With the aim of "learning from the ups and downs of previous lives and examining the gains and losses of today", Zi Tong Zhi Jian focuses on the political events of past dynasties and pays attention to the analysis of the reasons for the ups and downs of chaos and the summary of experience. The book has beautiful words, vivid narration, rigorous style and rich historical materials, which has high historical and literary value and has a great influence on the development of later historiography.
The Book "Learning from the Past" enables rulers to know their present by observing their past, take history as a mirror, examine the gains and losses from the rise and fall of dynasties, sum up experiences and learn lessons, thus consolidating the rule of the Northern Song Dynasty and facilitating future generations to read history.
Extended data:
From the Northern Song Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, Tong Jian has always been a history textbook often used at emperors' banquets, so it was called "the emperor's textbook" by Liang Qichao.
In order to consolidate the feudal regime at that time, Sima Guang compiled "Capitalism as a Mirror", which determined that the content of the book was mainly political history. In the whole compilation process, Sima Guang took Jun as the starting point and the way of the wise as the starting point.
In the process of compiling, Sima Guang "learned from the ups and downs of previous lives and examined the gains and losses of present people", while inheriting the predecessors, he also developed. He divided the monarchs in history into five categories according to their abilities: pioneering, staying put, supernatural, resurgence and chaos. To a certain extent, he exposed and condemned the success or failure of historical figures as a lesson for later monarchs.
Baidu Encyclopedia-Purple Tongzhi Sword