Song Yingzong ordered Sima Guang's chronicle to record the deeds of the next generation of emperors and generals. In view of the past, Emperor Zongshen was given the name "Zi Tongzhi Jian", which is the purpose of the preface. Wen Gong's original intention is to focus on the rise and fall of the country and take pleasure in the happiness of the people. Good can be the law, evil can be the precept. Those who think it's a book. Between Zhiping and Xining, it is also a day for the public and others to discuss the right and wrong of state affairs. The dispute between Xiao and Cao's painting is not enough to win the mouth of the reformists. They are divided into Xijing, don't care about the country, and concentrate on the bookstore. Loyalty can't be expressed by itself, so can Zhi Bo's theory of talent and virtue, Fan Ying's theory of existence in name only, Tang Taizong's theory of enjoyment, and the dispute between Li Deyu and Niu Senru over maintenance and affairs. As for the humorous words of Huang Zan Chuo and Shi, I still want to keep them as a warning, but it is impossible for future generations to know them all. Chronology is nothing!
The rate of critics in the world: "Classics carry Tao, history books carry Tao, and history is different from Japan." There are all kinds of things and a lot of things to do. Because of the gains and losses of things, we can know the evils of the ages, but history can be less! A gentleman does not know to be a mirror, wants to govern without knowing the source of autonomy, and does not know the art of preventing chaos. If you are a minister and don't know Tong Jian, then you have nothing to do with the monarch and nothing to do with the people. A son, who doesn't know as a mirror, is humiliated first and can't do things later. It's like using soldiers to make laws and regulations, not knowing what the ancients got, but knowing what they lost. It's inevitable that they won and lost.
Looking through several pages of Zi Tong Zhi Jian, we can see that Hu Sansheng's exposition is not only concise, but also to the point. "Learning from each other as a mirror" is indeed a work that runs through history or takes history as a mirror, which has raised the traditional "taking history as a mirror" to a new height. In a word, or in a word: A Mirror of Mutual Learning is not a history book, but an Ecclesiastical book. (202 1-9-30)