Abstract: The beginning chapters of the Twelve Records on Almanacs in Lü Shi Chun Qiu (The Annals of LÜ Buwei) is identical to the Yue Ling (Proceedings of Government in the Different Months) in the Book of Rites, except that the latter combined these articles together into a long one, which was copied in the Shi Ze Xun (Teachings on the Proceedings in Seasons) in Huai Nan Zi in the full text with tiny revisions in words, and the records of astronomical phenomena and phenology are mostly taken from Xia Xiao Zheng (Calendar in the Xia Dynasty). According to their interpretations on Yue Ling, scholars had expressed tremendous disagreement on the calendar system used in the Twelve Records on Almanacs since the Han Dynasty (1050 B.C.-256 B.C.). Scholars including GAO You and ZHENG Xuan considered that the first month of a year was settled at October, the first month of winter in the Twelve Records on Almanacs (same as the Yue Ling), identical with the Zhuanxu Calendar used in the Qin Dynasty (221 B.C. to 206 B.C.). While more scholars in the Han Dynasty influenced by the Confucianism deemed that Yue Ling was the ritual of the Zhou Dynasty (1045 B.C.-256 B.C.), and they asserted that the calendar in the Twelve Records on Almanacs should be of that dynasty. In his annotations on Yue Ling, KONG Yingda (574 A.D.-648 A.D.) , a scholar in the Tang Dynasty (618 A.D.-907 A.D.), managed to make ZHENG Xuan's interpretation reasonable with the aim to maintain the orthodoxy of “All of three rites originated from the Zhou Dynasty”, and admitted the government posts and proceedings mentioned in Yue Ling were not concordant with the ritual of the Zhou Dynasty, because he held that the system originated from old decrees held by the writers sponsored by LÜ Buwei rather than from the calendar of the Qin Dynasty, which brought great impact on the later generations. In addition, many researchers at present times asserted that the calendar system in the Twelve Records on Almanacs could not be the authorized calendar of the Qin Dynasty, on the basis that Lü Shi Chun Qiu was compiled before the establishment of a united country by Qin State, and some of them even further advocated the contradictories between Lü Shi Chun Qiu and ruling policy in the Qin State. This thesis focuses on the debates mentioned above, and analyzes their ideological backgrounds and material supports. Exploring the clues from the handed-down documents and unearthed text materials as well as the previous scholars' conclusion, the paper discovered that the first month of a year in the Twelve Records on Almanacs in Lü Shi Chun Qiu is October, the first month of Winter, which was clearly recorded in the chapters of Ji Qiu (Records of Autumn) and Meng Dong (Records of Winter), and that the Qin State had adopted the Zhuanxu calendar at the time the Lü Shi Chun Qiu was compiled, which could be proved by the Qin Ben Ji (The Qin Dynasty) in The Records of the Great Historian and Bian Nian Ji (The Annales) unearthed in an ancient tomb of the Qin Dynasty. At the times over the Warring States Period, the Qin Dynasty and the Han Dynasty, it was common to see the same text recompiled or copied in different books, so people may easily be misled by the book including the text and its compiling ways, and the disagreement on the calendar system in the beginning chapters of the Twelve Almanacs is exactly such a case.

Key words: Lü Shi Chun Qiu (The Annals of Lü Buwei), the beginning chapters of the Twelve Records on Almanacs, Yue Ling (Proceedings of Government in the Different Months), Calendar, October, Zhuanxu Calendar