Records of the Three Kingdoms

Records of the Three Kingdoms (Sānguó zhì 三國志) is a compilation of historical texts that cover the years 189 - 280 AD; thus starting with the usurpation by Dong Zhuo and ending with the unification of China under Jin. The work was written by Chen Shou in the 3rd century, after the fall of Shu. The work combines the smaller histories of the rival states of Wei, Shu and Wu of the Three Kingdoms into a single text.

Origin
The work was written by one Chen Shou, a former subject of Shu-Han who became Gentleman of Works for Wei after the fall of Shu in 163 AD. He was assigned to create a history of the Three Kingdoms period. He did so, by collecting the official histories of Wei and later Wu (after the fall of Wu in 280). Shu, however, did not have its own official history. Chen Shou therefore relied on his own memory as well as primary documents, such as works written by Zhuge Liang, which he had collected.

Chen Shou divided his work into three 'books' (shū 書); The Book of Wei, the Book of Shu and the Book of Wu. The Book of Wei was the largest, consisting of exactly 30 volumes. The Book of Shu was the smallest, with only 15 short volumes. The Book of Wu consisted of 20 volumes, a rather low amount for the kingdom that survived the longest. Because Chen Shou was a former Shu subject and at the time of writing a Wei, and later Jin subject some argue that bias can be found towards Wei and Shu, and against Wu. A good example of this would be how Chen Shou addresses the rulers of each kingdom. A ruler of Wei is referred to as "Emperor", a ruler of Shu is referred to as "Lord", but a ruler of Wu is simply referred to as "Wu leader" or "Wu ruler".

When Chen Shou completed the work later in the 3rd century it was just one of many history works. It was the imperial command that Pei Songzhi should compile a commentary which established Chen Shou's writing in the canon of Chinese tradition.

Pei Songzhi's Annotations
In the fifth century the work was further annotated by Pei Songzhi 裴松之 making the work three times as long as the original. After completing the annotations on Sanguo zhi, the work became the official history of the Three Kingdoms period, under the title Sanguo zhi zhu.

Contents
As mentioned above the work is divided into three volumes, or 'books' (shū 書); the Book of Wei (Wèi shū 魏書), the Book of Shu (Shǔ shū 蜀書) and the Book of Wu (Wú shū 吳書). The preceeding Han Dynasty and the succeeding Jin Dynasty are subject in the Book of the Later Han and the Book of Jin and thus not discussed in this work.