Pei Songzhi

Biography

Family Background and Early Years

Pei Songzhi belonged to the Hedong Pei clan and was a fifth-generation descendant of Pei Kang. His grandfather Pei Mei held the rank of Grand Master for Splendid Happiness, while his father Pei Gui had served as a Regular Gentleman. He was born into a typical aristocratic official family. From childhood he loved reading. By the age of eight he had mastered the Analects and the Mao Odes, read widely in ancient texts, and lived simply. His biography in the Book of Song says that he “read broadly in the ancient records and conducted himself with simplicity.”

Entry into Eastern Jin Service

In 391, the sixteenth year of the Taiyuan era under Emperor Xiaowu of Jin, the twenty-year-old Pei Songzhi became a Palace General, serving in close attendance. In 398, the second year of the Long'an era under Emperor An of Jin, his maternal uncle Yu Kai, Inspector of Yuzhou, joined Wang Gong, Inspector of Yanzhou and Qingzhou, and others in an attack on Jiankang. After their defeat Yu Kai fled to Huan Xuan at Xiakou. Yu Kai recommended Pei Songzhi for the post of Administrator of Xinye, but Pei judged the situation too dangerous and did not take the appointment. Soon afterward Yu Kai was killed by Huan Xuan amid the fighting among military strongmen, and Pei thereby escaped the same disaster. He later became a Supernumerary Gentleman-in-Attendance.

In the early Yixi era, around 405, Pei served as magistrate of Guzhang in Wuxing. Because of his good record, he was transferred to the capital as an official in the Department of Sacrifices of the Secretariat. There he addressed a practice, widespread since the late Eastern Han, of privately erecting inscribed stelae containing exaggerated or false claims. He submitted a memorial analyzing the harm and argued that inscriptions should accord with the facts and receive public recognition before being engraved in stone. The court adopted his proposal and prohibited private stelae, helping to curb what was regarded at the time as an undesirable practice.

Accompanying Liu Yu on the Northern Expedition

In 416, the twelfth year of the Yixi era, Grand Commandant Liu Yu launched a northern expedition and concurrently served as Inspector of Sizhou. He appointed Pei Songzhi as Registrar of the province and later transferred him to the post of Administrative Aide. After Luoyang was captured, Liu Yu commented: “Pei Songzhi has talent fit for the halls of government; he should not long be left burdened with frontier affairs. I am now summoning him as Attendant to the Heir Apparent, alongside Yin Jingren; let him be informed.” Pei thus became an important member of Liu Yu’s political group. During discussions over the music for the Five Ancestral Temples, Pei argued that the temple music for Consort Zang should be the same as for the other four temples. He was later appointed Administrator of Lingling and then Erudite of the Directorate of Education.

Career under Liu Song

After the Liu Song replaced the Eastern Jin, Pei Songzhi held posts including Administrator of Lingling, Erudite of the Directorate of Education, and Court Gentleman of the Imperial Retinue. In 426, the third year of the Yuanjia era, after Xu Xianzhi and others were executed, Emperor Wen of Liu Song dispatched envoys to inspect the realm. Pei was sent to Xiangzhou. After returning, he summarized the administrative and local conditions he had investigated in twenty-four points and submitted them to the throne; commentators praised his report. Soon afterward he was promoted to Secretariat Court Gentleman and Grand Arbiter for Sizhou and Jizhou.

Annotations to Records of the Three Kingdoms

Emperor Wen ordered Pei Songzhi to annotate Chen Shou’s Records of the Three Kingdoms. Pei “collected biographies and records and expanded the range of variant accounts,” organizing his annotations into four broad categories: filling omissions, preserving variant accounts, correcting falsehoods, and critical discussion. When the completed work was submitted, Emperor Wen praised it highly, saying, “This will be immortal.” The annotated Records of the Three Kingdoms became Pei Songzhi’s greatest scholarly achievement.

Later Years

Pei later left the capital to serve as Administrator of Yongjia, where he showed concern for the people and maintained relatively harmonious relations between officials and local residents. He subsequently returned as Regular Mounted Attendant and again held responsibility as Grand Arbiter for Sizhou and Jizhou before becoming Administrator of Southern Langya. In 437, the fourteenth year of the Yuanjia era, he retired from office, but the court appointed him Palace Counsellor. He soon also became Erudite of the Directorate of Education, was promoted to Grand Master of Remonstrance, and was instructed to continue the state history begun by He Chengtian. He died in 451, the twenty-eighth year of the Yuanjia era, at the age of eighty before he had begun the continuation.

Major Activities

Historical Scholarship: the Annotations to Records of the Three Kingdoms

Pei Songzhi’s central scholarly achievement was his annotation of Records of the Three Kingdoms. In his memorial presenting the annotations, he described four principal methods: filling omissions, preserving variant accounts, correcting falsehoods, and critical discussion.

Filling omissions: Pei supplied important events and biographical details omitted or only briefly treated by Chen Shou. Cao Cao’s establishment of the tuntian agricultural-colony system, for example, received only a short notice in the original text; Pei added a much fuller explanation of its significance as a major policy of Cao Wei. Chen Shou only briefly mentioned Zhuge Liang’s seven captures of Meng Huo, while Pei supplemented the account at greater length. Chen’s treatment of Wang Bi was also extremely short, and Pei quoted He Shao’s biography of Wang Bi for his life and thought, Sun Sheng’s Spring and Autumn of the Wei Clan for contemporary assessments, and the Bowuzhi for his family background. Ma Jun was omitted from the original technical biographies, but Pei supplied an extended account of his life and inventions, including the south-pointing carriage, chain pump, repeating crossbow, stone-throwing device, and an improved brocade loom. Important documents connected with major figures and events—including Cao Cao’s “Decree Declaring His Aims” and “Decree on Recommending the Worthy without Restriction by Conduct,” Cao Pi’s “Letter to Wu Zhi,” and Li Mi’s “Memorial Expressing My Feelings”—were also preserved through Pei’s annotations.

Preserving variant accounts and correcting falsehoods: When different works gave incompatible versions of the same event, Pei copied them into the annotations “to preserve variant reports” and then, where possible, used the base text or other sources to correct what he considered erroneous. One example is Liu Bei’s three visits to Zhuge Liang. The biography of Zhuge Liang gives the familiar account, whereas Yu Huan’s Weilüe and Sima Biao’s Jiuzhou Chunqiu said that Zhuge Liang first visited Liu Bei. Pei included both accounts, then cited the line from the Chu Shi Biao stating that the former emperor “deigned to visit me three times at my thatched cottage” to argue that Zhuge Liang had not been the first to visit Liu Bei.

Critical discussion: Pei evaluated both historical events and the organization of historical writing. He advocated grouping people by comparable type and criticized Chen Shou for placing Jia Xu in the same biography as Xun Yu and Xun You, arguing that Jia Xu should instead have been grouped with strategists such as Cheng Yu and Guo Jia. In narrative, Pei emphasized internal coherence and objected to passages whose language or logic did not make sense. He also paid attention to physical descriptions: regretting Chen Shou’s silence on Xun Yu’s appearance, he quoted the Dianlüe and the Biography of Mi Heng of Pingyuan to supplement it.

The sources that can be identified behind Pei’s annotations number more than 140, over three times the number represented in the base text. The Qing-era Annotated Catalogue of the Complete Library of the Four Treasuries analyzed his methods into six categories: quoting other writers’ judgments to debate right and wrong; comparing accounts to verify falsehoods and variants; expanding events already mentioned in the biography; supplementing events omitted from the biography; expanding the life of persons already mentioned; and appending otherwise unmentioned persons of the same category.

Political Activities

Ban on private stelae: While serving in the Department of Sacrifices of the Secretariat, Pei submitted a memorial criticizing the late-Eastern-Han practice of private stelae that exaggerated achievements and promoted false reputations. He argued that inscriptions should match the facts and receive public recognition before being carved. The court accepted the proposal and prohibited private stelae.

Mission to Xiangzhou: In 426, Pei was sent to Xiangzhou on an inspection mission. He returned with twenty-four items summarizing administrative and local conditions, and his report was praised by commentators.

Debate over the music of the Five Temples: During Liu Yu’s Northern Expedition, Pei participated in discussions over the establishment of ritual music for five ancestral temples and argued that the temple music for Consort Zang should be equal to that of the other four temples.

Travels and Places of Service

Pei Songzhi’s career took him across both northern and southern China. He was born in Wenxi in Hedong, later served in Jiankang, governed Guzhang in Wuxing, accompanied Liu Yu’s expedition as far as Luoyang, traveled to Xiangzhou on imperial assignment, and in his later years served as Administrator of Yongjia and Southern Langya.

Contemporaries and Intellectual Connections

Pei had close ties with Liu Yu’s political circle. Liu Yu praised him as a man of “talent fit for the halls of government” and appointed him Attendant to the Heir Apparent alongside Yin Jingren. His maternal uncle Yu Kai was Inspector of Yuzhou, while his maternal great-grandfather was the prominent Eastern Jin official Yu Liang. Emperor Wen of Liu Song commissioned his annotations of Records of the Three Kingdoms, giving Pei an important relationship of ruler and scholar-patron. In his later years Pei succeeded He Chengtian in the work of compiling the state history, forming a line of scholarly succession.

His posts and writings in the Yuanjia years can be set out by year: in 426 (third year of Yuanjia) he was sent on a mission to Xiangzhou and on his return submitted twenty-four articles on official administration and the people's condition; he was afterwards transferred to vice director of the Secretariat and to the rectorship of the Si and Ji provinces, and was ordered to annotate the Records of the Three Kingdoms, of which Emperor Wen said that it was "a work that will not decay"; he then served as governor of Yongjia, where he cared for the people, was recalled as a senior attendant of the palace and again held the two rectorships before becoming governor of Nanlangya; in 437 (fourteenth year of Yuanjia), at sixty-six, he retired with the title of counsellor of the interior, soon took charge of the imperial college as a doctor, and was later advanced to grand counsellor of the interior while continuing the national history begun by He Chengtian; he died in 449 (twenty-sixth year of Yuanjia) at eighty, the continuation of the history unfinished. His annotation of the Records of the Three Kingdoms, wide-ranging in its citation and correcting and supplying what was missing, became a fundamental source for later study of the Three Kingdoms and established a model for historical annotation.

The distinguishing feature of his scholarship is the equal weight given to supplying what was missing and to weighing evidence: his annotation draws widely on histories, geographies, family records and collected writings, fills out what the Records of the Three Kingdoms leaves out and sets variant accounts side by side where doubt remains, so that it has always been regarded as a model of historical annotation; his son Pei Yin later produced the collected explanation of the Records of the Grand Historian, the two generations both contributing to historical commentary. As to the politics of the Yuanjia years, his movement from local office to the centre and out again to a governorship reflects the alternating postings of gentry officials between court and province in the early Liu Song.

His two spells in local office and two periods at court during the Yuanjia years correspond broadly in time with his scholarly work: the annotation of the Records of the Three Kingdoms followed his governorship of Yongjia and preceded that of Nanlangya, while the continuation of the national history belongs to his last years. His career shows that men of letters and historiography in the early Liu Song moved back and forth between province and centre, their scholarship running alongside their public service.

His annotation of the Records of the Three Kingdoms connects with the official historiography of the early Liu Song: he undertook it by imperial order while vice director of the Secretariat, and later continued the national history begun by He Chengtian until his death, which shows that annotation and the compilation of national history were often entrusted to the same group of civil officials. His son Pei Yin afterwards made the collected explanation of the Records of the Grand Historian, father and son working in a similar manner, both drawing widely on documents and setting variant accounts side by side.

His writing and his public service ran side by side, a typical career for a man of letters in the Yuanjia period.

Personal Relations

• Grandfather: Pei Mei, Grand Master for Splendid Happiness
• Father: Pei Gui, formerly a Regular Gentleman
• Maternal great-grandfather: Yu Liang, prominent Eastern Jin official
• Maternal uncle: Yu Kai, Inspector of Yuzhou
• Son: Pei Yin, author of the Collected Explanations of the Records of the Grand Historian; together with Pei Songzhi and Pei Ziye he was later counted among the “Three Pei Historians”
• Great-grandson: Pei Ziye, historian of the Liang dynasty and author of Song Lüe
• Emperor Wu of Liu Song, Liu Yu: appreciated Pei Songzhi and praised him as a man of “talent fit for the halls of government”
• Emperor Wen of Liu Song, Liu Yilong: ordered Pei Songzhi to annotate Records of the Three Kingdoms and praised the completed annotation as “an immortal work”
• He Chengtian: Pei Songzhi was ordered in his later years to continue the state history after him
• Chen Shou: Pei annotated Chen Shou’s Records of the Three Kingdoms, both supplementing and critically discussing the original

Historical Assessment

Eastern Jin and Southern Dynasties / Contemporary Assessments

• Emperor Wu of Liu Song, Liu Yu: “Pei Songzhi has talent fit for the halls of government.” (Book of Song, Biography of Pei Songzhi)
• Emperor Wen of Liu Song, Liu Yilong: “This will be immortal!” (Book of Song, Biography of Pei Songzhi)
• The Book of Song biography described him as one who “read broadly in the ancient records and conducted himself with simplicity.”

Tang and Song Periods

• Tang historian Liu Zhiji described Pei Songzhi as one of those scholars who broadened an earlier history by gathering divergent accounts and filling omissions, while also criticizing him for collecting too many differences without sufficient pruning and judgment. (Shitong)
• Southern Song bibliographer Chen Zhensun wrote that Pei, acting on imperial commission in the Yuanjia era, gathered biographies and records and expanded variant information, but observed that while the base text was terse, the annotation could become overabundant. (Zhizhai Shulu Jieti, vol. 4)

Ming and Qing Periods

• Ming scholar Hu Yinglin praised the broad collection of side records and miscellaneous accounts in Pei Songzhi’s annotations to the Records of the Three Kingdoms, comparing their value to Liu Xiaobiao’s annotations to A New Account of the Tales of the World and arguing that both preserved many otherwise lost works.
• The Qing Annotated Catalogue of the Complete Library of the Four Treasuries criticized Pei for being overly fond of strange and marvelous material, citing his use of works such as Soushen Ji, Yilin, and Lieyi Zhuan as examples that could obstruct rigorous historical method.
• Qing scholar Zhang Xuecheng argued that Pei’s work depended on Chen Shou’s achievement rather than standing independently.
• Qing scholar Li Ciming judged Pei’s annotations to be the best among historical commentaries because of their broad collection of variant materials combined with critical weighing.

Modern Period

• Yu Jiaxi used the Jiankang Shilu and the “Standard Histories” chapter of the Shitong to reassess Pei Songzhi’s birth and death dates, proposing dates different from those in the Book of Song biography and prompting lasting scholarly debate.
• Chen Jianmei and Wu Yechun’s study of Pei Songzhi and his annotations surveyed modern scholarship on Pei and the Records of the Three Kingdoms annotations.
• Modern historians generally regard Pei Songzhi’s annotations as preserving a large body of otherwise lost source material and as indispensable first-hand material for the study of Three Kingdoms history, with a lasting influence on later historical annotation.