This article examines the tabular presentations in Sima Qian’s Shi ji and Gu Donggao’s Chunqiu dashi biao through the lens of a siege in 630 bce. Recognized as exemplary historical tables of the Spring and Autumn Period, the two tables process historical narratives at both micro and macro levels in an unprecedented manner, aiming to provide a larger picture of general historical trends. By emphasizing a visual and spatial representation of history in its tabular design, the Shi ji table invites the reader to examine the text nonlinearly and to construct a dialectical relationship between it and related narrative chapters. On the other hand, Gu’s text-oriented tables, usually misunderstood as a mere continuation of those in the Shi ji, require a linear reading and cannot directly produce a visual representation of the general patterns of the Spring and Autumn Period. However, to compensate for the lack of a visual overview, Gu composed “impromptu poems” (kouhao), which orally sketch general historical trends, to help beginners memorize the history of the Spring and Autumn Period. This article aims to demonstrate the use of tabulation at the crucial beginning point of Chinese historiography and its reinvention in the late imperial period.

This study identifies two textual strata in the “Zhao shijia” of the Shi ji: the “wo 我 stratum” and the “legendary stratum.” While the “wo stratum” points to the existence of Zhao local historical records, the “legendary stratum” reveals an interpretive framework that guides the chapter's presentation of the Zhao history toward the central concern and anxiety over the succession of lineage and power. The series of prophetic dreams and supernatural encounters that were emplotted in the narrative of Zhao history comprise this “legendary stratum” and point toward a key figure, King Wuling of Zhao, during whose time the Zhao state reached its pinnacle of power and prosperity. Accounts that are clearly fabrications, such as the story of the orphan of Zhao and later prophecies of the decline of the Zhao, show hidden connections to the personal experience of Sima Qian and to possible political dissent and discourses criticizing Emperor Wu of Han. In identifying such fabricated “empty writing” hidden in the chapter's framework of interpretive emplotment, this article aims to offer one way to read the Shi ji's account for the hereditary house of Zhao that follows a coherent pattern on the meta-level of historical narrative.

This article introduces the biographical texts accompanying illustrations of Kongzi and several disciples on the wooden frame and cover of a mirror stand excavated in 2015 from the Haihunhou tomb near Nanchang. These texts are analyzed with reference to evolving portrayals of these figures in the Western Han, paying particular attention to parallels with two generically similar chapters in the Shi ji (Records of the Archivist). Of particular interest is the way the excavated disciple biographies share biographical elements with transmitted counterparts, but select different dialogues for each disciple, most of which are also found in the Lun yu (Analects). This suggests that the artists who created the mirror stand relied on a different source text from the compilers of the Shi ji chapter, perhaps on a pairing of visual and biographical information about the disciples called Kongzi dizi (Kongzi's disciples). The biographies also evince a heightened emphasis on the disciples and Kongzi's judgments about them, consistent with the Han view that the proper selection of ministers was a key aspect of the master's “Kingly Way.”

While many aspects of Shi ji authorship are either unknown or speculative, the source texts of Shi ji and Sima Qian's use of them are viable yet underexplored paths to a deeper understanding of this monumental work. From the 1920s to the present, seven scholars from China, Japan, and Taiwan have attempted to ascertain the extent of Sima Qian's textual perusals and adaptations by compiling bibliographies of Shi ji source texts. This article compiles some of their results for comparison and analysis. From this, principles are highlighted for generating a more comprehensive methodology.