Why does Zuo's Spring and Autumn Annals use Lu chronology? Why not go back to the Zhou Dynasty?

1, Zuo Zhuan and its writing background

Zuo Zhuan is China's first chronological history book. Legend has it that it was written by Zuo Qiuming, a historian of Lu in the late Spring and Autumn Period. Based on the chronology of Spring and Autumn Annals, this paper describes the history of 255 years from the first year of Luyin (722 BC) to the twenty-seventh year of Lu Aigong (467 BC) in chronological order. Although it is in the chronological order of Lu, it includes political, diplomatic, military and cultural aspects of various countries in the Spring and Autumn Period. This book has high literary achievements, orderly narrative, prominent focus, concise and vivid language and elegant writing, which has a great influence on the development of later literature. The outstanding characteristics of Zuo Zhuan are that he is good at describing the rhetoric of war and pedestrians, and his annotations are clear and accurate, detailed and appropriate, and concise; The screenwriter is concise, precise, gentle and vivid. It is often a few words that can make readers see this person and hear his voice. It not only has high historical value, but also has high literary value. It set an example for later narrative prose. "Biography" means annotation, and Zuo Zhuan is an explanatory text of the Confucian classic Spring and Autumn Annals. Zuo Zhuan is also called Zuo Chunqiu and Chunqiu Zuoshi Zhuan. Together with Biography of Ram and Biography of Guliang, it is called Three Biographies of Spring and Autumn.

For the writing background of this article, see "Famous Schools Alliance".

2. The style of history books

① General history: an uninterrupted narrative of historical events from ancient times to the present, such as Historical Records.

(2) Chronological style: related historical events arranged in chronological order, such as Zuo Zhuan.

(3) State style: the history recorded by the state as a unit, such as the Warring States Policy.

(4) dynastic history: record the history of a certain period or a certain dynasty, such as Hanshu.

⑤ Chronicle: With events as the center, relevant thematic materials are gathered together, which was first created by Yuan Shu in the Southern Song Dynasty, such as Yuan Shu's Chronicle History as a Mirror.

⑥ Biography: Reflect historical events by describing the activities of characters, such as Historical Records.

3. Chronology of ancient China.

The chronology method we are using now is AD chronology. This is a common chronology method in the world now, counting from the year when Jesus was born. There are two main dating methods in ancient China.

One is to record the year by the year number of the feudal dynasty. For example, the title of Emperor Taizong (Li Shimin) was Zhenguan, and he proclaimed himself emperor in 627 AD, which was called the first year of Zhenguan. Four cases (Zhu Youjian), the last emperor of Ming Dynasty, were named Chongzhen when he ascended the throne, and four cases (Emperor Chongzhen) hanged themselves in the sixteenth year of Chongzhen. There has been a title since Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty.

There is also a scientific chronology: the chronology of cadres and branches.

For example, "Sino-Japanese War" and "Xinhai Revolution", in which "Sino-Japanese War" and "Xinhai" are year names, both derived from the chronology method of cadres and branches.

"trunk branch" is a general term for heavenly stem and earthly branch. A, B, C, D, Xu, Ji, Geng, Xin, Ren and Gui are called Tiangan (also called Ten Tiangan); Zi, Ugly, Yin, Mao, Chen, Si, Wu, Wei, Shen, You, Xu and Hai are called earthly branches. Heavenly stems and earthly branches is matched and combined in turn, and its method is odd-numbered days with odd-numbered earthly branches, and even-numbered days with odd-numbered earthly branches. It takes exactly 60 years from Jiazi to Guihai, which is what people usually call 60 Jiazi. The ancients used this method to determine the year, month, day and time.