History of the Northern Dynasties

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The History of the Northern Dynasties (Chinese: 《北史》; pinyin: Běishǐ; lit. 'North History'') is one of the official Chinese historical works in the Twenty-Four Histories canon. The text contains 100 volumes and covers the period from 386 to 618, the histories of Northern Wei, Western Wei, Eastern Wei, Northern Zhou, Northern Qi, and Sui dynasty. Like the History of the Southern Dynasties, the book was started by Li Dashi and compiled from texts of the Book of Wei and Book of Zhou. Following his death, Li Yanshou (李延寿), son of Li Dashi, completed the work on the book between 643 and 659. Unlike most of the rest of the Twenty-Four Histories, this work was not commissioned by the state.^[1]