The ancient Chinese text that collects historical speeches from the Zhou period is the Book of Documents. Also called the Shangshu or Shujing, it is one of the Five Classics of Confucian tradition.
The work presents speeches, announcements, commands, and counsels attributed to rulers and ministers. Its Zhou section is the largest, especially covering the reign of King Cheng of Zhou and the political work of the Duke of Zhou and Duke of Shao. Some passages are among the earliest surviving examples of Chinese prose.
The text’s history is complicated. Fu Sheng preserved a version after the Qin dynasty’s book-burning, while a longer “Old Text” version later emerged and was eventually judged by many scholars to contain forgeries. The Book of Documents is therefore both a historical source and a record of how ancient texts were transmitted, edited, and sometimes reconstructed.