Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei
In compiling the work, Wei Shou was criticized for showing partiality to ancestors of political allies and intentionally defamatory to or entirely ignoring ancestors of political enemies. Detractors of the work referred to the book as "Hui Shu" (穢書), nearly pronounced as 'Wei Shu', but meaning "Book of Filth". From a modern historical view point, the book had glaring problems, as it took glorification of the Northern Wei to an extreme, intentionally misstating history of her predecessor state Dai, which was a vassal of Western Jin, Later Zhao, Former Yan, and Former Qin, but which the book characterized as a powerful empire that those states were vassals of. It further characterized all other rival states as barbaric and made unsubstantiated accusations against their rulers. Further, it retroactively used the sinicized surnames introduced by Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei in 496 to apply to events long before, making it difficult for readers to know what the actual names of historical personages were. In addition, Wei Shou was criticized in that, as an official of the Eastern Wei and its successor state Northern Qi, he included the sole emperor of Eastern Wei, Emperor Xiaojing, among his imperial lists while intentionally omitting the three emperors from the rival state Western Wei after the division of the Northern Wei in 534. However, he was credited with harmonizing highly confusing and fragmented accounts of historical events from the state of Dai to the early period of Northern Wei and creating coherent accounts of events.