An official dynastic history (zhengshi 正史) for the Jin period 晉 (265-420) was long overdue when the Jinshu 晉書 in 130 chapters (juan "scrolls") was finished in 648. Already during the second half of the Jin period, the Eastern Jin (Dongjin 東晉) (316-420), historiographers had compiled histories of the Western Jin (Xijin 西晉) period. Including all the histories of the Jin dynasty that were written during the rest of the Southern and Northern dynasties period (Nanbeichao 南北朝, 420~589), the early Tang period 唐 (618-907) archives stored 18 histories of the Jin dynasty. All of these books - except Zang Rongxu's 臧榮緒 Jinshu 晉書 - did not include the Eastern Jin period or only covered a few decades. In 646 therefore, emperor Tang Taizong 唐太宗 (r. 626-649) ordered the compilation of an official dynastic history of the Jin. The compilation team was quite large, it was lead by Fang Xuanling 房玄齡 and Chu Suiliang 褚遂良, the final redaction was made by Linghu Defen 令狐德棻. As primary source for the Tang-made Jinshu served in first place Zang Rongxu's Jinshu 晉書, but also the other histories of the Jin, and many literary sources, like the collection Shishuo xinyu 世說新語 "New account of tales of the world ", Gan Bao's 干寶 Soushenji 搜神記 "Investigations into deities", and the Shiliuguo chunqiu 十六國春秋 "Annals of the Sixteen States" for the histories of the "barbarian" realms and empires in the north. These parallel empires posed a great problem for historians as they are polities existing synchronously to the "righteously" ruling dynasty that do not deserve own official histories because they were "rebels", "usurpers", and because they were "barbarians". The problem was solved in the same manner as in the first of official histories, the Shiji 史記 "Records of the [Grand] Historian" Sima Qian 司馬遷: He had created a special type of biography for the feudal lords called shijia 世家 "the hereditary house of ...". In the Jinshu these biographies were called zaiji 載記 "chronological records". The personal biographies (liezhuan 列傳) do not simply tell the history of the particular persons but also include a great deal of their literary works that have been preserved in this way and otherwise would have been lost. The first historic critique of China, Liu Zhiji's 劉知幾 Shitong 史通, critisizes the Jinshu for having neglected the difference between fantastic tales or anecdotes as taken from the Soushenji and Shishuo xinyu, and real history. In his eyes - and that of many other scholars - the Jinshu does not deserve to be incorporated into the official dynastic histories. After the compilation of the Jinshu as the official dynastic history of the Jin period, all other histories of the Jin were eclipsed by this standard history and were only "rediscovered" by Qing period 清 (1644-1911) scholars and republished with a critical apparatus. Unfortunately many of these "Jinshus" are only preserved in fragments. There are nine alternative histories of the Jin period of which parts have survived, the so-called Jiujia jiu Jinshu 九家舊晉書 "The nine old histories of Jin dynasty", annotated by Tang Qiu 湯球 and published with the Shangwu yinshuguan 商務印書館 press in 1936: 1 晉書 Jinshu by 臧榮緒 Zang Rongxu (Qi period), 17 juan surviving 2 晉書 Jinshu by 王隱 Wang Yin (Jin period), 11 juan surviving 3 晉書 Jinshu by 虞預 Yu Yu (Jin period), not much surviving 4 晉書 Jinshu by 朱鳳 Zhu Feng (Jin period), not much surviving 5 晉書 Jinshu by 謝靈運 Xie Lingyun (Liu-Song period), not much surviving 6 晉書 Jinshu by 蕭子雲 Xiao Ziyun (Liang period), not much surviving 7 晉史草 Jinshi cao by 蕭子顯 Xiao Zixian (Liang period), not much surviving 8 晉書 Jinshu by 沈約 Shen Yue (Liang period), not much surviving 9 晉中興書 Jin zhongxin shu by 何法盛 He Fasheng (Liu-Song period), 7 juan surviving and fragments of an anonymous 晉諸公別傳 Jin zhu gong biezhuan Source: Zhongguo da baike quanshu, Zhongguo lishi, vol. 1, p. 479 f. Contents 1-10 帝紀 diji Imperial biographies 11-13 志 zhi Treatises 31-100 列傳 liezhuan Normal and collective biographies --31-32 后妃 houfei Empresses and consorts --37 宗室 zongshi The imperial house --93 外戚 waiqi Families of the empresses --97 四夷 siyi The barbarians of the four cardinal directions 101-130 載記 zaiji Hereditary houses of the barbarian usurpatorious dynasties

Exemplarious translation: Translated by .