In the Present article, the author begins with a comparison of the descriptions of the Wei 魏 dynasty contained in Zhushu Jinian 竹書紀年, which form the framework for its Warring States period section, and the partial content of Weishijia 魏世家 in the Shiji 史記, discovering that before kings appeared in the Yellow River basin during the Warring States period, the first year of the era of each king or feudal lord was recorded according to the linian 立年 chengyuan 称元 method, that is, from the year the previous king or lord died. Through this investigation the author was able to verify for each chronicle that (1)we can rely on the Shiji items indicating eras and deaths of kings, except when there are inconsistencies with the Zhushu Jinian ; (2)a transition from the linian, method to the yunian 踰年 cheng yuan method of using the following year occurred at the time when the kingdoms of the Yellow River basin adopted titles for their kings; and (3)Sima Qian 司馬遷, in order to solve the problem of repetitive eras that arose from his understanding of linian in terms of yunian, deleted royal accession years and kings lacking concrete documentation. From an investigation of the chronicles related to Wei Wenhou 魏文侯 and Tianji Huangong 田斉桓公, the author concludes that the periodization scheme contained in the Zhushu Jinian did not distinguish between the linian and yunian methods. Therefore, he was able to get satisfactory results using the Suoin 索隠 interpretation (which was based on the yunian method). However, the Chu
楚
kingdom, which had used its king's title from the Spring and Autumn period, did not change its chengyuan method accordingly. This is also probably true for the Zhou 周 kingdom as Well from the time it defeated the Shang 商, and the Yue 越 kingdom from the Spring and Autumn period. In addition, Sima Qian made mistakes in arranging some dates of royal accession even after the general diffusion of the yunian method and the use of titles (for example, King Xiangai 襄哀 of the Wei dynasty, and Kings Wei 威 and Xuanmin 宣〓 of the Ji 斉 dynasty). This is because many of the source materials Sima used were from this latter period, when it was difficult to distinguish individuals simply referred to as Wang 王, Weiwang 魏王 or Jiwang 斉王, for example. Sima Qian, used a number of important historical events as his standard for revising and editing these materials, and thus presented his own unique interpretations of them. In order to overcome the contradictions that occurred as the result of mounting errors in chengyuan dating, Sima simply deleted a few kings and accession dates here and there in constructing his chronology of the Six Dynasties. However, now that we can see how and why concrete historical facts were left out of Sima's record, we should be able to reconstruct a more accurate chronolosy of all the documents contained in the Shiji's Benji 本紀 and Shijia 世家. Nevertheless, the chronology reconstructed by the author in this paper confronts the difficulty of adequately arranging all of the above-mentioned important events which Sima probably added later to his Six Dynasties chronology. Since all these events are recorded as involving several kingdoms, as long as the era they are baased on is not mistaken, they should pose no problem to reconstructing the chronolology. May be it is necessary to arrange in the new chronology items contained in the Zhushu Jinian that could not be used in reconstructing the framework, because they either were not dated or interpreted in relation to a certain era. Here the author cautions about possible differences in calendars among the various kingdoms. The present article thus constitutes the starting point for the necessary task of re-investigating the extant Chuuqiu 春秋 records according the yunian chengyuan method of dating eras.
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