The Five-Character Mirror (), originally named Proper Commentaries to the Concise Mirror (), is a Ming dynasty children's primer compiling the history of China from the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors period up to the Ming dynasty. It was written by Li Tingji (), courtesy name Erzhang (),Theobald, Ulrich. 2013. Jianlüe tuozhu on ChinaKnowledge.de. http://www.chinaknowledge.de/Literature/Classics/jianlvetuozhu.html and Zou Shengmai (), the latter of whom supplemented the text with annotations and Qing dynasty content.
Contents The text is written in Literary Chinese 5-character rhymed pingshui verse, each line containing allusions to historical events recorded in various Chinese classics. The Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors period up to the Yuan dynasty was written by Li Tingji, whereas the Ming and Qing dynasties were handled by Zou Shengmai. Given the breadth of content involved, it can be seen as an abbreviated version of the Twenty-Four Histories.
See also Three Character Classic Thousand Character Classic Youxue Qionglin Longwen Bianying Ahakp'yŏn
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