Солтүстік Вэй және Шығыс Вэй тарихы: Вэй Шоудың «Вэй шұжыңы»

Book by Wei Shou about Northern Wei and Eastern Wei dynasties
the historical text concerning the Northern and Eastern Wei from 386 to 550

The Book of Wei, also known by its Chinese name as the Wei Shu, is a classic Chinese historical text compiled by Wei Shou from 551 to 554, and is an important text describing the history of the Northern Wei and Eastern Wei from 386 to 550. Widely regarded as the official and authoritative source historical text for that period, it is one of the Twenty Four Histories.

The Northern Wei dynasty was established in 386 by the Tuoba clan. The greatest accomplishment of the Northern Wei dynasty was the unification of Northern China in 439. An internal struggle resulted in a split which introduced the Eastern Wei and the Western Wei. The Eastern Wei dynasty was short lived. Established in 534, several military campaigns were fought to try and reunite east and west but each failed. In 550, the area was taken over by Gao Yang who founded his own dynasty which he names the Northern Qi. It is the history of these two dynasties that Wei Shou attempted to record. In compiling the work, Wei Shou managed to withstand pressure, with the help of the Northern Qi emperor, from powerful elites who wanted him to glorify their otherwise disputed ancestral origins. Detractors of the work referred to the book as Hui Shu (穢書), nearly pronounced as 'Wei Shu', but meaning "Book of Filth". From a modern reader's perspective, the book had problems characteristic of other works in Twenty Four Histories, as it praised the subject dynasty of interest (in this case the Northern Wei). It likely overstated the power of her predecessor state Dai, which was a vassal of Western Jin, Later Zhao, Former Yan, and Former Qin. Further, it retroactively used the sinicized surnames introduced by Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei in 496 to apply to events long before, making it difficult for readers to know what the actual names of historical personages were. In addition, Wei Shou was criticized in that, as an official of the Eastern Wei and its successor state Northern Qi, he included the sole emperor of Eastern Wei, Emperor Xiaojing, among his imperial lists while intentionally omitting the three emperors from the rival state Western Wei after the division of the Northern Wei in 534. However, he was credited with harmonizing highly confusing and fragmented accounts of historical events from the state of Dai to the early period of Northern Wei and creating coherent accounts of events.

The content of the Book of Wei follows the format of previous standard histories. The first fifteen chapters are annals (紀) describing the lives and events of the emperors, with the first being a preface.

Dien translates parts of volume 59, which describes the dispute between the Northern Wei and Liu Song at Pengcheng. Lee translates part of volume 111 describing the case of Liu Hui (劉輝), who committed adultery while married to Princess Lanling (蘭陵公主).