History of Ancient Kingdoms and Vassal States in Northeast China, authored by Professor Bing Zheng, an expert of the CNNSC, was officially published in December 2018 and received a nomination for the “Guo Moruo Prize in Chinese History”, the highest award in Chinese historiography, in 2023.
From its structure to its content, the overall planning and layout of this book converge on one goal-- academic innovation. Previous general histories of Northeast China followed the sequence of dynasties, chronicling the history of the region chapter by chapter and dynasty by dynasty. The distinguishing feature of this series is that it breaks away from the “dynasty system” and treats each “kingdom” and “vassal state” in Northeast China as a political entity, documenting their rise and fall from beginning to end. The series adopts the structure of the Twenty-Four Histories with some modifications. Its main “components” are as follows: a general history that records the rise and fall of each political entity; a “zhi” (records) section that covers politics, economy, officialdom, administration, ethnicity, culture, customs, and so on, with adjustable content based on the actual situation of each kingdom or vassal state in different periods to reflect the true history of the political entity; then, biographies that feature influential figures from each political entity; followed by a “kaoyi” (textual research and variant readings) section that lists academic controversies, unclear historical facts, insufficient evidence, and other issues that require textual research to resolve; after that, there are charts, a chronological table of major events, and finally, a section of references. Obviously, the setup of these items adopts some practices of the biographical style in theTwenty-Four Histories; at the same time, it incorporates contemporary academic research content, such as general histories, textual research, and chronological tables of major events, combining traditional and contemporary styles into one, which can be called a “synthesis of ancient and modern styles”.
