2. Sima Guang (10 19— 1086) was born in Xia County, Shaanxi Province (now Xia County, Shanxi Province). He loved history and made unremitting efforts to study it after he became an official. In the third year of Zhiping (1066), Sima Guang wrote an eight-volume chronicle from Warring States to Qin, named Tongzhi, and presented it to Song Yingzong, who was ordered by Yingzong to set up a bureau for further revision. Since then, Sima Guang has always taken the bookstore with him no matter how politically up and down. 1067, Zongshen acceded to the throne and held a banquet. Sima Guang read Tongzhi, and named it Zitongzhi Jian because he "observed its past and had the resources to govern the Tao". During Wang Anshi's New Deal, Sima Guang strongly opposed it. He was appointed as the special envoy of parliament and insisted on resigning. In the third year of Xining (1070), I learned about Yongxing Army (now Xi 'an, Shaanxi). The following year, he retired to Luoyang and devoted himself to compiling Zi Tongzhi Jian, which was completed in the seventh year of Yuanfeng (1084). It took 19 years from the third year of Zhiping.
3. The history recorded in Zi Jian is limited, from the 23rd year of Wei Liezhou (403 BC) to the 6th year of Zhou Xiande (959 BC), with a period of *** 1362. The book is divided into sixteen dynasties, namely, five volumes of Zhou Ji, three volumes of Ji Qin, sixty volumes of Han Ji, ten volumes of Wei Ji, forty volumes of Jin Ji, sixteen volumes of Song Ji, ten volumes of Miracle, twenty-two volumes of Liang Ji, ten volumes of Chen Ji and Sui Ji.
4. The content of Zi Tong Zhi Jian is mainly about political, military and ethnic relations, as well as the evaluation of economic, cultural and historical figures. The purpose is to warn future generations of the origin of this title by describing the policies of the ruling class concerning the rise and fall of the country and the rise and fall of the nation, that is, Song Shenzong thought that the book was given this title because of "the past".
5. It can be seen that the name of Zi Tong Zhi Jian is not only the conscious expression of historians' management of history, but also the conscious expression of feudal emperors' use of history to serve politics.