一部二十四史，不知从何说起

It's a long and intricate story, I hardly know where to start.

one / single / a (article) / as soon as / entire; whole; all; throughout / "one" radical in Chinese characters (Kangxi radical 1) / also pr. [yao1] for greater clarity when spelling out numbers digit by digit

ministry / department / section / part / division / troops / board / classifier for works of literature, films, machines etc

two / 2 / (Beijing dialect) stupid

twenty / 20

twenty; 20

ten / 10

fourteen / 14

four / 4

the Twenty-Four Histories (25 or 26 in modern editions), collection of books on Chinese dynastic history from 3000 BC till 17th century / fig. a long and complicated story

surname Shi

history / annals / title of an official historian in ancient China

no; not so / (bound form) not; un-

not to know / unaware / unknowingly / fig. not to admit (defeat, hardships, tiredness etc)

to know / to be aware

from / through / via / to follow / to obey / to engage in (an activity) / never (in negative sentence) / (Taiwan pr. [zong4]) retainer / assistant / auxiliary / subordinate / related by common paternal grandfather or earlier ancestor

whence? / where from?

surname He

what / how / why / which / carry

to persuade

to speak / to say / to explain / to scold / to tell off / a theory (typically the last character in a compound, as in 日心說|日心说 heliocentric theory)

variant of 說|说[shuo1]

to speak; to talk; to say / to explain; to comment / to scold; to tell off / (bound form) theory; doctrine

to mention / to bring up (a subject) / with regard to / as for

to rise / to raise / to get up / to set out / to start / to appear / to launch / to initiate (action) / to draft / to establish / to get (from a depot or counter) / verb suffix, to start / starting from (a time, place, price etc) / classifier for occurrences or unpredictable events: case, instance / classifier for groups: batch, group