Sima Qian, Wade-Giles romanization Ssu-ma Ch’ien, (born c. 145 bce, Longmen, Xiayang [now Hancheng, Shaanxi province], China—died c. 87 bce), astronomer, calendar expert, and the first great Chinese historian. He is most noted for his authorship of the Shiji (“Historical Records”), which is considered to be the most important history of China down to the end of the 2nd century.

Life

Sima Qian was the son of Sima Tan, the grand historian (sometimes translated as “astronomer royal”) at the Han court during the period 140–110 bce. The office of grand historian combined responsibility for astronomical observations and for the regulation of the calendar with the duties of keeping a daily record of state events and court ceremonies. After traveling extensively in his youth, Sima Qian entered court service. In 111 he accompanied a military expedition into the southwest of China, and in 110 he was a member of the Wudi emperor’s entourage when the latter visited Mount Tai to conduct the sacrifices symbolizing the dynasty’s authority. In the same year, his father died, and after the mandatory period of mourning he was appointed in 108 to succeed him in the post of grand historian.

In 105 he was among those responsible for a complete reform of the Chinese calendar, a reform prompted by the Wudi emperor’s inauguration of what was to be a “new beginning” to the Han dynasty. At about the same time, Sima Qian began to undertake the unfulfilled ambition of his father to write a definitive history of the Chinese past, an ambition strengthened by his belief that under Wudi the Han had reached a peak of achievement that deserved to be recorded for posterity. Before his history was completed, however, Sima Qian deeply offended the emperor by coming to the defense of a disgraced general. Sima Qian was arraigned for “defaming the emperor,” a capital crime. Either because the emperor felt him too valuable a man to lose or because Sima Qian himself requested a reprieve so that he could complete his history, he was castrated instead of executed.

Wudi later relented, and Sima Qian again rose in the imperial favour, becoming palace secretary (zhongshuling). But he remained bitterly conscious of the shame he had suffered and lived a retiring life, devoting himself to the completion of his great masterpiece.

Structure and content of Shiji

The Shiji is his great claim to fame. There had, of course, been many histories before Sima Qian’s time. The keeping of court chronicles was already an established practice under the earlier dynasties. One such work, the Chunqiu(“Spring and Autumn [Annals]”) of the petty state of Lu, was said to have been the work of Confucius. It had achieved status as a canonical book largely because of its ethical judgments on the events that it recounts.

Sima Qian denied that his work was in any way comparable to this great Classic. He termed himself not a “maker,” like Confucius, but merely a “transmitter” of past events. His great successor as historian of the Han, Ban Gu (32?–92 ce), took him to task for his haphazard use of ideas from the various schools of philosophy and for his devotion to Daoism. But the ethical standards of Han Confucianism that Ban Gu and his contemporaries could take for granted had not in Sima Qian’s lifetime achieved the authority they had by the 1st century ce. Like most of his contemporaries, Sima Qian was an eclectic, employed at a court at which magic and the supernatural were still deemed potent forces and where the state religious cult and accepted moral and political standards were still in a fluid state. Sima Qian’s moral judgments are, thus, not in accordance with any consistent theories.

His main achievement was that he reduced to an orderly narrative the complex events of the past, recorded in often contradictory sources deriving from the many independent states, each of which employed its own chronology. He organized these facts not, as in previous histories, simply as a chronologically ordered record but according to a new five-part plan. The “Basic Annals” gave a dated chronological outline centred on events at the court considered to have been the paramount power at the time. The following section consisted of chronological tables in which he attempted to clarify the confusion of the history of the various independent feudal kingdoms and to enable his reader to see at a glance what was happening in each of the states at any given time. The detailed accounts of each state were given in chapters entitled “The Hereditary Houses.” A number of monographs dealt with various crucial aspects of government. These sections show Sima Qian to have favoured the practical reformist statesmen who, in his own time, were formulating new policies for the increasingly centralized state, rather than the proponents of Confucian moral theories. The work ends with a collection of “Biographies” that deal with a variety of famous individuals, who are selected as exemplars of various types of conduct, and also with the affairs of the various foreign peoples, relations with whom were beginning to become increasingly important during the reign of Wudi.

The Shiji provided a model for the later dynastic histories but differs from them in many ways. Its time span is far longer: such attempts to encompass the whole of human history were rare among later Chinese historians. Its source material, too, was far more varied. It incorporated not only the court annals of the Qin and the Han dynasties but also various earlier histories, parts of court chronicles of various feudal states, and material from the canonical books and the philosophical writings of all the schools, even historical romances. Neither is his subject matter exclusively court-centred and “political,” as were the later histories; it includes a far wider range of society, including businessmen and merchants, condottieri and bandits, actors and court favourites, good officials and bad.

Sima Qian did not attempt to compose “objective” history but rather belonged unmistakably to the didactic Chinese tradition of history. He makes moral judgments on his characters. He also attempts to characterize them in types, recording an individual’s exemplary deeds in one chapter and his misdeeds elsewhere. But the lessons he derives from history are varied and often mutually incompatible. He is much more notable for the critical attention he devotes to his sources. His acute critical comments are appended at the end of each chapter.

Influence

Sima Qian is important not only as a historian but also as a master of racy, flexible Chinese prose. He exerted a potent influence on later writers, particularly upon the early writers of narrative prose and fiction. Since Sima Qian’s time, his history has been acknowledged as the great historical masterpiece in Chinese, a standard against which all later histories would be measured and a model for large-scale historical composition, not only in China but in all East Asian countries influenced by the Chinese literary tradition.

Sima Qian was a Chinese historian of the early Han dynasty (206 BC – AD 220). He is considered the father of Chinese historiography for his Records of the Grand Historian, a Jizhuanti-style (history presented in a series of biographies) general history of China, covering more than two thousand years from the Yellow Emperor to his time, during the reign of Emperor Wu of Han, a work that had much influence for centuries afterwards on history-writing not only in China, but in Korea, Japan and Vietnam as well. Although he worked as the Court Astrologer (Tàishǐ Lìng 太史令), later generations refer to him as the Grand Historian (Tàishǐ Gōng 太史公) for his monumental work; a work which in later generations would often only be somewhat tacitly or glancingly acknowledged as an achievement only made possible by his acceptance and endurance of punitive actions against him, including imprisonment, castration, and subjection to servility.

Early life and education

Sima Qian was born at Xiayang in Zuopingyi (near modern Hancheng, Shaanxi Province) around 145 BC, though some sources give his birth year as around 135 BC. Around 136 BC, his father, Sima Tan, received an appointment to the relatively low-ranking position of "grand historian" (tàishǐ 太史, alt. "grand scribe" or "grand astrologer"). The grand historian's primary duty was to formulate the yearly calendar, identifying which days were ritually auspicious or inauspicious, and present it to the emperor prior to New Year's Day. Besides these duties, the grand historian was also to travel with the emperor for important rituals and to record the daily events both at the court and within the country. By his account, by the age of ten Sima was able to "read the old writings" and was considered to be a promising scholar. Sima grew up in a Confucian environment, and Sima always regarded his historical work as an act of Confucian filial piety to his father.

In 126 BC, around the age of twenty, Sima Qian began an extensive tour around China as it existed in the Han dynasty. He started his journey from the imperial capital, Chang'an (modern Xi'an), then went south across the Yangtze River to Changsha (modern Hunan Province), where he visited the Miluo River site where the ancient poet Qu Yuan was traditionally said to have drowned himself. He then went to seek the burial place of the legendary Xia dynasty rulers Yu on Mount Kuaiji and Shun in the Jiuyi Mountains (modern Ningyuan County, Hunan). He then went north to Huaiyin (modern Huai'an, Jiangsu Province) to see the grave of Han dynasty general Han Xin, then continued north to Qufu, the hometown of Confucius, where he studied ritual and other traditional subjects.

As Han court official

After his travels, Sima was chosen to be a Palace Attendant in the government, whose duties were to inspect different parts of the country with Emperor Wu in 122 BC. Sima married young and had one daughter. In 110 BC, at the age of thirty-five, Sima Qian was sent westward on a military expedition against some "barbarian" tribes. That year, his father fell ill due to the distress of not being invited to attend the Imperial Feng Sacrifice. Suspecting his time was running out, he summoned his son back home to complete the historical work he had begun. Sima Tan wanted to follow the Annals of Spring and Autumn—the first chronicle in the history of Chinese literature. Fueled by his father's inspiration, Sima Qian started to compile Shiji, which became known in English as the Records of the Grand Historian, in 109 BC. Three years after the death of his father, Sima Qian assumed his father's previous position as Court Astrologer. In 105 BC, Sima was among the scholars chosen to reform the calendar. As a senior imperial official, Sima was also in the position to offer counsel to the emperor on general affairs of state.

The Li Ling affair

In 99 BC, Sima Qian became embroiled in the Li Ling affair, where Li Ling and Li Guangli, two military officers who led a campaign against the Xiongnu in the north, were defeated and taken captive. Emperor Wu attributed the defeat to Li Ling, with all government officials subsequently condemning him for it. Sima was the only person to defend Li Ling, who had never been his friend but whom he respected. Emperor Wu interpreted Sima's defence of Li as an attack on his brother-in-law, Li Guangli, who had also fought against the Xiongnu without much success, and sentenced Sima to death. At that time, execution could be commuted either by money or castration. Since Sima did not have enough money to atone his "crime", he chose the latter and was then thrown into prison, where he endured three years. He described his pain thus: "When you see the jailer you abjectly touch the ground with your forehead. At the mere sight of his underlings you are seized with terror ... Such ignominy can never be wiped away." Sima called his castration "the worst of all punishments".

In 96 BC, on his release from prison, Sima chose to live on as a palace eunuch to complete his histories, rather than commit suicide as was expected of a gentleman-scholar who had been disgraced with castration. As Sima Qian himself explained in his Letter to Ren An:

• If even the lowest slave and scullion maid can bear to commit suicide, why should not one like myself be able to do what has to be done? But the reason I have not refused to bear these ills and have continued to live, dwelling in vileness and disgrace without taking my leave, is that I grieve that I have things in my heart which I have not been able to express fully, and I am shamed to think that after I am gone my writings will not be known to posterity. Too numerous to record are the men of ancient times who were rich and noble and whose names have yet vanished away. It is only those who were masterful and sure, the truly extraordinary men, who are still remembered. ... I too have ventured not to be modest but have entrusted myself to my useless writings. I have gathered up and brought together the old traditions of the world which were scattered and lost. I have examined the deeds and events of the past and investigated the principles behind their success and failure, their rise and decay, in one hundred and thirty chapters. I wished to examine into all that concerns heaven and man, to penetrate the changes of the past and present, completing all as the work of one family. But before I had finished my rough manuscript, I met with this calamity. It is because I regretted that it had not been completed that I submitted to the extreme penalty without rancor. When I have truly completed this work, I shall deposit it in the Famous Mountain. If it may be handed down to men who will appreciate it, and penetrate to the villages and great cities, then though I should suffer a thousand mutilations, what regret should I have?

— Sima Qian, translation by Burton Watson

Records of the Grand Historian

Sima was greatly influenced by Confucius's Spring and Autumn Annals, which on the surface is a succinct chronology from the events of the reigns of the twelve dukes of Lu from 722 to 484 BC. Many Chinese scholars have and still do view how Confucius ordered his chronology as the ideal example of how history should be written, especially with regards to what he chose to include and to exclude; and his choice of words as indicating moral judgements Seen in this light, the Spring and Autumn Annals are a moral guide to the proper way of living. Sima took this view himself as he explained:

• It [Spring and Autumn Annals] distinguishes what is suspicious and doubtful, clarifies right and wrong, and settles points which are uncertain. It calls good good and bad bad, honours the worthy, and condemns the unworthy. It preserves states which are lost and restores the perishing family. It brings to light what was neglected and restores what was abandoned.
  

Sima saw the Shiji as being in the same tradition as he explained in his introduction to chapter 61 of the Shiji where he wrote:

• "Some people say 'It is Heaven's way, without distinction of persons, to keep the good perpetually supplied. ' Can we say then that Po I and Shu Ch'I were good men or not? They clung to righteousness and were pure in their deeds … yet they starved to death … Robber Chih day after day killed innocent men, making mincemeat of their flesh … But in the end he lived to a great old age. For what virtue did he deserve this? … I find myself in much perplexity. Is this so-called 'Way of Heaven' right or wrong?"

To resolve this theodical problem, Sima argued that while the wicked may succeed and the good may suffer in their own life-times, it is the historian who ensures that in the end good triumphs. For Sima, the writing of history was no mere antiquarian pursuit, but was rather a vital moral task as the historian would "preserve memory", and thereby ensure the ultimate victory of good over evil. Along these lines, Sima wrote:

• "Su Ch'in and his two brothers all achieved fame among the feudal lords as itinerant strategists. Their policies laid great stress upon stratagems and shifts of power. But because Su Ch'in died a traitor's death, the world has united in scoffing at him and has been loath to study his policies … Su Ch'in arouse from the humblest beginnings to lead the Six States in the Vertical Alliance, and this is evidence that he possessed an intelligence surpassing the ordinary person. For this reason I have set forth this account of his deeds, arranging them in proper chronological order, so that he may not forever suffer from an evil reputation and be known for nothing else".

Such a moralizing approach to history with the historian high-guiding the good and evil to provide lessons for the present could be dangerous for the historian as it could bring down the wrath of the state onto the historian as happened to Sima himself. As such, the historian had to tread carefully and often expressed his judgements in a circuitous way designed to fool the censor. Sima himself in the conclusion to chapter 110 of the Shiji declared that he was writing in this tradition where he stated:

• "When Confucius wrote the Spring and Autumn Annals, he was very open in treating the reigns of Yin and Huan, the early dukes of Lu; but when he came to the later period of Dukes Ding and Ai, his writing was much more covert. Because in the latter case he was writing about his own times, he did not express his judgements frankly, but used subtle and guarded language."

Bearing this in mind, not everything that Sima wrote should be understood as conveying didactical moral lessons. But several historians have suggested that parts of the Shiji, such as where Sima placed his section on Confucius's use of indirect criticism in the part of the book dealing with the Xiongnu "barbarians" might indicate his disapproval of the foreign policy of the Emperor Wu.

In writing Shiji, Sima initiated a new writing style by presenting history in a series of biographies. His work extends over 130 chapters—not in historical sequence, but divided into particular subjects, including annals, chronicles, and treatises—on music, ceremonies, calendars, religion, economics, and extended biographies. Sima's work influenced the writing style of other histories outside of China as well, such as the Goryeo (Korean) history the Samguk sagi. Sima adopted a new method in sorting out the historical data and a new approach to writing historical records. At the beginning of the Shiji, Sima declared himself a follower of Confucius's approach in the Analects to "hear much but leave to one side that which is doubtful, and speak with due caution concerning the remainder". Reflecting these rigorous analytic methods, Sima declared that he would not write about periods of history where there was insufficient documentation. As such, Sima wrote "the ages before the Ch'in dynasty are too far away and the material on them too scanty to permit a detailed account of them here". In the same way, Sima discounted accounts in the traditional records that were "ridiculous" such as the pretense that Prince Tan could via the use of magic make the clouds rain grain and horses grow horns. Sima constantly compared accounts found in the manuscripts with what he considered reliable sources like Confucian classics like the Book of Odes, Book of History, Book of Rites, Book of Music, Book of Changes and Spring and Autumn Annals. When Sima encountered a story that could not be cross-checked with the Confucian classics, he systemically compared the information with other documents. Sima mentioned at least 75 books he used for cross-checking. Furthermore, Sima often questioned people about historical events they had experienced. Sima mentioned after one of his trips across China that: "When I had occasion to pass through Feng and Beiyi questioned the elderly people who were about the place, visited the old home of Xiao He, Cao Can, Fan Kuai and Xiahou Ying, and learned much about the early days. How different it was from the stories one hears!" Reflecting the traditional Chinese reverence for age, Sima stated that he preferred to interview the elderly as he believed that they were the most likely to supply him with correct and truthful information about had happened in the past. During one of this trips, Sima mentioned that he was overcome with emotion when he saw the carriage of Confucius together with his clothes and various other personal items that had belonged to Confucius.

Despite his very large debts to Confucian tradition, Sima was an innovator in four ways. To begin with, Sima's work was concerned with the history of the known world. Previous Chinese historians had only focused on only one dynasty and/or region. Sima's history of 130 chapters began with the legendary Yellow Emperor to his own time, and covered not only China, but also neighboring nations like Korea and Vietnam. In this regard, Sima was significant as the first Chinese historian to treat the peoples living to the north of the Great Wall like the Xiongnu as human beings who were implicitly the equals of the Middle Kingdom, instead of the traditional approach which had portrayed the Xiongnu as savages who had the appearance of humans, but the minds of animals. In his comments about the Xiongnu, Sima refrained from evoking claims about the innate moral superiority of the Han over the "northern barbarians" that were the standard rhetorical tropes of Chinese historians in this period. Likewise, Sima in his chapter about the Xiongnu condemns those advisors who pursue the "expediency of the moment", that is advise the Emperor to carry policies such as conquests of other nations that bring a brief moment of glory, but burden the state with the enormous financial and often human costs of holding on to the conquered land. Sima was engaging in an indirect criticism of the advisors of the Emperor Wu who were urging him to pursue a policy of aggression towards the Xiongnu and conquer all their land, a policy that Sima was apparently opposed to.

Sima also broke new ground by using more sources like interviewing witnesses, visiting places where historical occurrences had happened, and examining documents from different regions and/or times. Before Chinese historians had tended to use only reign histories as their sources. The Shiji was further very novel in Chinese historiography by examining historical events outside of the courts, providing a broader history than the traditional court-based histories had done. Lastly, Sima broke with the traditional chronological structure of Chinese history. Sima instead had divided the Shiji into five divisions: the basic annals which comprised the first 12 chapters, the chronological tables which comprised the next 10 chapters, treatises on particular subjects which make up 8 chapters, accounts of the ruling families which take up 30 chapters, and biographies of various eminent people which are the last 70 chapters. The annals follow the traditional Chinese pattern of court-based histories of the lives of various emperors and their families. The chronological tables are graphs recounting the political history of China. The treatises are essays on topics such as astronomy, music, religion, hydraulic engineering and economics. The last section dealing with biographies covers both famous people, both Chinese and foreign. Unlike traditional Chinese historians, Sima went beyond the androcentric, emperor-focused histories by dealing with the lives of women and men such as poets, bureaucrats, merchants, assassins, and philosophers. The treatises section, the biographies sections and the annals section relating to the Qin dynasty (as a former dynasty, there was more freedom to write about the Qin than there was about the reigning Han dynasty) that make up 40% of the Shiji have aroused the most interest from historians and are the only parts of the Shiji that have been translated into English.

When Sima placed his subjects was often his way of expressing obliquely moral judgements. Empress Lü and Xiang Yu were the effective rulers of China during reigns Hui of the Han and Yi of Chu, respectively, so Sima placed both their lives in the basic annals. Likewise, Confucius is included in the fourth section rather the fifth where he properly belonged as a way of showing his eminent virtue. The structure of the Shiji allowed Sima to tell the same stories in different ways, which allowed him to pass his moral judgements. For example, in the basic annals section, the Emperor Gaozu is portrayed as a good leader whereas in the section dealing with his rival Xiang Yu, the Emperor is portrayed unflatteringly. Likewise, the chapter on Xiang presents him in a favorable light whereas the chapter on Gaozu portrays him in more darker colors. At the end of most of the chapters, Sima usually wrote a commentary in which he judged how the individual lived up to traditional Chinese values like filial piety, humility, self-discipline, hard work and concern for the less fortunate. Sima analyzed the records and sorted out those that could serve the purpose of Shiji. He intended to discover the patterns and principles of the development of human history. Sima also emphasized, for the first time in Chinese history, the role of individual men in affecting the historical development of China and his historical perception that a country cannot escape from the fate of growth and decay.

Unlike the Book of Han, which was written under the supervision of the imperial dynasty, Shiji was a privately written history since he refused to write Shiji as an official history covering only those of high rank. The work also covers people of the lower classes and is therefore considered a "veritable record" of the darker side of the dynasty. In Sima's time, literature and history were not seen as separate disciplines as they are now, and Sima wrote his magnum opus in a very literary style, making extensive use of irony, sarcasm, juxtaposition of events, characterization, direct speech and invented speeches, which led the American historian Jennifer Jay to describe parts of the Shiji as reading more like a historical novel than a work of history. For an example, Sima tells the story of a Chinese eunuch named Zhonghang Xue who become an advisor to the Xiongnu kings. Sima provides a long dialogue between Zhonghang and an envoy sent by the Emperor Wen of China during which the latter disparages the Xiongnu as "savages" whose customs are barbaric while Zhonghang defends the Xiongnu customs as either justified and/or as morally equal to Chinese customs, at times even morally superior as Zhonghang draws a contrast between the bloody succession struggles in China where family members would murder one another to be Emperor vs. the more orderly succession of the Xiongnu kings. The American historian Tamara Chin wrote that though Zhonghang did exist, the dialogue is merely a "literacy device" for Sima to make points that he could not otherwise make. The favorable picture of the traitor Zhonghang who went over to the Xiongnu who bests the Emperor's loyal envoy in an ethnographic argument about what is the morally superior nation appears to be Sima's way of attacking the entire Chinese court system where the Emperor preferred the lies told by his sycophantic advisors over the truth told by his honest advisors as inherently corrupt and depraved. The point is reinforced by the fact that Sima has Zhonghang speak the language of an idealized Confucian official whereas the Emperor's envoy's language is dismissed as "mere twittering and chatter". Elsewhere in the Shiji Sima portrayed the Xiongnu less favorably, so the debate was most almost certainly more Sima's way of criticizing the Chinese court system and less genuine praise for the Xiongnu.

Sima has often been criticized for "historizing" myths and legends as he assigned dates to mythical and legendary figures from ancient Chinese history together with what appears to be suspiciously precise genealogies of leading families over the course of several millennia (including his own where he traces the descent of the Sima family from legendary emperors in the distant past). However, archaeological discoveries in recent decades have confirmed aspects of the Shiji, and suggested that even if the sections of the Shiji dealing with the ancient past are not totally true, that at least Sima wrote down what he believed to be true. In particular, archaeological finds have confirmed the basic accuracy of the Shiji including the reigns and locations of tombs of ancient rulers.

Literary figure

Sima's Shiji is respected as a model of biographical literature with high literary value and still stands as a textbook for the study of classical Chinese. Sima's works were influential to Chinese writing, serving as ideal models for various types of prose within the neo-classical ("renaissance" 复古) movement of the Tang-Song period. The great use of characterisation and plotting also influenced fiction writing, including the classical short stories of the middle and late medieval period (Tang-Ming) as well as the vernacular novel of the late imperial period. Sima had immense influence on historiography not only in China, but also in Japan and Korea. For centuries afterwards, the Shiji was regarded as the greatest history book written in Asia. Sima is little known in the English-speaking world as a full translation of the Shiji has never been attempted.

His influence was derived primarily from the following elements of his writing: his skillful depiction of historical characters using details of their speech, conversations, and actions; his innovative use of informal, humorous, and varied language; and the simplicity and conciseness of his style. Even the 20th-century literary critic Lu Xun regarded Shiji as "the historians' most perfect song, a "Li Sao" without the rhyme" (史家之绝唱，无韵之离骚) in his "Hanwenxueshi Gangyao" (汉文学史纲要).

Other literary works

Sima's famous letter to his friend Ren An about his sufferings during the Li Ling Affair and his perseverance in writing Shiji is today regarded as a highly admired example of literary prose style, studied widely in China even today.

Sima Qian wrote eight rhapsodies (fu 赋), which are listed in the bibliographic treatise of the Book of Han. All but one, the "Rhapsody in Lament for Gentleman who do not Meet their Time" (士不遇赋) have been lost, and even the surviving example is probably not complete.

Astrologer

Sima and his father were both court astrologers (taishi 太史) in the Former Han Dynasty. At that time, the astrologer had an important role, responsible for interpreting and predicting the course of government according to the influence of the Sun, Moon, and stars, as well as other phenomena such as solar eclipses and earthquakes.

Before compiling Shiji, Sima Qian was involved in the creation of the 104 BC Taichu Calendar 太初历 (太初 means "the beginning"), a modification of the Qin calendar. This is the first Chinese calendar whose full method of calculation 曆法 has been preserved.

The minor planet "12620 Simaqian" is named in his honour.

Descendants

Before his castration, Sima Qian was recorded to have two sons and a daughter. While little is recorded of his sons, his daughter later married Yang Chang (杨敞), and had sons Yang Zhong (杨忠) and Yang Yun (杨恽). It was Yang Yun who hid his grandfather's great work, and decided to release it during the reign of Emperor Xuan.

Speaking truth to power has always been a high-risk strategy in China. Its rulers tend to prefer flattery, and writers who forget this do so at their peril. China's "grand historian" - 2,000 years ago - was one of many who have paid a terrible price.

Born between 145 and 135 BC to a family of court astrologers

"Among defilements, none is so great as castration. Any man who continues to live having suffered such a punishment is accounted as a nothing."

The man who wrote those words is by no means a nothing today. In a nation obsessed by its history, Sima Qian was the first and some say the greatest historian.

Wind back two millennia. It is 99 BC. On China's northern frontier, imperial forces have surrendered to barbarians. At court, the news is greeted with shock. The emperor is raging.

But an upstart official defies court etiquette by speaking up for the defeated general.

"He is a man with many famous victories to his credit, a man far above the ordinary, while these courtiers - whose sole concern has been preserving themselves and their families - seize on one mistake. I felt sick at heart to see it," writes Sima Qian in a letter to a friend afterwards.

The general had committed treason by surrendering. And Sima Qian had committed treason by defending him.

"None of my friends came to my aid, none of my colleagues spoke a word on my behalf," he writes.

There is an interrogation. Sima Qian tells his friend his body is not made of wood or stone. "I was alone with my inquisitors, shut in the darkness of my cell."

At the end he is offered an unenviable choice - death or castration. To his contemporaries, death was the only honourable option but Sima Qian had a bigger audience in mind than the Chinese court of the 1st Century BC. He was writing a history of humanity for posterity.

Sima Qian's father had been court historian before him and had started the project. On his sickbed, with both of them in tears, the father extracted from the son a promise to complete the epic work.

So he chose castration.

"If I had followed custom and submitted to execution, how would it have made a difference greater than the loss of a strand of hair from a herd of oxen or the life of a solitary ant?" he wrote.

"A man has only one death. That death may be as weighty as Mount Tai or it may be as light as a goose feather. It all depends on the way he uses it."

Father, Sima Tan, is prefect of grand scribes to Emperor Wu of Han

But neither in the letter nor in his autobiography can Sima Qian bring himself to describe the horror of castration. He talks instead of going down to the "silkworm chamber".

It was already well known that a castrated man could easily die from blood loss or infection so after mutilation the victims were kept like silkworms in a warm, draught-free room.

Sima Qian never recovered from the humiliation.

"I look at myself now, mutilated in body and living in vile disgrace. Every time I think of this shame I find myself drenched in sweat."

But he also wrote that if, as a result of his sacrifice, his work ended up being handed down to men who would appreciate it, reaching villages and great cities, then he would have no regrets even after suffering 1,000 mutilations.

If only he could have seen the future as well as he saw the past.

Sima Qian becomes grand historian three years after his father's death in 110 BC

In today's China, Sima Qian's book, The Records of the Grand Historian, is regarded as the grandest history of them all. What Herodotus is to Europeans, so Sima Qian is to Chinese.

What is special about Sima Qian's history is that, even when he wrote about the court, it was not just flattery. Here is his verdict on an emperor from the Shang dynasty 1,000 years earlier:

"Emperor Zhou's disposition was sharp, his discernment was keen, and his physical strength excelled that of other people. He fought ferocious animals with his bare hands. He considered everyone beneath him. He was fond of wine, licentious in pleasure and doted on women…

"He then ordered his Music Master to compose new licentious music and depraved songs. By a pool filled with wine, through meat hanging like a forest, he made naked men and women chase one another and engage in drinking long into the night."

The emperor had critics turned into mincemeat, and nobles who were not up for the party roasted alive.

Creates an advanced form of calendar in 104 BC

Zhou was a good illustration of a theory Sima Qian had about dynastic change, as Frances Wood, curator of the Chinese collection at the British Library, explains.

"He introduced the idea… that dynasties begin with the very virtuous and noble founder, and then they continue through a series of rulers until they come to a bad last ruler, and he is so morally depraved that he is overthrown."

No suprises - Zhou was the last of the Shang dynasty.

Sima Qian thought the purpose of history was to teach rulers how to govern well.

By contrast, China's current government - like every other Chinese government I can think of - sees it as a means of legitimising its rule.

"History is totally political in China, and I think it always has been," says Frances Wood.

Just look, she says, at the fate of historians in 20th Century China.

"Somebody who actually became deputy mayor of Peking, Wu Han, was a very important historian who had written about the first Ming emperor.

"The first Ming emperor… in 1368, he's often been compared with Mao Tse-Tung, because he was a charismatic bandit leader who, in his last years, went pretty crazy and paranoid. So you have Wu Han writing that history in the 1950s, which was a very dangerous thing to do, because Mao was already beginning to totter into paranoia."

For criticising the present by writing about the past, Wu Han was arrested. He died in prison in 1969.

In 99 BC he offends the emperor - he later becomes a palace eunuch

Last year China re-opened its national museum, lauded as the world's biggest museum under one roof. It is hugely popular, but it illustrates just how much history is a pick-and-mix for China's rulers. They leave out the bits that do not do them credit and - masters of selective memory - they big up the moments they are proud of.

So instead of the tens of millions who died in Mao's Great Leap forward and the Cultural Revolution, you get China's first nuclear test in 1964, or a celebration of the reform era after Mao's death.

A panel as you exit the museum spells out the key message: "Since the founding of the Communist Party of China 90 years ago, under the strong leadership of the Party, our great nation has successively achieved many historic changes… Socialism is the only way to save China, and reform and opening up is the only way to develop China."

I am sure Sima Qian would hope someone like him is sitting unnoticed in a quiet corner writing a more nuanced history of this period, even if it can only be published when the powerful have passed on.

The Records of the Grand Historian cover a period of 2,500 years

This, in fact, is how The Records of the Grand Historian saw the light of day.

After his death, his daughter risked her own safety to hide his secret history. And two emperors later, his grandson took another risk in revealing the book's existence. The rest, as they say, is history.

Translation of The Grand Scribe's Records by William Nienhauser. Letter to Ren An by Burton Watson.