西漢一共封過986個侯國，平均每年新封4.72位列侯，故而 封侯詔書頒發頻繁。現存42份封侯詔書皆見於《漢書》，包括73 位具名、54位不具名列侯。歸納詔書的書寫項目，應有足堪封侯 的事蹟與封侯資料兩大部分，封侯資料包含了受封者的稱謂、姓 名與侯號，及其封國的戶數和轄區。比對《漢書》諸表功狀的敘 述後，發現即使有5人的功狀記載多於詔文、5人功狀與詔文完 全不同，也能斷言功狀乃是摘取、簡述、改寫詔書的封侯事蹟。 另外，互校《漢書》的詔文與功狀，可知北京中華書局《漢書》標 點本有幾處斷句不完整。

During the Western Han dynasty, a total of 986 fiefdoms were established. On average, 4.95 new feudal lords were established each year. Therefore imperial edicts granting lordships were frequently issued. The existent 42 imperial edicts concerning the granting of lordships are documented in the Book of Han. These include 73 named and 54 unnamed feudal lords. An inductive analysis of the writings in these imperial edicts found that the content generally contains two sections, namely the deeds worthy of granting lordship and the information concerning the fiefdom. Information concerning the fiefdom includes the title, name, and lordship of the person receiving the fiefdom, and the number of households and location of land under his control. We then compared this against the descriptions in the lordship grants to individual lords in the Book of Han, which showed that for five lords, their lordship grants contained more record than the imperial edict, and for five other lords the lordship grant is
completely different from the imperial edict. We can thus state
without doubt that the lordship grant documents are selective transcriptions, simplified statements, and revised writings of the deeds worthy of granting lordship. In addition, through comparing the imperial edicts against lordship grants in the Book of Han, we found that there are several instances of incompletely parsed sentences in the parsed version of Book of Han published by the Zhonghua Bookstore in Beijing.