Shangshi 尚史

Shangshi 尚史 "History of the ancient" is an alternative history of pre-imperial China compiled by the Qing-period 清 (1644-1911) scholar Li Kai 李鍇 xxx. Li Kai used the book Yishi 繹史 by Ma Su 馬驌 to compile a history arranged in the historiographical style of biographic-thematic history (jizhuanti 紀傳體). For this reason, he used the method of copy-and-paste to rearrange the text of the Yishi.

The 107-juan long Shangshi includes 1 juan of royal family trees (shixitu 世系圖), 6 juan of royal biographies (benji 本紀), 15 juan of biographies of the houses of regional rulers (shijia 世家), 58 juan of normal and collective biographies (liezhuan 列傳), 6 juan of family trees (xi 系), 6 juan of tables (biao 表), 14 juan of treatises (zhi 志), and 1 juan including preface and biography of the author. After each paragraph, Li Kai added an indication of his sources, as well as a lot of information not recorded in officially acknowledged histories. The book was finished in 1745.

The Shangshi is included in the series Siku quanshu 四庫全書. There is a modern publication from 1998 by the Tianjin Guji Press 天津古籍出版社.