three Kingdoms and Pei Songzhi’s notes. Famous novel scenes are not stated as fact.

Form
Book
Date
Completed in the Western Jin; Pei Songzhi’s commentary presented in 429
Creator
Chen Shou, with commentary by Pei Songzhi

The Records are the Western Jin historian Chen Shou’s work, and the core of what this site calls history. They take Cao Wei’s calendar as primary and still give books to Liu Bei and Sun Quan. The prose is tight. Most of the novel’s speeches and inner thoughts are simply not there.

In the Liu-Song period Pei Songzhi was ordered to comment. He quotes histories, separate biographies, and anecdotes from the late Han on, sets variants side by side, and sometimes says plainly that a story will not do. The rejection of the empty fort, Sun Quan’s boat evening under arrows, and Jiang Gan’s visit survive because of those notes. A quotation in Pei is not automatically Chen Shou’s judgment. Entries here distinguish the text from the notes.

The Records have no tables or treatises. Geography and offices need the histories before and after. They are still the first book against which to check the novel.