At the age of ten, Sima Qian studied thousands of volumes of books under the guidance of contemporary famous teachers. At the age of twenty, he traveled thousands of miles. At the age of thirty-five, he went on a business trip to the barbarians in the Southwest, and later went to Mount Tai with Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty to worship Heaven. Carrying on the past and ushering in the future, Sima Qian created a philosophy of his own.