Study On Wang Te-ch'en And His Chu-shih

"Chu-shih" is a note-style miscellany written by a famous scholar of the Northern Song Dynasty- Wang Te-ch'en . The origin of the materials of the book is mainly from what the author heard and saw in person and chattings with relatives and friends since the early age.Wang Te-ch'en lived during the reign of five emperors including Renzong, Yingzong, Shenzong, Zhezong and Huizong in the Northern Song Dynasty with a span nearly three decades (1068-1097). He knew the politics and customs very well due to his accumulated work and life experience, therefore, what Wang Te-ch'en 's seen and heard is rather of historical value. The whole book consists of 44 men (category or rubric) and a total of 281 clauses stemming from the three juan(section ). Chu-shih Cover a wide range of contents such as the history of the Northern Song Dynasty imperial court, anecdotes, geography, folk, identification of the similarities and differences between classics, deep-funded research, anecdotal talk, etc. It was praised by people at that time.An enormous amount of useful contents such as politics, geography, history, literature, institutions, systems,customs can be dug out from Chu-shih which has many-sided values and worthy of deep research and utilization. However, the examination and systematic studies on Wang Te-ch'en and his Chu-shih in the academic circles never be made by now( only some sporadic quotes of the clauses from the book), so it is necessary to study on Wang Te-ch'en and his Chu-shih.This article do deep research on Wang Te-ch'en and his Chu-shih, make an in-depth overview of the contents of Chu-shih based on examination and correction of the editions in the history and the study of the author and his family. This article also analyze its historical sources, concentrate primarily on the historical learning and evidential research, discusses the historical context of the Chu-shih by comparing it with some official history classics such as "the History of Song Dynasty" and "Xu Zhi Zhi Tong Jian Chang Bian". Through the focused reseach, I seek to make an important contributions to our understanding of the Wang Te-ch'en and his Chu-shih.