But beginning in the era of the Tang dynasty, the task of compiling histories became an affair of the state; the Tang state proceeded to compile several histories one after another, including the "Book of Jin", the "Book of Liang", the "Book of Zhou", and the "Book of Sui", and pairing these new histories with a selection of histories in biographical annal format that had already been written such as the Shiji, the Book of Han, and the Annals of the Three Kingdoms, declared the combined set the official histories.
唐に至って、歴史書を編纂する事業は国家の事業となり、『晋書』『梁書』『陳書』『周書』『隋書』などが次々と編纂され、これまでの紀伝体の史書のうち史記や漢書、三国志などとあわせて「正史」とした。