1. Seeking truth from facts is the basic requirement and core issue of historical compilation, and it is also one of the important contents of Shi Tong. Li Qiuyuan's "Shi Tong's Realistic Spirit" (Research on Shi Xue's History No.2, 1988) holds that Shi Tong's realistic spirit has three manifestations: first, it discusses that the compilation of historical books must be "customized" and "at any time" from the aspects of genre, style and language, so as to faithfully reflect history. The second is your straight book and your pen. The third is to believe in disasters and attach importance to personnel. De Ji Hua's Record of Liu Zhiji (Research on the History of Historiography, No.3, 1995) combines the revision of the political and historical museum in the early Tang Dynasty with Liu Zhiji's historical proposition of "record", and holds that Liu Zhiji systematically and comprehensively discussed and summarized "record" for the first time in the history of China, forming a unique historical principle. He put the relationship between history and real life, the social function of history, history and history, the historian's knowledge structure, the historian's choice of people, articles and events, and historical criticism and historical criticism in this category, so as to analyze and judge history books and historians. In particular, Liu Zhiji dared to sharply criticize Confucius, the Book of Jin, other official histories compiled by the Tang Dynasty, Biography of Tang Shi compiled by the History Museum and so on. The principle of "record" is its solid foundation and starting point.
Second, about Liu Zhiji's comments on Historical Records and Hanshu. Historical Records and Hanshu are representative works of China's ancient biographical history books. Sima Qian and Ban Gu's thoughts are profound. Liu Zhiji's evaluation of the two shows many contradictions. In the 1980s, there was a debate about whether Liu "respected classes and restrained horses". Liu Wenying said that Liu Zhiji often pushed the chronology and suppressed the general history. The suppression of Mayangban was also reasonable from the practical point of view of compiling history books at that time (Historical Position of Shi Tong, No.6 of Literature and History Philosophy, 198 1). Xu Lingyun's Comments on the Mistakes in Liu Zhiji's Historical Biography (History Teaching in Middle Schools, No.5, 1983), Liu Zhiji's Argument on "Suppressing Ma Yangban" (Jianghan Forum, No.0/984, No.01period), and Liu Zhiji's Opinions on "Suppressing Ma Yangban".
Shi Ding believes that Liu Zhiji affirmed Sima Qian's original spirit, record-keeping spirit and historical talent. Therefore, on the whole, Liu Zhiji's Historical Records is divided into two parts, pointing out the length, which is mainly based on the length (On Liu Zhiji and Zhang Xuecheng's Evaluation of Sima Qian, A New Theory of Sima Qian, Henan People's Publishing House, first edition, 1982). Jia pointed out: Regarding the comment on the origin of historical biography, Liu Zhiji clearly claimed that historical biography was the ancestor of Han, and did not suppress Mayangban. Regarding biographies and historical comments, Liu is not innovative, and there is no so-called horse control. Regarding the evaluation of Shi and Han, Liu certainly criticized Shi and praised Han a lot, but he also praised Historical Records and criticized it, so it is far from "suppressing Mayang class" (on Shi Tong and Mayang class-discussing with comrades), Jianghan
Xu Lingyun believes that Liu Zhiji's exploration of historian's subjective consciousness, that is, historian's accomplishment, is an important part of summing up the historical system and the soul and essence of his historical theory. Liu Zhiji's understanding of this is mainly reflected in the theoretical system of "Shi Sancai" and "Calligraphy Notes". The combination of the two forms Liu Zhiji's comprehensive requirements for the subjective quality of historical cognition (On Liu Zhiji's Subjective Consciousness of Historians, No.3 of Confucius Studies, 1989). Third, on Liu Zhiji's theory of "three strengths of historical talents". "Three Long Theories" refers to the knowledge structure of historians. As a reasonable and orderly collocation of all kinds of knowledge, knowledge structure is one of the key conditions for historians to be competent in studying and compiling history, especially to creatively promote historical progress.
There are different opinions about when Zhang Xuecheng put forward the "Three Long Theories", where it originated, and the relationship between "historical knowledge" and "historical morality". According to Zheng Li's records, in the third year of Chang 'an (AD 703), Liu Zhiji put forward the "Three Long Theories" (On Liu Zhiji and its History and New Construction, No.2, 1958). Liu Zhiji's theory of "talent, learning and knowledge" is generally believed to have evolved from ancient "literature, matter, meaning" and "meaning". The "Three Long Theories" is a summary of previous historiography and a significant development of China's ancient historiography theory.
Gao Zhenduo's On Liu Zhiji and His Historians disagreed with the above two viewpoints. In his view, Liu Zhiji put forward the "Three Long Theories" in the early years of Kaiyuan, and the specific time was 7 13. The reason is that in the early years of Kaiyuan, Zheng Weizhong was appointed as the minister of rites. Secondly, only years of experience in studying history can make such profound insights. For the origin of the "three long theories". Gao Wen believes that "talent, learning and knowledge" does not evolve from "literature, things, meaning" and "meaning", and the evolved explanation is specious. The key lies in how to understand the contents of concepts such as "text, matter, meaning" and "meaning". "Literature" and "talent" are incompatible, and "things" are not similar to "learning". The meaning is like "historical knowledge", but Liu Zhiji fundamentally opposes Confucius' incorrect historical method of doubting the classics. "Meaning" and "righteousness" cannot be compared. Ye Fan's "meaning" is not about history, but about literary works and how articles express a person's mind (The Third Volume of Social Science Series of Northeast Normal University, On Ancient Historical Figures in China, 1980).
On the Relationship between "Historical Knowledge" and "Virtue". Cang's Shi De Shi Zhi Bian holds that the meaning and content they refer to are not the same thing. "Historical knowledge" refers to the views or opinions on problems, such as Liu's "original opinions". "Morality" refers to whether historians can be faithful to historical facts. Therefore, whether literally or literally, "historical knowledge" cannot be explained by "historical morality" (China Literature and History Series No.3, 1979). Jiang Shengli believes that,
The basic content of "Shide" is already available in Liu Zhiji's Historical Records. Zhang Xuecheng misunderstood the meaning of Liu Zhiji's Theory of Historical Knowledge and specially wrote Shide, emphasizing that it is an indispensable part of the theory of historical knowledge, so as to mark the difference between him and Liu Zhiji in the theory of historical knowledge. Therefore, Zhang Xuecheng's theoretical exposition of the conditions that historiography should have is not to create a "historiography theory", but to deepen and develop Liu's "three long theories" of historiography (Liu Zhiji Zhang Xuecheng's Theory of Historiography Knowledge and its Relationship, No.3 Research on Historiography, 1983).