The writing of history was not high among the priorities of the military regimes that inherited power in northern China after the final disintegration of the T'ang empire in the late ninth and early tenth centuries. Under the Later T'ang (923–37), however, the situation was gradually stabilized, and some measure of orderly bureaucratic government was restored. In 924, the Historiographical Office was reorganized, and the routine that had been established in the early T'ang for transferring documentation needed for the compilation of the historical record to the office from various ministries was revived. Work was begun in 929 on the Veritable Records for Chuang-tsung. These covered not only his own reign (923–7) but also the preceding Liang dynasty (907 – 23), to which the Later T'ang denied legitimate status. In 933, serious work commenced on the Biographies of Meritorious Officials (T'ang kung-ch'en lieh-chuan) for the same period. For the remainder of the Five Dynasties period down to 960, the Court Diaries, Records of Administrative Affairs, the Daily Calendar, and Veritable Records were regularly compiled in spite of the chronic instability of the successive administrations.

There was also renewed interest in the history of the T'ang. In 926 the new emperor, Ming-tsung (reigned 926 – 33), appointed Yü Ch'üanmei as commissioner for seeking records in the three provinces of Szechuan (San-ch'uan sou-fang t'u-chi shih). Yü Chüan-mei had originally been an official in the Ch'ien Shu kingdom under its ruler Wang Yen (reigned 918 – 25) and was from a Ch'eng-tu family.