Wu Lan Repair And South Han Ji

Wu Lanxiu, who was a scholar in period of JiaQing and DaoGuang of Qing dynasty, had had achievements in study of Confucian classics, history, epigraphy, literature, mathematics and many other fields. His historic achievements could be found everywhere, particularly in his study of South Han. Successively, he finished "History of South Han", "Geography of South Han", and "Epigraphy of South Han" and the first one was recognized as "the champion of books about Ten Kingdoms" by Wu Chongyao who was a famous book collector.Prior to Wu Lanxiu's "History of South Han", and since the lost of "Rise and Fall of Family Liu", documents about South Han were isolated in different history books, and mainly scattered in Old and New Tang Dynasty, Old and New History of Five Dynasties, General Mirror for the Aid of Government, and many other sorts of resources without systemic connections and access to even historic scholars. Though Wu Renchen's "Histories of the Ten kingdoms" had exclusively talked about South Han in some chapters, he failed to mark references and avoid mistakes many times. Wu Lanxiu, on the contrary, collected materials extensively and finished his book by analysing and reasoning them carefully."History of South Han" by Wu Lanxiu was a history book systematically recording the 55 years of the dynasty's five kings. It was written in annalistic style, following the model specially for emperors. With the five kings as center,, by forms of main content and sub-content, the book depicted the dynasty's rise and fall in 55 years and things happened to the rulers and their subjects in detail. In the main content, the book focused on the five kings' names and fame and their basic stories by time sequence with comments at the end of each chapter and respectively the process of rise and fall at the beginning and end. Besides, it mentioned the dynasty's economy and diplomacy too, though simply. Furthermore, Wu Lanxiu inserted materials mentioned not in main content in sub-content in the form of double lines' quotation, and the sub-content was consisted of references, comments, and appendix. Reference was resources and interpretation of main content; comment was Wu's analysis and inference of his resources; and appendix was about other kinds of records about South Han, like funeral oration, marks on stone tablet and pagoda, literary works by contemporary writers.Generally to say, "History of South Han" was a book of distinctive style with both inheritance and innovation. It quoted so comprehensively that could be viewed as a collection of materials about South Han. On one hand, it recorded the period realistically; on the other hand, it provided clues for research on history of South Han.