New Findings in the Relationship between Shiji and Hanshu

Sima Qian’s司馬遷 Shiji史記 records the history from the Five Emperors五帝 to the Emperor Wu of Han漢武帝 with 526,500 words. Ban Gu’s Hanshu only records the history of Western Han西漢 with 800,000 words. With the period from the beginning of Emperor Gaozu漢高祖 of Han to Emperor Wu of Han, Shiji and Hanshu recorded the history of Han dynasty by using the same materials, i.e. 61 chapters of Hanshu are transcribed from Shiji. After the emergence of Shiji, only a few scholars put concentration on this book. Besides, Shiji was regarded as a book that slandered the Han government due to its sublime words with deep meaning. The situation of Hanshu is totally different from Shiji. Shiji and Hanshu have many parallel passages but one is dyslogistic and the other one is eulogistic. This paper examines the relationship between Shiji and Hanshu, according to the parallel passages, to discuss the style of writing in which sublime words with deep meaning are used in Hanshu, and also to demonstrate the spirit of Hanshu and its submerged meaning.