Cai Dongfan's History of China: The Jin Dynasties

Cai Dongfan's History of China is a vernacular edition of Cai Dongfan's popular historical romances about China's successive dynasties, a vast yet accessible history of China. The complete work runs to more than a thousand chapters, chronicling the rise and fall of dynasties from the reign of Qin Shi Huang through 1920. It covers 2,166 years of history across 11 volumes. Its vast sweep of time, multitude of characters, and enormous scale make it arguably the greatest historical novel of its kind. Cai Dongfan has been praised as "a historian of his age, with a brush destined to endure for a thousand autumns."

In selecting and using historical sources, Cai Dongfan relied primarily on official histories while also drawing on unofficial accounts and anecdotes. He said that he "used official histories as the warp, seeking accuracy, and hearsay as the weft, avoiding falsehood." He was extremely cautious in using unofficial histories and anecdotes, often subjecting them to repeated verification.

The work stands out for its principle of using moral meaning to convey events and, through events, to express sentiment. Cai Dongfan wrote the main text, annotations, and commentary himself.