What is the value of historical records?

First, it created a character with both beauty and ugliness, a clear distinction between good and evil, and a complex personality. Second, Sima Qian's method of depicting characters. Thirdly, Sima Qian's value orientation towards historical figures and characterization in Historical Records. Historical Records initiated the history of China's biographical style and China's biographical literature. A series of historical figures written in Biography, Family and Biography not only show the author's high generalization and superb knowledge of history, but also vividly show the broad picture of social life through the activities of those figures, show the author's critical spirit of history and reality, and show the author's sympathy for the oppressed and exploited people and the unfair struggle enthusiasm for the insulted and damaged people. Therefore, for more than two thousand years, Historical Records is not only a model for historians to learn, but also a model for writers to learn. Historical Records is a biographical literary masterpiece with strong popularity and militancy. First of all, it exposes and satirizes the ugly faces of the feudal ruling class, especially the ruling group and the supreme ruler of the Han Dynasty. Sima Qian's writing about Liu Bang, the ancestor of Han Dynasty, did not obliterate his role in unifying the Chu-Han dispute and establishing a great country, but it also did not let go of exposing his hypocrisy, cunning and rogue qualities. In order to avoid being hurt, Sima Qian had to write those absurd legends in Biography of Gaozu, and write him as a sacred figure who was ordered to be emperor. However, in Biography of Xiang Yu, through the sharp contrast with Xiang Yu, he wrote his cowardice, meanness and incompetence. Before the Battle of Gaixia, Liu Bang was almost always in a position of being beaten and humiliated. The following two fragments more truly describe his rogue and cruel face. (The content is omitted) Others, such as Liu Bang's lust for money in Leaving Houjia, Liu Bang's suspicion of heroes in Xiao Jia, and the letter of China and South Korea in Huaiyin Houzhuan, condemn Liu Bang's crime of killing heroes and say, "A sly rabbit dies, a running dog cooks; High birds are exhausted, good bows are hidden; When the enemy is defeated, the adviser dies ",which is the truth that this feudal society can be * * * painful but not * * * happy. It is through these descriptions that the author reveals Liu Bang's true mental outlook, thus erasing some sacred praises made in this subject. The author also expressed his grief and disgust at the violent rule of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty. There are five people in Biography of Officials, including Sun Shuai and Zheng Zichan, who are not from the Han Dynasty. However, Biography of Corrupt Officials is written by Han people, among whom, except Zhi Dou in Jingdi period, the other nine people were executors of violent rule in Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty. Zhang Tang, who was "deceitful and controlled people by dancing", was most trusted by Emperor Wu. In prison, he is good at making excuses and completely depends on Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty. Du Zhou is also the same role. When someone asks him, "You are the Emperor of Heaven, you don't follow the three-foot rule, but treat people's ideas as a prison. Is the prisoner so solid? " Du Zhou replied, "Three feet away? The former owner did the law, and the latter owner did the law. What was the law at that time? " Here Sima Qian thoroughly exposed the hypocrisy of the so-called law in feudal society and pointed out that it was only a tool for rulers to kill people at will. The biography of the cruel official also reveals the crime of murder by the ruler. When Zong Yi was appointed as the magistrate of Dingxiang, he "killed more than 400 people in one day, and then the whole county trembled". When Wang was the magistrate in the river, he captured the "luxury" in the county and sat in more than a thousand houses; Within two or three days, there was a mass slaughter, "until it bled for more than ten miles." The custom of Han dynasty is not to kill people in spring. Wang stamped his foot and said, "Well, the winter moon show in January is enough for me!" " In this regard, Sima Qian said angrily: "It is good at killing and threatening, and does not love others!" This is the just voice of the people. Although brutal officials also cracked down on strongmen, they mainly suppressed the people. When writing about these brutal officials, the author often points out that "he thinks he can", which is obviously intended to express his irony and indignation at Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty. Historical Records also describes the complex and sharp contradictions within the ruling stage. The most famous one, such as Biography of Hou Wei An, describes the intrigue between the two generations of consorts of Hetian Powder and their mutual destruction. In this way, the author further exposed the cruel and tyrannical nature of the ruling class and expressed his profound criticism of reality. Sima Qian not only boldly exposed the evils of the feudal ruling group, but also enthusiastically described the uprising and resistance of the oppressed people. In the biography of the cruel officials, the author described the resistance of the broad masses of the people, and said: "Since Wen Shu and others treat evil as the rule, while the county magistrate, a captain and a vassal want to treat it, their treatment is generally mild and comfortable. And the officials and the people despise profits because of breaking the law, and thieves start. Nanyang has Mei Mian, Bai Zheng, Chu You, Du Shao, Qi You Xu Bo, You, Fan Sheng. A large group of thousands of people attacked the city without authorization, took soldiers from the library, released the death penalty, bound and humiliated the county satrap and a captain, killed two thousand stones, and took pleasure in the county. There are hundreds of thieves, and countless people rob Luzhai. " Although these rebellions were suppressed by the rulers, they were not eliminated. Soon, "those who reunite with the party to close mountains and block water often live in groups and have no choice." From these accounts, we can see that Sima Qian sympathized with the people's uprising and resistance, and he admitted the rationality of "officials forcing the people to rebel". Based on this understanding, Sima Qian warmly praised the peasant uprising in the late Qin Dynasty. In "The Chen She Family", he described in detail the process of Chen She uprising and the revolutionary situation in which troops were assembled to respond, and pointed out the justice of the peasant uprising. This paper analyzes the root causes of their failure and affirms their immortal achievements in promoting historical progress. I think, "I lost my way, and Tang Wu succeeded;" Zhou lost his way and wrote the Spring and Autumn Period; Qin lost political power and made a fortune. The princes are difficult, the wind is steaming, and the Qin family is dead. And heaven remains our neighbourhood is self-involved. " He even wrote "Biography of Xiang Yu" with extremely full emotions, and the heroic image of Xiang Yu's heroic and fearless destruction of violent rule left a deep impression on readers. Although the author criticized Xiang Yu for "praising his merits and demerits, striving for his personal wisdom without forgetting the past" and "trying to rule the world by force", he pointed out the reasons for his inevitable failure. However, he is still regarded as the central figure in the Qin and Han dynasties and deeply sympathizes with him. He said: "In three years, Qin destroyed five princes, divided the world, established princes, and made the court overlord. Although the position is not over, it has never been seen since ancient times! " Sima Qian's enthusiastic praise for the people's resistance to violent rule, and his arrangement for Chen She and Xiang Yu in Home and Ji respectively, fully demonstrated his outstanding ideological opinions and enthusiasm for saving the people. This is an ideological height that later feudal orthodox historians could not reach. The popularity and militancy of Historical Records are also manifested in recording the lower-class figures who are not accepted by the official history and being able to give them a certain evaluation from the perspective of the oppressed and exploited people. "Ranger Biography" wrote that Zhujiajian Island "started from poverty"; Write Guo Jie's "Life-saving, no merit". In the warm praise of the noble characters such as "keeping promise", "action with results" and "keeping promise without caring for the body", the people in feudal society expressed their good wishes to get rid of the insulted and damaged situation. Biography of the Assassin describes Jing Ke's heroic behavior of being fearless and dying, which is so vivid and tragic. In our view today, the assassin's personal violence can't really solve any substantive political problems. However, under the long feudal dark rule, the chivalrous spirit of the assassins who sacrificed themselves for others and resisted violence was epic, which to some extent hit the arrogance of feudal violent rule, just like a bright star in the night sky, giving people encouragement and hope. The author enthusiastically said: "This meaning may or may not be successful, but its intention is quite natural. Don't cheat your ambition, and your name will be remembered in future generations. It's all wet! " Historical records also wrote a series of patriotic heroes. The Biography of Lian Po and Lin Xiangru highlights Lin Xiangru's brave and resourceful heroic character and the noble quality of "taking the country as a priority and taking private as an enemy" through the narration of historical plots, such as all going to Zhao, making alliance with Mianchi and making friends with generals. In Biography of Wei Gongzi, the author used 147 "Gongzi" to tell the story of Xin's "Corporal Ren", not only because this Gongzi really put down his noble airs, "welcomed the scholar himself" and "swam from the scholar to the pulp seller", but more importantly, because he did so, he finally got the help of wanderers and public guests and rebelled against the State of Qin. Biography of General Li is also an article written by the author. "If you don't see me, the battlefield is bitter. My present name is Li, and I will be a famous soldier through the ages." "If you only make Longcheng fly, don't teach tigers and horses to cross the Yinshan Mountain." Li Guang, a famous soldier in the Han Dynasty, has been admired by people for thousands of years. His achievements in defending the frontier of the motherland, his extraordinary courage and fear of the enemy are deeply engraved in people's hearts through Tai Shigong's pen. However, Li Guang's life was spent under the oppression of the nobility. The author deeply sympathizes with his tragic ending of "killing himself with a knife", and at the same time reveals his feelings about his unfortunate experience, thus effectively exposing and attacking the repressed talent view of the feudal ruling class. The author not only wrote about Li Guang's achievements in defending the motherland and fighting in the battlefield, but also wrote about his qualities of loving the soldiers and the people: "Be lenient with others, be honest and honest, and under his command, you will be rewarded with food and drink." . In the end, I have been a man of two thousand stones for more than forty years, and there is no money left at home, so I have nothing to say about my family. ..... General Guang, he is short of the key point. When he sees water, his foot soldiers don't drink or go near it. The foot soldiers don't eat all the food, nor do they taste all the food. Generosity is not harsh, and scholars use this philharmonic. "Because of this, when Li Guang was forced to commit suicide," the scholar-officials in Guang Jun all cried. When the people heard it, they all cried. "Through these descriptions, the author not only shows that generals should cherish their own foot soldiers, but also tells them that only with one heart and one mind can they defeat the enemy and defend the motherland. As a biographical literature, Historical Records is rich and profound in ideological content: on the one hand, it exposes the incomparable ugliness of rulers and their minions and draws their true colors; On the other hand, it expresses the people's thoughts, feelings and wishes, praises the uprising and resistance of the people and their leaders, and patriotic heroes and chivalrous men who saved people from danger, and shows the revolutionary tradition and fine quality of our great nation, which is still of positive significance today. The ideological significance of Historical Records is inseparable from the author's meticulous conception and superb writing skills. As a historical work, Historical Records faithfully recorded historical facts, so Liu Xiang, Ban and his son all called it a "factual record". However, on the basis of "real record", the author created vivid characters, showed the important characteristics of characters' thoughts and personalities, and had a strong artistic appeal, which was the main feature of the biography of Historical Records and the author's originality. The author doesn't have to record everything, but he has a choice. On weekdays, Sean and Gaozu talked a lot about what's going on in the world, but only wrote those events that have a great relationship with the survival of the world, which shows his personality characteristics. Writing other characters is no exception, that is, only writing important things that can express the characteristics of characters. There are also such words in "Stay at Houjia": "Language is in Xiang Yu" and "Language is in Huaiyin"; Other articles often have such words. This is the "mutual understanding method" pointed out by predecessors. Sima Qian's application of this method is very complicated, some have noticed it, and some have not. It not only passively avoids the repetition of narrative, but also actively uses information to serve the characteristics of prominent characters. For example, Biography of Xiang Yu focuses on many important events and highlights his arrogant and furious personality. Although the author belittles his behavior in his praise, warm praise and deep sympathy are the main things. This reflects the integrity of Xiang Yu, a historical figure. In this chronicle, the author did not criticize Xiang Yu's personal shortcomings and military and political mistakes too much, but put it in the biography of Hou Huaiyin revealed by Han Xin, which neither damaged Xiang Yu's heroic image, but also showed Han Xin's extraordinary talent and insight. In this way, through the selection, tailoring and concentration of historical materials, Sima Qian not only made many biographies correctly reflect their activities and functions in history, but also highlighted their thoughts and personalities and expressed the author's love and hate. The characters in Historical Records are rich and vivid, not only because of Sima Qian's choice and arrangement of materials, but also because he used various methods to express the characters' ideological character and characteristics. When writing biographies, the author tries to avoid general narration, but grasps the main events and describes the activities of the characters in detail to make them stand out. Saving Zhao Cunxu is an important event in Xin's life, but the Biography of Wei Gongzi does not describe much about his political and military activities in this event. The focus of the description is how he interacted with Hou Ying, the supervisor of Yimen, and Zhu Hai, the butcher, and the story of "swimming from a pulp seller". Through the concrete description of these stories, his character of benevolence, courage, faithfulness and urgency is highlighted. It is particularly worth mentioning that the new welcome to Hou Sheng himself: (The content is omitted) The author writes new things from different angles. He wrote that Hou Sheng was supercilious and went straight to the seat of the son. Hou Sheng deliberately stayed in the city for a long time to observe the son. The whole city watched the son, and the son secretly scolded Hou Sheng from the rider, which surprised the guests. Through the different reflections of these different characters, the attitude of the new humble corporal is more and more prominent, which makes us feel immersive. Sima Qian is also good at expressing the characteristics of characters through trivial matters, such as the story of Zhang Tang's childhood written in The Story of the Cool Officials. Although this is a childhood game, it vividly highlights Zhang Tang's cruel character. Another example is a passage in the biography of Zhang Shu. Through these details, the author writes the stiff personality and the mood of the Shi Jia family. Others, such as "Stay at Houjia", write about wearing shoes for the elderly; The Biography of Huaiyin Hou wrote about Han Xin's humiliation; "Biography of Li Si" wrote that when Li Si was young, he sighed when he saw rats and hamsters in the toilet. These are all examples of depicting characters with trivial matters. These are the storytelling methods used by Sima Qian to express the characters. This method avoids the flattening of narrative and makes the characters have touching artistic power. In order to express the characters, Sima Qian also pushed the characters to the forefront of contradictions and conflicts through many scenes of fierce struggle, so that the characters showed their respective advantages and disadvantages and personality characteristics in the fierce struggle. The Hongmen Banquet in Biography of Xiang Yu is very representative. Before the Hongmen banquet, the two armies of Chu and Han almost merged, and the Chu was strong and the Han was weak. Liu Bang and Xiang Yu met at this time, and the struggle was quite fierce. The author expresses the characters through this face-to-face struggle. Liu Bang's cowardice and wit, Xiang Yu's frankness and lack of strategy, as well as other characters' personalities, such as Fan Zeng, Sean, Fan Kuai and Xiang Bo, all have good performances because of their different attitudes in this struggle. Another example is the two scenes in The Biography of Hou Wei, the drinking ceremony and the debate in the East Palace, which are also well written. The former, written at banquets, describes people's different attitudes towards Tian Fen, Dou Ying and Guan Fu. It not only describes the bleak world of aristocratic society, but also well shows the different personalities of these characters: Tian Fen's reserve and arrogance after he gained power, and Dou Ying's embarrassment of making friends with the authorities after he lost power, especially Guan Fu. He was unhappy at first, then criticized him angrily, and finally evolved into a direct conflict with Tian Fen, which fully showed his "integrity and honest and frank". The latter letter wrote: "The ministers debated the merits and demerits of Guan Fu in front of Emperor Wu, and hesitated with each other, afraid to distinguish right from wrong. Emperor Wu was furious and retired to the harem, which fully showed the hypocrisy and tactfulness of sophisticated bureaucrats. Story-telling techniques and the use of tense scenes make the biographies of Historical Records full of waves, and the characters have their own characteristics, such as seeing and hearing people, thus becoming a classic combining history and literature. Historical Records also has great creation in the use of language. From the literary point of view, its greatest feature is that it is good at expressing characters' expressions, attitudes and personality characteristics in spoken language that conforms to their identities. Both Liu Bang and Xiang Yu have met Qin Shihuang, and their different personalities can be seen from their feelings. Xiang Yu said, "He can take the place! "The tone is extremely frank, and you can imagine his strong and straightforward character; Liu Bang said, "Wow! A gentleman should be like this! "Euphemism twists and turns, just shows his insatiable character. The Chen She family wrote Chen She as the queen, and Chen She's old partner saw his palace and said, "Hey! Participating in Wang Shen. " "Yi Gang" is a dialect in Chen She's hometown, which has many meanings. It is used here to describe the richness and variety of Chen She Palace furnishings; "Heavy" is a description of the profoundness of the palace, and it also vividly shows the simple character of farmers in an amazing tone. In the Biography of Prime Minister Zhang, the author also wrote about his stuttering and his anxious and angry expression. There are some dialogues in Historical Records, which show the characters' different personalities and mental states at that time. The paragraph about Mao Sui's self-recommendation in Biography of Ping Yuanjun shows the different identities and personalities of Ping Yuanjun and Mao Sui, especially Mao Sui's sharp and lively answer and the confession of "please enter the bag", which is really "heroic and heroic, and it is conceivable that it is awe-inspiring and admirable" (Volume 5 of Five Records of Hong Mai's Rong Zhai). Historical Records often quotes folk songs, proverbs and common sayings in narration and narration. Because they came into being and spread among the people, they summed up the vast social life, and they are a kind of pithy and combative and expressive language, which makes the language of Historical Records richer and more vivid, and effectively expresses the author's criticism of historical events and figures. For example, Huainan Hengshan Biography quoted folk songs, and Wei Qiwu Anhou Biography quoted Yingchuan children's songs, satirizing the ruling class; "Biography of General Li" quoted a proverb: "Don't talk about peaches and plums, learn from others" to show that good people don't need to sell themselves, and they will naturally gain the respect of others. In addition, such as "the son of a thousand women does not die in the city" and "the world is bustling, all for profit; All the noise in the world is for the benefit (the above biographies). Those who combine their rights and abolish their rights (Zheng) and those who are blinded by interests (biographies) are profound expositions of old customs and habits in the old society, which will help readers understand history and people. At present, the language of historical records is so-called classical Chinese rather than vernacular, but it is a written language refined and processed on the basis of spoken language at that time, which is quite close to the language at that time. Moreover, in order to make those incomprehensible ancient books understood by ordinary people, Sima Qian often changed the words that had become rigid or unclear into ordinary and easy-to-understand languages when quoting ancient books.