Abstract
We try to examine the work Yen t'ieh lun with two questions: the information supplied by this source and the reliability of these information.
(a) Information: Yen t'ieh lun was the record of a court conference which took place in 81B.C. The subjects discussed in the conference cover very wide range: political, economical, military, foreign relations, social, intellect etc. It supplies valuable data on Han China. (b) Reliability of these information: After close examination, we can be assured that 1. being the actual record of the court debate, Yen t'ieh lun supplies us with first hand information. 2. the copy of this work in our hand today did not suffer serious corruption during its two thousand years of transmission. We can recommend Yen t'ieh lun as a highly reliable and valuable first hand source in the study of the Han period.
This article is based on lectures used to teach a course on Chinese historical sources in 1968. The author is most grateful to the Institute of History and Philology for the opportunity to publish these materials.
Keywords
Yen t'ieh lun, historical sources, records of conferences, Han dynasty, government monopolies
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