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As the precedent of presenting history in annals-biography style, Shiji describes historical changes by telling the deeds of people. Focusing on prime ministers of Han Dynasty, the paper tries to discard the traditional way to study and judge historical characters and look closely at prime ministers of West Han Dynasty in the unique view of Sima Qian, in order to discover how those prime ministers acted during such a complicated political situation in a power-centralized empire. On this basis, some important historical aspects hidden in those prime ministers will be exposed, to show the deep historical meaning and importance of many things, including the transformation of West Han, ideological evolution, the contradiction between emperor and courtiers, competition for power, bureaucratic government and so on. At the end, conclusion of passages and characters mentioned above will be made, in order to present Sima Qian’s excellent insight into history and the brilliance of annals-biography which tells history through the deeds of people; the conclusion also shows how Sima Qian revealed the hidden historical facts of early Han Dynasty with his unique writing skills, and how to understand his words “Comprehend the change of the pass and the present and form one’s own personal opinion” with the combined beauty of literature and history. |