The Study Of A New History Of The Five Dynasties

Of the twenty-four official history works, 2 were edited or written by Ouyang Xiu, of which A New History of the Five Dynasties is enough to represent his historical thinking. However, studies of Ouyang Xiu's achievement concentrated more on literature than on his historical thinking, a part that has not been specially examined and therefore remains a blank in historical study. That is why the author of this paper has decided to begin her study from the New History of the Five Dynasties towards an all-round systematization of Ouyang Xiu's historical thinking. This paper contains the following chapters.Chapter 1 centers on the sociological and academic background for writing the New History of the Five Dynasties and on Ouyang Xiu's philosophical and political thinking, with a view to offer a platform for studying the New History. The way he understood The Book of Change and Spring and Autumn in the wake of Confucian Revival and his explanation of "orthodoxy" display the philosophical, political and ideological guide-line running through the New History; and the analysis of the non-official authorship of the New History and the new research method serve to provide reasons for the essence of Ouyang Xiu's historical thinking.Chapters 2 and 3 mainly analyze the layout of the New History of the Five Dynasties, the source of its historical materials and their value, with probes in the innovation seen through comparison and in the inclination based on literary sketches. A comparison between the History of the Five Dynasties and the New History leads to the view that in terms of historical materials, the latter is a far cry in value. Analyses of individual cases show a preference of the New History in altering historical materials, i.e., honoring the kings, the guideline of Spring and Autumn, which runs through the layout, the choice of materials, and the standards of entering characters.Chapters 4-7 is the main part of the paper, with analyses on the content of the New History of the Five Dynasties. Chapter 4 centers on how the New Historycriticizes Buddhism, Taoism, fatalism and various kinds of superstition,which reflects Ouyang Xiu's Confucian orthodoxy, an inheritance of Han Yu's theory in upholding Confucianism against Buddhism and such like superstition. Chapter 5 mainly discusses how Ouyang Xiu thoroughly carried forward the "king-apotheosis and hostility to neighbouring ethnic groups" as expressed in Spring and Autmn.To emphasize royal authority, the New History spares no effort in criticizing behaviors like usurping royal power, murdering of rulers, overstepping authority, and offending the superior, with a view to foreground the Confucian thinking of loyalty, filial piety, moral integrity, and righteousness. For emphasis on hostility to neighboring tribes, he thoroughly denied and depreciated the minority people's national power and custom in the New History. Chapter 6 mainly studies the form and content of the historiographical theory seen in the New History of the Five Dynasties,.Forms and figures are there to show that, compared with past theories, the New History has the character of more and longer arguments, more citations, and broader content. In terms of the theory itself, it no longer deals with things as they stand, but is guided throughout by the king-apotheosis and by loyalty, filial piety, moral integrity and righteousness, which obviously embodies a preference in history study to Confucian classics. Chapter 7 makes a comprehensive study of the annotation in the New History of the Five Dynasties, concluding with a view directly opposed to that of the present academic world: The author of this paper thinks that the annotation of the New History completely reflects Ouyang Xiu's aim for writing this book and answers its purpose. After analytical studies of the Compilation Errors in the History of the Five Dynasties, a work by Wu Zhen criticizing the New History, the author of the present paper thinks that Wu Zhen's textual research was based on reliable facts and rightly reflected the New History paying more attention to argument than fact. However,Wu's criticism was overshadowed by the eminent social and academic position of Ouyang Xiu and even incurred personal abuse.Even up to the present times Wu Zhen's work is still not fully made use of.Chapter 8 mainly discusses the influence of the New History of the Five Dynasties.lt is the earliest representative work of rationalist historiography of the4...