司马迁与微时刘邦

Sima Qian and Plebeian Liu Bang

司马迁《史记·高祖本纪第八》是现存最权威的关于汉高祖刘邦的记传,其大事年代以刘氏攻沛“自立沛公”为界。自此以后所述不厌其详,而自沛公以往,太史公称作高祖“微时”或“布衣时”,其内容简略色彩神秘,竟成研究刘邦的空白。笔者细考《史记》各篇对刘邦及其相关人物的记述．并参照班固《汉书》和历代《史记》、《汉书》注解,将自己切实贴近司马迁所属的时代,初步发现微时刘邦真实的一面。同时深刻体会到处于皇权淫威下的太史公在记述当朝皇帝私情一类棘手问题时的良苦用心。

The Chronicle of Origin ator of Han Dynasty in Records of the Grand Historian （Shi Ji： Gaozu Benji） composed by Sima Qian （Tai Shi Gong） is the first authoritative records about Liu Bang （Han Gaozu）, the great founder of the Han Dynasty. The events that Liu Bang led to making an assault on Pei county and was self- prbclaimed ＂Pei Gong＂ （the governor of Pei county） were the watershed in the chronicle because since then Sima Qian went into minute details about Liu Bang. However, what happened before the events was controversial due to the brief records of Liu Bang who was just a plebeian then. This study attempts to give a true characterization of Liu Bang when he was a plebeian after having researched the description of Liu Bang and related peoples in Records of the Grand Historian and Han Dynasty History （Han Shu） composed by Ban Gu. It seems that Sima Qian had really given much thought to the knotty problem about how to narrate the private affair of the emperor under imperial power.