History · Chinese · a primary source for the world of 1200

History of the Yuan

Juan 1, the annals of Taizu (Chinggis Khan), gives a dated outline of Temujin's early wars drawn from the same lost Altan Debter as the Shengwu qinzheng lu: the Tatar war with the Jin in 1196, the Merkit and Naiman campaigns, the Tayichi'ut war, Jamuqa's coalition of 1201 and the Tatar and Kereyit wars of 1202 and 1203. The biographies of his companions (Boorchu, Muqali, Jebe, Subetei and others, from juan 119 onward) and of the Uyghur idiqut Barchuq (juan 122) add names and lineages, and the geography treatise (juan 63) lists the Kyrgyz and the far north-west. It was compiled hastily and repeats its sources' errors, but it is the standard Chinese frame.

About this source

Title
Yuan shi (元史)
Author
Song Lian (宋濂) and the Ming history office
Author's dates
Song Lian 1310 to 1381
Written
1369 to 1370
Language
Chinese
Covers
from the ancestors of Chinggis Khan to 1368; 210 juan
Kind
History

Compiled 140 years after 1200 from Yuan court records; useful for dates and names, weak on motive. Only short extracts exist in English (for example Bretschneider's Mediaeval Researches); no full translation. The Xin Yuan shi (1920) is a modern rewrite and should not be cited as a primary source.

Where to read it

Editions

  • Zhonghua Shuju punctuated edition, 15 vols (1976), the standard edition (not freely online)

Read it online

About the source

Realms this source covers in 1200