Shiji (Records of the Grand Historian)

The Shiji, Records of the Grand Historian, is the foundational work of Chinese historiography, compiled by the Han dynasty court historian Sima Qian and completed around 94 BCE, cited here through a standard online scholarly edition. As the earliest comprehensive Chinese historical record, it is the primary source for a great deal of early Chinese history and biography, including its account of Laozi, which names three possible historical candidates for who Laozi actually was and explicitly concludes that the record cannot determine which, a rare case of an ancient primary source flagging its own uncertainty rather than manufacturing false confidence. Its limit is the ordinary one for any court history of this age, Sima Qian worked from earlier records and oral tradition already centuries old by his time, so its account of the most ancient period it covers carries more legendary material than its account of more recent Han history.