First, the characteristics of historiography

The historiography of this period has formed different characteristics from the past:

1, the official history books are diverse and rich in content.

In the Song Dynasty, institutions such as National History Museum and Local Records Museum were established to compile history. There are many genres of official history in Song Dynasty, such as calendar, annals, society and national history. The details and length of the official history records surpass the prosperity of Han and Tang Dynasties. In the Central Committee of the Yuan Dynasty, there were Hanlin National History Institute, Arts and Culture Supervision Bureau and other institutions responsible for compiling history, and there were many kinds of history books.

2. Private writing is active.

In the Song Dynasty for nearly 300 years, the culture was developed and the wind of private history compilation prevailed. In addition to privately written contemporary history, there are general history, institutional history and other historical books. The Yuan Dynasty did not exercise ideological control over all ethnic groups in China, which contributed to the active writing of private historical records. Private historical records include previous academic summaries, laws and regulations, general history and contemporary history.

3. During the Song and Yuan Dynasties, the integration of Confucian scholars' poems became an important part of historiography.

During this period, most of the poems of famous Confucian scholars were preserved. These poems are either written by himself or compiled by his descendants, and their contents involve contemporary historical facts, laws and regulations, economic development, ideology and culture, social life, etc., which have become an important reference for us to understand the history of Song and Yuan Dynasties.

4. Local chronicles have become an important achievement in the development of Song and Yuan historiography.

The compilation of local chronicles in Song and Yuan Dynasties was basically completed. Not only the central government attaches importance to the compilation of local chronicles, but also local governments support the compilation of local chronicles. There are nearly 30 kinds of local chronicles in Song Dynasty, and nearly 10 kinds in Yuan Dynasty.

The historical record of travel notes has greatly increased.

Some envoys recorded what they saw and heard in the course of their missions in the form of travel notes, which became an important reference for people to understand the minority regime at that time. After the Song Dynasty, the Mongolian and Yuan Dynasties had a vast territory and close ties with neighboring countries. Therefore, more scholars, envoys, tourists and businessmen, including some foreigners, have travel notes to leave.

6. Non-Chinese history books began to appear.

In the Yuan Dynasty, there were many historical books in non-Chinese, Mongolian and Tibetan were widely used in the Yuan Dynasty, and Persian was also used on different occasions. These non-Chinese classics focus on things different from Chinese classics, which can not only confirm with Chinese historical books, but also supplement the deficiency of Chinese historical materials, making the history of Song and Yuan Dynasties more colorful.

Second, the main achievements of historical development

During the 400 years of the Song and Yuan Dynasties, great changes have taken place in China society. The traditional culture centered on Confucianism in the Song Dynasty entered a period of high prosperity, and a large number of foreign cultures flowed into China after the unification of the Yuan Dynasty. The increasingly active cultural exchanges and acculturation have had an important impact on the development of historiography.

During the Song and Yuan Dynasties, great achievements were made in summarizing and sorting out the historical achievements of the previous generation. Sima Guang's Zi Tong Zhi Jian created a new situation in the annaling of general history. Zheng Qiao's Tongzhi of Song Dynasty and Ma Yuan's Duanlin Tongkao summarized the previous legal system.