Private composition and organization
Ouyang Xiu composed the work privately during the Northern Song. Its later title distinguishes it from the earlier officially compiled history associated with Xue Juzheng. The Siku catalogue records that the court obtained it after Ouyang's death and arranged printing through the Directorate of Education.
The 74 juan contain twelve of imperial annals, forty-five of biographies, three of investigations, eleven of regional houses and chronology, and three of foreign appendices. Wu, Southern Tang, the Shu regimes and Wuyue receive separate treatment, while a chronological table connects the regional histories.
Narrative arrangement and judgment
Its arrangement gives separate biographies to loyal deaths, adopted sons, performers and other groups, alongside miscellaneous biographies for complicated careers. Zhao Yi praised placing men who served several dynasties in a distinct category rather than assigning them simply to their final employer.
The preface to the performers' biographies considers Later Tang emperor Zhuangzong's rise and collapse. Ouyang asks how human decisions, complacency and neglected dangers shaped the outcome. Selection, classification and language thus carry ethical judgments within the historical account.
Evidence and later criticism
The Qing Siku editors admired its prose and principles but criticized factual lapses and abbreviated institutional history. They argued that the old and new histories should be read together, especially where fuller records of offices, law and ritual were needed.
Zhao Yi credited Ouyang with consulting material beyond Xue's history and examined his narrative conventions. Yet he also listed contradictions, including whether Cheng Quanhui was killed or fled to the capital. These specific criticisms distinguish literary achievement from the reliability of individual historical claims.