Annotated Records of the Three Kingdoms
5th century text compiled by Pei Songzhi
Annotated Records of the Three Kingdoms (simplified Chinese: 三国志注; traditional Chinese: 三國志注; pinyin: Sānguó zhì zhù) by Pei Songzhi (372–451) is an annotation completed in the 5th century of the 3rd century historical text Records of the Three Kingdoms, compiled by Chen Shou. After the fall of the Eastern Jin, Pei Songzhi became the Gentleman of Texts under the Liu Song dynasty, and was given the assignment of editing the book, which was completed in 429. This became the official history of the Three Kingdoms period, under the title Sanguozhi zhu.
Pei went about providing detailed explanations to some of the geography and other elements mentioned in the original. More importantly, he made corrections to the work, in consultation with records he collected of the period. In regard to historical events and figures, as well as Chen Shou's opinions, he added his own commentary. From his broad research, he was able to create a history which was relatively complete, without many of the loose ends of the original. Some of the added material was colourful and of questionable authenticity, possibly fictional. All the additional material made the book close to twice the length of the original. Pei Songzhi scrupulously cited his sources, and always introduced his opinion as such.
“Annotated Records of the Three Kingdoms” enters the record as 5th century text compiled by Pei Songzhi. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Annotated, Records and Three can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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