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Xi Zuochi (after 316 Shishuo Xinyu 4§80 states Xi Zuochi held high rank in Huan Wen's provincial government before the age of thirty. Huan Wen became Inspector of Jing Province following the death of Yu Yi (庾翼) in 345, indicating a birth year after 316 for Xi Zuochi. Shishuo Xinyu is not a reliable historical text, but this is the closest we have to a record of Xi Zuochi's birth. See Mather, p 142. – 384Xi Zuochi's death has traditionally been dated to October or November 384 (10th month of the 9th year of the Tai'yuan era), as recorded in the Tang dynasty Veritable Records of Jiankang ( Jiankang Shilu), p 275 (vol.09). However, a single line of text in Xi Zuochi's Records of the Elders of Xiangyang records the death of Zhu Xu (朱序) in 393. The editors of the modern annotated version of this work treat the line as a later interpolation (see Shu Fen and Zhang Lingchun, p 407 n 4). By contrast, American Xi Zuochi expert Andrew Chittick adds at least nine years to Xi Zuochi's lifespan (see Chittick, p 41 n 39). Chittick's theory has gained some currency in English-language sinology, being adopted for example by J. Michael Farmer (p 55), who gives vital dates of ca. 318 – ca. 395. The traditional dating of 384 remains the standard for Chinese-language studies.), courtesy name Yanwei, was a Jin dynasty historian native to Xiangyang, Hubei. He is principally remembered for being the first historian to regard the Cao Wei as an illegitimate successor to the Han dynasty.
Xi Zuochi's relationship with his employer became strained after a visit to the capital city, where he met Sima Yu, future Emperor Jianwen of Jin and political rival of Huan Wen. Xi Zuochi was apparently so taken with Sima Yu that Huan Wen felt it best to distance himself from Xi Zuochi, and demoted him to Grand Administrator of Hengyang, in the Xiang river basin far to the south, in present-day Hunan.Mather, pp 142–3Chittick calls this episode "so patently self-serving a tale that it deserves little credence." (Chittick, p 40 n 36)Many sources have Xingyang (滎陽) for Hengyang (衡陽) as the locale of Xi Zuochi's quasi-banishment, but this was politically impossible, as Xingyang was not only not under Huan Wen's jurisdiction, but in fact was not even controlled by the Jin dynasty until after Huan Wen's death. See Cheng Yanzhen's (程炎震) commentary to Shishuo Xinyu 4§80, p 217 n 2, and Wu Shijian's (吳士鑑) commentary to the Book of Jin, included in the same note. Xi Zuochi may have suffered a stroke at this time, contributing to his difficulty walking later in life.Mather, 143
While in quasi-banishment in the deep south, Xi Zuochi composed his greatest work, The Annals of Han and Jin (漢晉春秋), in 54 fascicles. Intended as a corrective against Huan Wen's increasingly undeserved imperial ambitions, Xi Zuochi took the inventive and iconoclastic step of delegitimating the Wei dynasty, theorising that ritual abdication alone was not enough to establish a legitimate dynasty with a true mandate. He developed a disease of the feet which caused him to limp, quit his post, and went home to Xiangyang, collecting a local history gazette titled Records of the Elders of Xiangyang (襄陽耆舊記).Despite its title, Records of the Elders of Xiangyang was not merely biographical, additionally containing records of natural topography and human habitation. See either of the modern publications of this work: Shu Fen and Zhang Linchuan (1986), or Huang Huixian (1987).
Xiangyang at this time was a flourishing centre of Buddhism, due in no small part to the activity of Shi Dao'an,Zürcher, pp 187–97 whom Xi Zuochi greatly admired, advocated, and was friendly with. He introduced himself to Shi Dao'an via letter in 365, and the two met shortly thereafter.Zürcher, p 190; also 72, 105, 315.Yan Kejun, 134.1447–8 In a separate letter to Xie An, one of the most powerful figures in the Jin court, Xi Zuochi effuses solemnly about Shi Dao'an's monastic mastery, and advocates that the two ought meet.Zürcher, 189Yan Kejun, 134.1446 In 378, northern armies under Fu Jian besieged Xiangyang, and in 379 the city fell. Xi Zuochi and Shi Dao'an were taken to Fu Jian's capital at Chang'an.Zürcher, 198 Book of Jin, 82.2154 Fu Jian was extremely pleased with his acquisition of two such eminent intellectuals, and rewarded them richly. However Xi Zuochi, citing illness, refused entry into Fu Jian's service and returned to Xiangyang.Zürcher, 201Chittick, 47
Jin forces recaptured Xiangyang in 383, and the court offered Xi Zuochi the job of compiling an official national history, but his death interrupted any progress he may have made on the project.
Even the work's title, naming the Han and Jin dynasties without mention of the intervening Wei, is indicative of its primary thrust. The annals began with Emperor Guangwu of Han, restorer of the dynasty and founding emperor of the Eastern (or Later) Han, and continued through to the time of Emperor Min of Jin, final emperor of the Western Jin (i.e. years CE 25–317). Although his primary goal was to argue that ritual abdication was insufficient to achieve a legitimate mandate, Xi Zuochi's aims had the secondary effect of legitimating Liu Bei's Shu Han as the legitimate successor to the Han dynasty, which he displayed by employing the Shu Han calendar, going so far as to use dynastic founder Emperor Wu of Jin's taboo personal name in recording the events of Liu Shan's final regnal year.Tang Qiu, 30. Liu Shan's final regnal period was Yanxing (炎興); Emperor Wu of Jin's personal name was Sima Yan (司馬炎). Late in life, in his final memorial to the throne, Xi Zuochi laid bare his rationale and method behind delegitimating Wei while conducting the balancing act of considering the Jin dynasty still legitimate. Book of Jin, 82.2154–8; Tang Qiu 1–4; Tang Qiu and Qiao Zhizhong 3–5; Yan Kejun 134.1448–50.
Xi Zuochi's heterodox theory met with little acceptance during his lifetime or in the centuries immediately following his death. It was not until the Song dynasty when Ouyang Xiu and Sima Guang echoed his criteria for dynastic legitimacy that mainstream historiography embraced Xi Zuochi's thought.Chittick, p 50Sima Guang's monumental Zizhi Tongjian employed the Cao Wei calendar, but Sima Guang explicitly states that this was a matter of convenience rather than ideological acceptance of the legitimacy of Wei. Zizhi Tongjian, 69.2187–8 Zhu Xi was extremely politically concerned with legitimating Shu Han, and arrived at the same conclusions as Xi Zuochi from a different basis and direction. From that point on, according to the compilers of the Siku Quanshu, "there were none who did not reject Chen Shou i.e., accepting instead Xi Zuochi", although they emphasised that both men were products of their environments.This section on the theoretical basis, goals, and legacy of the Annals of Han and Jin follows closely Andrew Chittick's full treatment of the subject (dynastic Legitimacy during the Eastern Chin: Hsi Tso-ch'ih and the Problem of Huan Wen), q.v.
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