Records of the Grand Historian

Records of the Grand Historian is divided into five sections: Basic Annals, Tables, Treatises, Hereditary Houses, and Biographies. The Basic Annals and Biographies form its core. The work uses emperors and other central political figures as the main thread of its historical narrative, with each section serving a distinct purpose. The Basic Annals, Hereditary Houses, and Biographies make up most of the book and all record history through accounts centered on individuals. In this way, Sima Qian created a new form of historical writing, the biographical-annalistic style. Records of the Grand Historian begins with the legendary Yellow Emperor and continues through the first year of the Yuanshou era under Emperor Wu of Han (122 BCE), recounting roughly three thousand years of Chinese history. According to Sima Qian, the work consists of 12 Basic Annals, 10 Tables, 8 Treatises, 30 Hereditary Houses, and 70 Biographies, for a total of 130 chapters and approximately 526,500 characters.