Part IV deals with the reigns, so to speak, of the vassal nobles under the feudal system, the reigns of the suzerains having been already included in Part I.
Part V consists of biographies of the most eminent men who came to the front during the whole period covered.
These biographies are by no means confined to virtuous statesmen or heroic generals, as we might very reasonably have expected. The Chinese historian took a much broader view of his responsibilities to future ages, and along with the above virtuous statesmen and heroic generals he included lives of famous assassins, of tyrannical officials, of courtiers, of flatterers, of men with nothing beyond the gift of the gab, of politicians, of fortune-tellers, and the like.
This principle seems now to be widely recognised in the compilation of biographical collections. It was initiated by a Chinese historian one hundred years B.C.
His great work has come down to us as near as possible intact. To the Chinese it is, and always has been, a priceless treasure; so much so that every succeeding Dynastic History has been modelled pretty much upon the same lines.
The custom has always been for the incoming dynasty to issue the history of the dynasty it has overthrown, based upon materials which have been gathered daily during the latter's lease of power. At this moment the Historiographer's Department in Peking should be noting down current events for the use of posterity, in the established belief that all dynasties, even the most powerful, come to an end some day.
In addition to the Dynastic History proper, a custom has grown up of compiling what is called the "Veritable Record" of the life of the reigning Emperor. This is supposed to be written up every day, and with an absolute fidelity which it is unnecessary to suspect, since the Emperors are never allowed under any circumstances to cast an eye over their own records.
When the Hanlin College was burnt down, in 1900, some said that the "Veritable Records" of the present dynasty were destroyed. Others alleged that they had been carted away several days previously. However this may be, the "Veritable Records" of the great Ming dynasty, which came to a close in 1644, after three hundred years of power, are safe in Division B of the Cambridge Library, filling eighty-four large volumes of manuscript.
The next historical epoch is that of Ssŭ-ma Kuang, a leading statesman and scholar of the eleventh century A.D., who, after nineteen years of continuous labour, produced a general history of China, in the form of a chronological narrative, beginning with the fourth century B.C. and ending with the middle of the tenth century A.D. This work, which is popularly known as The Mirror of History, and is quite independent of the dynastic histories, fills thirty-three of our large bound-up volumes.
There is a quaint passage in the old man's Preface, dated 1084, and addressed to the Emperor:—