Cai Dongfan's History of China: The Song Dynasty

"Cai Dongfan's History of China" is a vernacular edition of Cai Dongfan's popular historical romances about China's successive dynasties, a sweeping and accessible history of China. Spanning more than a thousand chapters, it recounts the rise and fall of dynasties from Qin Shi Huang to 1920, covering 2,166 years of history across 11 volumes. Its vast timespan, cast of countless figures, and monumental length make it arguably the greatest historical romance ever written. Cai Dongfan has been hailed as "a historian of his age, wielding a divine brush for the ages."

When selecting and using historical sources, Cai Dongfan relied primarily on official histories, supplementing them with unofficial accounts and anecdotes. As he put it, "I use official histories as the warp, seeking accuracy, and anecdotes as the weft, avoiding fabrication." He was extremely cautious in using unofficial accounts and anecdotes, often subjecting them to repeated scrutiny. In style, the work stands out for its principle of using moral purpose to convey events and expressing sentiment through the Way. Cai wrote the main text, annotations, and commentary himself.