Liu Song historian whose commentary on Chen Shou's Records of the Three Kingdoms, finished in 429, preserves extracts from scores of lost histories
Mural guide
In an archive hall, tall wooden shelves hold scrolls and bound books with small tags, and one person climbs a ladder with their back turned; a long table in front holds an unrolled river map, a bronze lamp and a copper jug, with a city wall seen through the window.
Pei Songzhi, courtesy name Shiqi, came from Wenxi in Hedong; by eight he knew the Analects and the Book of Songs, and at twenty he became a palace guard officer. Under the late Eastern Jin he served as magistrate of Guzhang in Wuxing and in the Ministry of Rites, and in 416 he followed Liu Yu's northern campaign to Luoyang as a registrar. Under the Song he became an erudite of the national academy and in 426 toured Xiang province as an imperial envoy. Emperor Wen commissioned him to annotate Chen Shou's Records of the Three Kingdoms; he collected biographies and other records to fill gaps, set out conflicting versions side by side and judged between them, and presented the work in 429. He later governed Yongjia and ended his career as a palace counsellor, dying in 451 at seventy-nine. His son Pei Yin wrote the Shiji jijie commentary on the Records of the Grand Historian, and his great-grandson Pei Ziye wrote the Song lue.
Commissioned to annotate the Records of the Three Kingdoms
Eastern Jin to Liu Song
Pei Songzhi became a General of the Palace at twenty. The emperor ordered him to annotate Chen Shou's Records of the Three Kingdoms; he collected biographies and records, added variant accounts, and presented the finished commentary. He later rose to Grand Master of the Palace while keeping his Erudite post, and was assigned to continue He Chengtian's state history, but died in 451, at eighty, before he could write it.
Jin
Northern and Southern