"Historical Records" is a general history in the form of biographies. Biography refers to a genre that narrates historical facts centered on biographies. "Historical Records" includes twelve chronicles, thirty families, seventy biographies, ten tables and eight books. Twelve of them record the political achievements of emperors of the past dynasties, while Thirty Families record the rise and fall of vassal states and the Han dynasty, and Seventy Biographies record the words and deeds of important figures.

"Historical Records "The main content of "Historical Records" is divided into five parts: chronicles, tables, books, aristocratic families, and biographies. Among them, ten tables and eight books respectively record the chronology of major events and various regulations and systems, as well as rituals and music, music, calendars, astronomy, etc. "Biography", "Family History" and "Biographies" are the main parts of the book, which record history with characters as the center.

"Historical Records" begins with the legendary Yellow Emperor and continues to the first year of Yuanshou, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty. "Benji" is the outline of the book, which takes the change of dynasties as the main body and records the emperor's verbal and administrative achievements by year and month; five chapters record the history of the pre-Qin Dynasty, namely the Five Emperors, Xia, Yin, Zhou and Qin; the seven chapters record the history of the Qin and Han Dynasties, namely the First Emperor of Qin, Xiang Yu, the overlord of Chu, Liu Bang, the great ancestor of the Han Dynasty, Lu Pheasant, the empress of the Han Dynasty, Liu Heng, the emperor of Han Dynasty, Liu Qi, the emperor of Han Jing, and Liu Che, the emperor of Han Dynasty.