資治通鑑

Comprehensive Mirror to Aid in Government is a collectively compiled historical masterpiece, chief-edited by Sima Guang, assistant-edited by Liu Shu, Liu Ban and Fan Zuyu, proofread by Sima Kang, the son of Sima Guang. It is originally named as General Annals and changed to Comprehensive Mirror to Aid in Government after the enthronement of Shen Zong Emperor to refer to the past and benefit the governance. With the history in the 11362 years from 23th year of Wei Lie Emperor in Zhou dynasty(400 B.C) to the 6th year of Xian De Emperor of the Later Zhou Dynasty of the Five Dynasties(959 A.D.), the book is composed of 294 chapters, more than 3 million words in total, 30 pieces of Prefaces and 30 pieces of Textual Researches. It takes 19 years to complete this book. Sima Guang compiles this book to consolidate the feudal regime, which decides that the content of the book is mainly about political history. He classifies the monarchs in history into five categories according to their capacities, that is, entrepreneurship, maintaining the achievement, downfall, renaissance and extinction and makes some disclosure and blame on them for the reference of the descendent monarchs. It also makes valuable historical records on military affairs, economy, culture, academic ideology and historiography. As an extremely significant chronological history with reference to more than 300 kinds of books, it does not only provide governance experience for the feudal ruling class, but also be of great historical value with rigorous examples, clear outline and concise words, having great impact on the historical research of the later generations.