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This study focuses on two themes. Firstly, to discuss the existing shortcomings of the relevant publications on research. Secondly, to discuss the inadequacy of research on military texts and the military officers in the Records of the Grand Historian. There are two issues in the relevant research. Firstly, there are different views on the style of the Records of the Grand Historians without universal agreement. Despite the in-depth analysis and categorization in various publications and studies, there are no consensus in the literature. Secondly, there are a large number of military officers from the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period to Taichu Era, Han dynasty. It is difficult to fully take Sima Qian’s prospective to understand how he selected the appropriate military officers, and how to decide the importance of them. Based on the aforementioned issues, this study attempts to investigate between the Spring and Autumn Period/Warring States Period and Taichu Era, Han dynasty. This study explored the styles of the biography of the military officials in the Records, and extend based on the styles that had already gained consensus in academia. Based on the Sima Qian’s commentaries and the reason for recording, this study attempts to summarize, analyze and compare the reasons on how Sima Qian selected the military officials included in the Records in his own perspective. There are a number of inadequacies in the research of military texts and the military officers in the Records. Firstly, there are few integrative research that based the military officials in the Records as research theme. Secondly, there have been few studies that could integrate the military texts from the early Qin dynasty in the research of military officials in the Records. Current studies are mostly based on specific biographies, or specific military officials. Moreover, the studies are often presented as single journal articles, which can be scattered and incomprehensive. Thirdly, there are few studies that used wars, tactics, warfare and leadership in the military texts as observational core to explore the military officials in the Records. Due to the aforementioned issues and inadequacies, this study aims to combine both as research questions, limited between the Spring and Autumn Period/Warring States Period and Taichu Era, Han dynasty, to explore and analyze the Records of the Grand Historians, and wish this study can overcome the aforementioned issues and inadequacies. Hence, the four main study directions can be categorized as four research focuses:
First focus: analysis of the reason why different styles were used on the military officials. Second focus: inspect the perspective “the purpose of war for the military officials”. Third focus: inspect and analyze the leadership of the military officials. Fourth focus: inspect the military plans of the military officials.
By inspecting the four main focuses and the research results, this study aims to obtain a wider view to consider the Records of the Grand Historians, and the recorded military officials, as well as to provide a new perspective to review the ranked biographies in the Records of the Grand Historians.
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