Similar Records of the Three Kingdoms, Book of the Later Han, Taiping Yulan, Zizhi Tongjian | ||
Records of Heroes (英雄記) is a Chinese history book of the latest period of the Han dynasty. It is also known as the Records of the Heroes of Latest Han (漢末英雄記). It contains the anecdotal stories of the local warlords. It was written by Wang Can. Though the book was lost early during the history, in the days of Ming dynasty, (Wang) (王世間) compiled its scattered annotations in the Records of the Three Kingdoms of Pei Songzhi, published its compiled book (輯本).
Though the exact year it was written is not clear, among its stories which are clearly year defined, as the 208 year's anecdote that "in the middle of Battle of Red Cliff, Cao Cao tried to cross Yantz River by connecting lots of rafts, however, as Zhou Yu delivered fire attacks on it, Cao Cao had to retreat" (this story can be found at book 771 of Imperial Readings of the Taiping Era (太平御覽) is the most latest one, therefore it is likely that the book was written between 208 and 217 when Wang Can died.
経籍志 of Book of Sui (隋書) says that "There was Wang Can's 8 books named Records of the Heroes of Latest Han. They are lost. They were 10 books during Yang(梁) period.". 経籍志 of Old Book of Tang says that "Wang Can's 10 books named Records of the Heroes of Latest Han". Here it is likely that Records of Heroes of Latest Han is identical to Records of Heroes.
Regarding the words Latest Han, Siku Quanshu Zongmu Tiyao (四庫全書總目提要) put an opinion that "presumably, Wang Can died when the Han dynasty still existed. Though there were so many symptoms that the Han dynasty was near its death, Emperor Xian still was in the throne. Wang Can surely could not put the words of Latest Han at the title of his book, therefore Latest Han are thought to be introduced by the future generations. However as Wang Can had described Cao Cao as holy ruler (聖君) in his book Poet of War Time (從軍詩), we could not say with full certainty that Wang Can did not put Latest Han in the title of his book".