Prized encyclopedia to be studied at home and abroad

Good and bad times

In imperial times, Yongle Dadian was meant to be read only by emperors.

In 1403, Zhu Di, or Emperor Yongle, had just won a civil war and seized the throne from his nephew. He commissioned Xie Jin, chief of the cabinet, to compile the encyclopedia in an attempt to appease intellectuals and academics angry with him for starting the war.

"He wanted to show that he ruled the country via culture, not the military," Zhang said.

Leading a team of about 100, Xie handed in a draft the following year, but the emperor was not satisfied, because he thought that it mainly focused on ancient classics and was not inclusive enough.

Yao Guangxiao, a monk and a political adviser to Zhu Di, took over the job as editor-in-chief. More than 2,000 people joined the project to collect books and write the encyclopedia by hand. Over 7,000 kinds of books were eventually referenced in Yongle Dadian.

"It was incredible to finish such a huge project in a relatively short period, because there was no modern library cataloging system in those days," Zhang said.

Starting from just a single word, the editors expanded the subjects they handled. Numerous illustrations on architecture, geography, agriculture, antiques, along with human portraits, can be found in Yongle Dadian.

"In many cases, as long as a certain word appeared in a document, the entire original text would be copied in the encyclopedia, with clear citation for the emperor to refer to," Zhang said.

"Editors kept a word-for-word record of the original documents without paraphrasing or giving their own judgments, ensuring that key historical files throughout Chinese history survived intact."

For Zhu Di, the encyclopedia was a prized work.

As soon as construction of the Forbidden City was completed and the national capital was moved from Nanjing to Beijing in 1421, the emperor took the work, which was kept in the imperial palace, on his travels north.

About 100 years after his death, Yongle Dadian was passed down to Zhu Houcong, or Emperor Jiajing, who took the throne in 1521.

After a fire in the Forbidden City in 1557, the emperor realized there was a serious risk of losing the encyclopedia, so an ambitious project to duplicate Yongle Dadian was launched five years later.

After rigid scrutiny, 109 people were selected nationwide to copy the encyclopedia day and night for years.

Government departments ensured these workers had adequate supplies of writing brushes, paper, food and charcoal for fires to keep them warm.

"Immense resources and a national-level effort went into writing the book, reflecting the country's determination to protect a literary lifeline," Zhang said.

Emperor Jiajing died shortly before completion of the duplication was announced in 1567.

All surviving volumes of Yongle Dadian are from this duplication. No pages of the original work have been found, and it is not mentioned in any historical records after 1567.

"Some people thought the original edition had been buried in Jiajing's mausoleum because the emperor loved it so much," Zhang said. He added that a more commonly accepted theory is that the edition was destroyed in 1644, when the Forbidden City fell into rebels' hands and was set ablaze, marking the end of the Ming Dynasty.

"However, it's still possible that this edition remains intact in an unknown location," Zhang said. "We'll keep looking for it. If we succeed, we can have a direct dialogue to ancient people. After all, Yongle Dadian was a trove of rich files related to literature, history, religion, philosophy and the sciences before the 14th century."

Yongle Dadian was favored by emperors, but when its popularity declined among rulers during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), its destiny inevitably changed.

In the early 18th century, the duplicated work was moved to Hanlinyuan, the imperial academy. According to statistics from 1794, there were 9,881 copies of Yongle Dadian at the academy, indicating that the work was basically still in good condition.

A political crisis emerged in the middle of the 19th century, and the emperors, several of whom succeeded to the throne in childhood, appeared to have little energy and interest in the encyclopedia.

The work's darkest days came after 1860, when Beijing fell to invading Anglo-French forces during the Second Opium War (1856-60). Scholars working at Hanlinyuan had taken copies of the encyclopedia home since then.

According to records from 1875, fewer than 5,000 copies of the work remained. Just one year later, the figure fell to around 3,000, before dropping to 870 in 1892. In 1900, Hanlinyuan became a war zone during the Boxer Rebellion, and hundreds of copies were burned or taken overseas. By 1909, only 64 remained.

"When the country became weak, ancient books were scattered," Zhang said. "While it gained strength, they were reunited. The fate of books reflects a country's destiny."