And so when, because of a single indiscretion, courtiers whose sole concern had been preserving themselves whole and protecting their wives and children seized on his mistake to brew disfavor against him, I felt pain for him in my innermost heart.
When they marched deep into the territory of the mounted nomads, they might as well have been marching straight into the Xiongnu court itself. They challenged the barbarian strength on all sides, facing an army of millions. For over ten days they fought the shanyu ,6 killing more than their own number. The enemy had no time to bear off their dead or succor their wounded. Their pelt-clad leaders trembled in fear.
But then the commanders of their left and right divisions sent out a call for every able archer, and all the tribes joined as one to attack Li Ling together, and they surrounded his troops. By then the dead and wounded lay in heaps. And still, when Li Ling called out to rouse his army not a soldier failed to leap to the fight, wiping their tears over their bloodied faces. Stifling their sobs they brandished empty bows and braved naked blades, facing north and fighting the enemy to the death, -.
Seeing my ruler so depressed and filled with regret, I lost sight of my own humble rank and my heart yearned to convey my frank thoughts to him. I felt that Li Ling had always been a man who led by giving up his own comforts and sharing what he had with those under his command, so that his men would fight for him to the death. Not even the famous generals of antiquity could surpass him. Although he had now fallen in defeat, his intent had clearly been to do the right thing and fulfill his duty to the Imperial House.
There was nothing now that he could do, but the destruction that his troops had already wrought upon the enemy was plainly visible for the world to see.
But I was myself insufficiently clear and the emperor could not perceive my sense. He saw in my words a critique of General Li Guangli, who had led the relief brigade, and believing that I was speaking as a partisan of Li Ling he had me sent down for prosecution. Not all my earnest loyalty could justify myself to my inquisitors. I was convicted of attempting to delude my ruler and the sentence received imperial approval.
None of my friends came to my aid, none of my close colleagues spoke a word on my behalf. My body is not made of wood or stone. I was alone with my inquisitors, shut in the darkness of my cell. Whom could I appeal to? You have experienced this yourself, Shaoqing.
How was it any different with me? In surrendering alive Li Ling destroyed the reputation of his family. Oh, such shame! This is not something I could ever bring myself to recount to an ordinary person. If I had followed custom and submitted instead 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?
For no one would have ranked me with those who die out of loyalty to a code of principle; they would instead have believed that having exhausted my store of wisdom, branded a criminal offender, unable to find any way out of my predicament, I had simply let myself be led to slaughter.
And why? Because of the station I had settled on in life. A man dies only once. His death may be a matter weighty as Mount Tai or light as a feather. It all depends on the reason for which he dies. The best of men die to avoid disgrace to their forbears; the next best to avoid disgrace to their persons; the next to avoid disgrace to their dignity; the next to avoid disgrace to their word.
But the very worst disgrace of all is castration. When a fierce tiger roams deep in the mountains, all animals tremble in fear, but once he has fallen into captivity, through the gradual curtailment of his dignity he will come to wave his tail and beg for his food. Hence if you draw the outline of a jail on the ground, you cannot induce a man of resolve to step within it, and if you carve wood to the image of an inquisitor he will not address it, so set is his intent to have no such encounters.
But cross his hands and feet to receive the shackles, bare his back to receive the whip, plunge him in the dark of the dungeon — now he sees his inquisitor and bows his face to the ground, sees the jail guards and gasps in terror. It is the result of the gradual curtailment of his dignity. To have reached such a state and say there is in this no disgrace would be nothing but shamelessness, wholly unworthy of respect.
Ji Bu spent a term as the slave of the Zhu family, and Guan Fu was disgraced in prison. Once having failed to do away with themselves before falling into the clutches of the law, and having then been worn down by degrees between the whip and the bastinado, committing suicide on principle had moved far beyond their reach.
This is surely why the ancients viewed corporal punishment for men of grandee rank as excessive. When a man who is passionate about righteousness acts contrary to it, it is due to the force of such inescapable dispositions. Now, I had the misfortune to lose my father and mother early. Though I may be a coward who could cling to life by self-serving conduct, surely I know the difference between flagrant right and wrong.
How could I have plunged myself into the ignominy of bring tied and bound? Even a captive slave-girl is capable of putting an end to herself, and surely I could have done so as well, had it been the inescapably correct path.
The reason why I bore the intolerable and clung to my life, refusing to release myself from the filth into which I had been cast, was the remorse I felt at the prospect of leaving the achievement dearest my heart incomplete, quitting the world like a vulgar nonentity with the written emblem of my lifework unrevealed to posterity. These men all found their aspirations stifled, the paths they sought to travel blocked, and they spoke to future generations by telling the tales of the past.
At home I feel dazed, as though seeking something lost, and abroad I lose track of where I am going. Every time I think of this shame, sweat never fails to spring from my body and drench the clothes on my back.
I am fit only to be a lackey guarding the harem, or better yet to hide myself deep within a cliffside cave. And yet for now I follow along with the daily flow as best I can, bending and bowing as circumstances demand, making my way through a world of erratic confusion.
Shiji Shiji Ji Bu was a warrior in the service of Xiang Yu; Liu Bang put a price on his head when the Han was founded and Ji lived in disguise as a slave of the Zhu clan before ultimately receiving a pardon. Shiji 11 These men had all risen to the ranks of kings and lords, generals and prime ministers, and their fame spread from state to state.
But once they fell into the nets of the law they lacked the resolution to put an end to themselves — it has always been so, then and now: in such cases, how can disgrace be avoided?
From this we can see that valor and cowardice are matters of circumstance, strength and weakness depend on conditions. No one had attempted anything like it before. He had to plan the organization of the text and read widely to become fully informed about the outline of the past. But more than that, he had to search out evidence.
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 some safe place. 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 would I have?
In 96 B. About a decade later, the emperor died and shortly thereafter, so did Qima Sian. Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Use precise geolocation data. Select personalised content. Create a personalised content profile. Measure ad performance. Select basic ads. Create a personalised ads profile. Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products.
List of Partners vendors. Share Flipboard Email. Ancient History and Latin Expert. Gill is a Latinist, writer, and teacher of ancient history and Latin. Updated January 13, Featured Video. He considered everyone beneath him.
He was fond of wine, licentious in pleasure and doted on women…. 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. 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.
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. Just look, she says, at the fate of historians in 20th Century China. So you have Wu Han writing that history in the s, 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 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 , 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.
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.
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