History of the Southern Dynasties

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The History of the Southern Dynasties is one of the official Chinese historical works in the Twenty-Four Histories canon. It contain 80 volumes and covers the period from 420 to 589, the histories of the Liu Song, Southern Qi, Liang, and Chen dynasties in southern China during the Northern and Southern dynasties period. Like the History of the Northern Dynasties, the book was started by Li Dashi. Following his death, Li Yanshou (李延壽), his son, completed the work on the book between 643 and 659.^[1] As a historian, Li Yanshou also took part of some of the compilation during the early Tang dynasty. Unlike the many other contemporary historical texts, the book was not commissioned by the state.