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Although this history written in the traditional biographical-thematical style (jizhuanti 紀傳體) shows rather a simplistic literary technique, it can not be omitted when studying the history of Northern Song 北宋.
Wang Cheng 王稱 (sometimes falsely written 王偁) was an official of the historiographic compilation bureau of the Southern Song and thus had access to important sources that were not used in the official dynastic history of the Song, the Songshi 宋史 compiled during the Yuan period 元. Capital of the Northern Song was Kaifeng 開封 (modern Kaifeng/Henan), at that time called the "Eastern Capital" (in contrast to Chang'an 長安 [modern Xi'an 西安/Shaanxi] or Luoyang 洛陽 [modern Luoyang/Henan] more to the west), hence the name of this book. The whole history is 130 scrolls (juan 卷) long, among these 12 scrolls for imperial biographies (diji 帝紀), 5 scrolls biographies of noble families (shijia 世家), 105 normal biographies including the empresses (liezhuan 列傳), and 8 appendent monographs about foreign countries including the Liao 遼, Jin 金 and Western Xia 西夏 empires, competitors with the Song. |
| Chapters of the Dongdu shilüe |
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