Original title: 600 Years of Vicissitudes —— The Dispersion and Return of Yongle Dadian
The latest book of the map of Tibet, Yongle Dadian.
Gengzi became the Imperial Academy of the battlefield during his reign.
In the fifth year of Yongle (1407), a large-scale book that lasted for five years and involved more than 3,000 people was finally finalized and presented to Zhu Di, the founder of Ming Dynasty. Zhu Diqin gave the title-Yongle Dadian.
The Grand Ceremony of Yongle has 22,877 volumes, with 11,095 sub-packages, with a total word count of 370 million words. It is a well-deserved encyclopedia with seven or eight thousand kinds of literature including literature, history, philosophy, astronomy, geography, Yin and Yang, medical skills, religion, drama and applied science before the Ming Dynasty.
However, the Yongle Dadian was ill-fated, with fire, war, theft and extortion … There were more than 10,000 copies of the emperor, and only 64 copies were left in the early years of the Republic of China. After more than a hundred years, with the efforts of countless Chinese sons and daughters, the surviving Yongle Dadian was found back bit by bit. Up to now, the National Library has collected 224 volumes of Yongle Dadian, ranking first among the collection institutions in the world.
Scattered because of the decline of the country, gathered because of the prosperity of the country. Yongle Dadian reflects a 600-year history of the Chinese nation.
Burned and robbed in the Hanlin Academy
On the afternoon of June 20, 1900, Beijing, Dongjiaominxiang Embassy District.
The ministers of various countries and foreign nationals who have been in constant fear have fallen into an unprecedented panic. In the afternoon, Cleander, the German minister, went to the Prime Minister’s yamen to negotiate the delegation’s departure from Beijing, regardless of people’s dissuasion. Only fifteen minutes later, Kostar, the translator who went with him, stumbled and fled back to Dongjiaomin Lane-Cleander was shot by the Qing army.
On June 10, the Boxer Rebellion had already entered Beijing. Although the situation in Beijing is getting tighter day by day, the Boxer Rebellion has never attacked the embassy district in Dongjiaominxiang, and foreigners still have a glimmer of hope of getting away with it. Cleander’s death also destroyed their last hope. It seems that the attack of the Qing army and the Boxer Rebellion on Dongjiaominxiang is imminent.
At that time, Dongjiaomin Lane was a mess. Non-combatants from various embassies flocked to the most concealed and spacious British embassy.
The British Embassy is located in the north of Dongjiaomin Lane and on the west bank of Yuhe River. It was originally Liang Gongfu. In 1861, when Britain set up a legation in Beijing, it was originally in favor of Su Wangfu, but considering that Su Wangfu was the residence of Haug, one of the eight iron hat kings, it was changed to the British legation, which hindered the national system, so the Qing government did not approve it. Therefore, the British envoy Erjin rented the Liang Gongfu opposite the Su Wangfu with an annual rent of 1,200 taels of silver.
During the siege of the embassy district, the superiority of Liang Gongfu’s geographical position was brought into play. It is located in the hinterland of the embassy district, and the south and west are covered by the American legation and the Russian legation, so it cannot be directly attacked from outside the embassy district; The east is covered by embassies and palaces of France, Germany, Austria, Japan and other countries; Exposed to the outside, on the west side is an upper court for royal horses. There are five or six houses in the upper court, and the rest are a large grassland with a wide field of vision, which is easy to defend but difficult to attack; To the north is Chinese Wenyuan Hanlin Academy.
Putnam Will, an Englishman who was trapped in Dongjiaominxiang at that time, wrote in "The Embassies of Gengzi": "The Imperial Academy is like Oxford University, Cambridge University or Heidelberg University in China, and the University of Paris. The place that China scholars admire most is the Imperial Academy." This reflects the foreigners’ general understanding of the Imperial Academy in Beijing, but the status of the Imperial Academy in China is much higher than that of Oxford and Cambridge.
The Hanlin Academy was first established in the Tang Dynasty. After the abolition of the Prime Minister and the establishment of the Cabinet in the Ming Dynasty, the bachelor of cabinet who entered the center of state power basically came from the Hanlin Academy. In Qing Dynasty, "Dian Hanlin" almost became the only way for Han scholars to enter the cabinet. The Hanlin Academy is the cradle of Qing Xiang.
After Emperor Qianlong of Qing Dynasty organized people to compile Sikuquanshu, the books collected from all over the country were stored in the Hanlin Academy, including Yongle Dadian.
Putnam Will described the Imperial Academy he saw like this:
In the broad halls of the Hanlin Academy, volumes of books are arranged in rows. These are all hard-written words written by predecessors, all of which are manuscripts, and there are about tens of millions of volumes. These books have been handed down from generation to generation, and some articles have been written in which dynasty. There are endless unpainted wooden shelves with carved boards in the Hanlin Academy.
Foreigners trapped in the British Embassy believe that it is impossible for Chinese to destroy the Great Wall of Culture and set fire to the Imperial Academy in order to attack them. However, an incredible scene still happened.
On June 20th, Gan Jun led by Dong Xiangfu launched an attack on Dongjiaominxiang. At that time, Zhao Shijun recorded the scene at that time: "On the side of the forbidden city, thunder thundered and firebombs flew everywhere", which seemed to be a "change that has never happened since ancient times".
During the war, how the Hanlin Academy was burned down, most of the written records are vague. Fortunately, in the first month of 1901, Gao Fang, the editor of the Hanlin Academy, asked Zeng Chun, the soap servant who was on duty in the academy at that time, and the truth surfaced.
Gao Fang asked, "When and by whom did the yamen burn?" Zeng Chun replied: "It was burned in Dong Jun."
Zeng Chun said that on the morning of May 26th (June 22nd, 1900, Gregorian calendar), a member of the Boxer entered the Imperial Academy in the name of Cha Ermao. After a thorough inspection, he said that he would invite the master elder brother to burn the British Embassy next door by the Imperial Academy, and ordered the duty hall officers and clerks in the Imperial Academy to bow down and pray. The next day, Dong Xiangfu’s Gan Jun broke in and set fire to the Imperial Academy.
At the same time, Putnam Will, who has been closely observing the movement in the Imperial Academy at the British Embassy, also left witness testimony:
Yesterday (June 23rd), an arsonist crawled over like a cat and threw the torch into the Imperial Academy in a very clever way. Only one hour later, the British embassy where the ambassadors lived was in danger … The fire became more and more fierce, and the beams and columns with hundreds of years of history crackled after burning, which seemed to fall to the British embassy closely connected with it. Many priceless writing books have been burned, and the pools and wells decorated with dragon patterns are full of books, which is a mess.
After the fire in the Imperial Academy, the houses around the British Embassy were quickly ignited. Coupled with the fierce north wind, the fire was on the verge of starting a prairie fire. People trapped in the British embassy were in a hurry. Men, women and children came to the well and used all kinds of strange containers to get water to put out the fire. Of course, they only did so for their own protection, not to save the books in the Imperial Academy. The Qing army retreated all the way after the fire, and even threw oiled torches all the way.
Most of the ancient buildings in China are brick and wood structures, and once a fire breaks out, it is difficult to put it out. It seems that it is only a matter of time before the British embassy is swallowed up by the spreading fire. However, the wind suddenly changed at the critical moment. Mary Andrews, an American missionary who was trapped in the British embassy at that time, wrote in her diary: "Under the will of God and promised our prayers, the wind suddenly turned and blew the flames away from us."
The British embassy miraculously escaped, but countless ancient books and records that are more precious than gold in the Imperial Academy were not so lucky. At that time, people wrote vividly: "The Hanlin Academy was burned, and all the ancient books and classics were made into butterflies. It was not a passing day in Yangzhou on the 10th." These precious classics of "making butterflies fly in pieces" include the Yongle Dadian, which preserved the lost secret code before the Song and Yuan Dynasties. After this robbery, Yongle Dadian was seriously damaged and stolen.
Compile a book
The name of Yongle Dadian is a household name, but few people can tell what it is.
The book History of Yongle Dadian defines it as follows: "Yongle Dadian is a large-scale encyclopedia compiled by Ming Chengzu (Zhu Di) during Yongle period, which has preserved a lot of rich materials in literature, art, history, geography, philosophy and applied science before the 14th century in China."
"Encyclopedia" is, of course, to facilitate readers to understand the modern terms used. Historically, this kind of book was called "quasi-book".
A reference book is a kind of reference book that compiles all kinds of academic materials according to the strokes or phonology of key words for easy reference. Tai Ping Guang Ji, Tai Ping Yu Lan and Ancient and Modern Books Integration all belong to the category of books, among which Yongle Dadian is the largest and most comprehensive one.
According to Ming Shi Lu, the text of Yongle Dadian has 22,877 volumes, 60 volumes of contents and 11,095 sub-packages, with an estimated total word count of 370 million. In July of the first year of Yongle (1403), Zhu Di, the Ming emperor, wrote a letter and compiled it. In the fifth year of Yongle (1405), the Yongle Dadian was compiled for five years, and more than 3,000 editors and transcribers participated in it.
As we all know, Emperor Yongle Zhu Di snatched the throne from his nephew Zhu Yunwen by launching the "Battle of Jing Nan". The "Battle of Jing Nan" lasted for four years and the process was tragic. In the early years of Yongle, the accusation of Zhu Di’s improper position was very fierce. In order to quell the voice of opposition, Zhu Di took cruel measures of repression. One of the most typical cases is Fang Xiaoru, who was punished for refusing to draft an imperial edict for his accession to the throne.
Since the social contradictions were so acute in the early years of Yongle, why did Zhu Di start such a big cultural project? Scholars have always generally believed that Zhu Di decided to compile Yongle Dadian in order to eliminate the injustice between the ruling and opposition parties and divert the attention of scholars.
In fact, in history, this is also a means used by rulers. After "the sound of candles and axes", Song Taizong, who was criticized by his brother Ji, organized scholars to compile books such as Taiping Yu Lan and Taiping Guang Ji. According to Liu Yunzhi, a scholar at the end of the Song Dynasty and the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty, it was through a long process of compiling books that Song Taizong "delayed his mind by years" and made dissidents "die of old age".
When Zhu Di started compiling the Yongle Dadian, whether there was such an unspeakable intention in his heart could only be guessed by later generations. However, it would be underestimated to regard the compilation of the Yongle Dadian as a political achievement project to transfer social contradictions and highlight the martial arts.
By sorting out the historical materials, distinguished professor Yu Wan Li of the School of Humanities of Shanghai Jiaotong University thinks that Zhu Di actually inherited his father Zhu Yuanzhang’s legacy and had the meaning of competing with his father, and the key figure that prompted the two emperors to compile the book to the end was Jie Jin, a great genius.
Jie Jin was extremely clever since childhood. In his early 20 s, he became a scholar, and became a personal secretary of Zhu Yuanzhang. Jie Jin found that Zhu Yuanzhang loved reading such books as Shuo Yuan and Yun Fu. Jie Jin thinks that the content of Shuo Yuan is absurd, while the editing of Yun Fu is complicated, which is not a classic book. He is interested in organizing "people with lofty ideals and Confucianism" to compile a new kind of book for the emperor. Later, Jie Jin was demoted for speaking out, and Zhu Yuanzhang handed over the task of editing books to others. After the Battle of Jing Nan, Zhu Di came to power, and Jie Jin became a close minister of the Emperor, finally having a chance to finish the unfinished business.
Zhu Di wrote in his letters:
The ancient and modern things in the world are scattered in books, and the articles are so vast that it is not easy to review them. I want to learn from the things contained in various books, and unify them with rhyme, so that it is convenient to search for things, such as finding things from a bag ….. I hope that since the book was signed, there have been hundreds of books on classics and history, and as for astronomy, geography, yin and yang, medical divination, Buddhism and Taoism, and skills, I am not tired of compiling a book.
Jie Jin organized an editorial team of 147 people to start compiling books, and in November of the following year, he compiled the predecessor of Yongle Dadian, Documentary Dacheng. Unexpectedly, Zhu Di, the Ming emperor, was dissatisfied and thought that the book was "not prepared yet" and he typed it back. In January of the third year of Yongle, Zhu Di ordered Yao Guangxiao, Jie Jin and others to rebuild it. This time, the imperial court convened a lot of scholars and calligraphers who are good at calligraphy from the people to start a large-scale book compilation work.
According to the sequence of Chinese characters in Hongwu Zhengyun, Yongle Dadian lists events with each word, and copies the whole paragraph and even the whole book related to this word into this entry. This is the so-called "using rhyme to unify words and using words to tie things".
Zhang Sheng, a professor in the history department of Beijing Normal University, who has in-depth research on Yongle Dadian, explained: "For example, the chronicles of heaven are all included under the characters of heaven, and the geographies are all included under the characters of earth, and the sun, the moon, the stars, the clouds, the frost, the rivers, the lakes and the seas are respectively included under these characters …"
In the 1970s, Luan Guiming, a researcher at the Institute of Literature of China Academy of Social Sciences, began to study Yongle Dadian under the guidance of Mr. Qian Zhongshu. He spent ten years writing the book Index of Yongle Grand Ceremony. After retirement, Luan Guiming has been committed to digitizing China’s classical literature. Talking about the arrangement of Yongle Dadian, Luan Guiming lamented that it has the same effect as the keyword search function of today’s database.
In addition to the unique editing method, the collection of data in Yongle Dadian is also amazing, including the subset of classics, astronomy and geography, various famous things, laws and regulations, and even anecdotes, poems and songs, engineering and agronomy, Buddhist and Taoist classics. In the Tang Dynasty, there were 1,400 kinds of books in Yiwen Leiju, more than 1,600 kinds in Taiping Yulan, and 7,000 or 8,000 kinds in Yongle Dadian.
In the history of China, the compilation and revision of literary classics was the standard for almost every prosperous time. Different from other books and series, when editing, the original materials were deleted, or only Confucian classics were collected, not natural science. Yongle Dadian was eclectic, extensive, and hardly deleted, and preserved a large number of precious documents before the Ming Dynasty for future generations.
It is said that in the sixth year of the Ming Dynasty (1441), when Yang Shiqi, a great scholar, edited the Bibliography of Wenyuan Pavilion, many works of the Song and Yuan Dynasties used in Yongle Dadian had been "ten don’t save three or four", and in the Qing Dynasty, only eleven or two were still circulating. It can be seen that the compilation of Yongle Dadian is of great significance for preserving the documents of past dynasties.
The Lost Mystery of "Original"
After the compilation of Yongle Dadian, only one copy was made, that is, the original Yongle Dadian. At the beginning, Yongle Dadian was stored in the East Pavilion of Wenyuan Pavilion in Nanjing. In the 19th year of Yongle (1421), when he moved the capital to Beijing, Ming Chengzu ordered that a part of Yongle Dadian be transported to Beijing and temporarily hidden under the north porch of Zuoshunmen. It was not until the sixth year of orthodoxy (1441) that the Ming court shipped all the Yongle Dadian to Beijing and collected it in the literary building of the Forbidden City.
In fact, not many people have the opportunity to read the Yongle Dadian after it was compiled. The emperors of the Ming Dynasty didn’t like reading much, and most of the time they were shelved. Only Emperor Jiajing loved the Yongle Dadian very much, and he always had ten books on his desk and often read them.
In the thirty-sixth year of Jiajing (1557), a fire broke out in the palace. The fire broke out in the three halls, and the fire spread to Fengtianmen and Wumen, and the building where Yongle Dadian was stored was in danger. There is only one "Yongle Dadian", and once it is burned, it is too late to regret. According to Records of the Ming Dynasty, Emperor Jiajing was anxious to rescue the Yongle Grand Ceremony with three or four imperial edicts overnight. Due to the timely rescue, Yongle Dadian escaped. After the fire, Emperor Jiajing felt very uneasy when he thought that there was only one set of Yongle Dadian, so he made Xu Jie and Gao Gong, the great scholars, re-record Yongle Dadian.
In the forty-first year of Jiajing (1562), under careful planning, the re-recording work finally started. In order to find qualified copywriters, the two departments of Li and Li also specially conducted a "paste name examination", and finally selected 109 copywriters with exquisite calligraphy. It should be said that this re-recording work is very thorough in terms of organization and logistics support. The imperial supervisor of the inner government allocated painters and papermakers; Shuntianfu provides inkstone, pitcher and pen and ink; The company supplies charcoal for heating; Guanglu Temple is responsible for wine and rice; Hanlinyuan pays the copying staff "monthly meters" and is also equipped with security guards.
When the copywriters go to work every morning, they register for the Yongle Grand Ceremony and return it when they get off work at night. They are not allowed to take it out without permission or hire someone to write it for them. Each person copies three pages a day. "If there is any mistake, send it and write it separately, regardless of whether it is once or twice, it is only one page." Officials at all levels concerned should be punished together if they are found to be negligent in reporting mixed reports.
It is said that at the beginning of the re-recording, Xu Jie advocated that as long as the contents were consistent, the format of the copy did not need to be modeled after the original. However, in practice, he found that the big characters and small characters in Yongle Dadian were scattered, and the illustrations such as mountains and rivers and palaces were mixed, and the layout moved, and the lines and pictures should follow suit, but it was not as convenient as the original copy. Xu Jie couldn’t help sighing: The Yongle Grand Ceremony is so well designed!
From the surviving copy of Jiajing, it can be seen that the fonts are all standard pavilions, neat and beautiful, and there is no alteration. After each volume is re-recorded, the names of the re-recorded general school officer, branch school officer, writing officer and counting person are indicated at the end, which can be said that the responsibility lies with people. Under such strict quality control, it took six years for Yongle Dadian to be re-recorded. Jiajing copy is completely consistent with Yongle original in terms of binding, font size, illustration and layout.
After the copy of Jiajing was completed, it was collected in the newly built Imperial Historic Monument dedicated to the preservation of royal archives. Confusingly, the original Yongle Dadian disappeared and never appeared in the history books again.
At the end of the Ming Dynasty, Li Zicheng invaded the Forbidden City and ascended the throne in Wuying Hall. According to historical records, when he was defeated and withdrew from Beijing, he once set fire to the palace of the Forbidden City. The history books are vague about which palaces Li Zicheng burned. Will the original Yongle Dadian be reduced to ashes in this fire? Nobody knows.
The loss of the original Yongle Dadian has become a case-solving in the history of Chinese civilization, attracting the reverie of countless scholars. Most people believe that the original was destroyed by war or fire. After compiling the Index of Yongle Dadian, Luan Guiming put forward a ground-breaking idea-will the original be brought into the yongling tomb by Emperor Jiajing?
According to Records of the Ming Dynasty, the copy of Jiajing began to be copied in the forty-first year of Jiajing (1562) and was not copied until April of the first year of Qin Long (1567). During this period, Emperor Jiajing died.
Luan Guiming believes that to solve the mystery of the disappearance of the original Yongle Dadian, we must first grasp the events that happened before and after the last appearance of the original Yongle Dadian. According to Records of the Ming Dynasty, on December 14th, forty-five years of Jiajing, Emperor Jiajing collapsed. On March 11th, the first year of Qin Long, Emperor Jiajing Zigong set out from Beijing, arrived at Yongling in Changping five days later, and was buried the next day.
"Why was Emperor Jiajing buried three months after his death, and soon after his burial, Emperor Qin Long immediately commended the personnel who participated in the re-recording of Yongle Dadian? The disappearance of the original coincides with the funeral period of Emperor Jiajing, which is related to the treasure of Emperor Jiajing’s Yongle Dadian before his death. He is likely to bring the original of Yongle Dadian into Yongling. " Yan Guiming said.
Luan Guiming told reporters that Mr. Qian Zhongshu also agreed with his guess. Mr. Qian once said that if the original Yongle Dadian still exists, it is most likely in Yongling.
In the 1990s, Wang Qianshen, a researcher at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, inadvertently saw Luan Guiming’s conjecture in the newspaper. He remembered that not long ago, they used "high-precision gravity measurement technology" to survey the Mausoleum of the Ming Tombs. "High-precision gravity measurement" is a technology that uses the principle of microgravity to detect the distribution, shape and scale of underground buildings without causing damage.
After the excavation of Dingling in 1958, it was found that the Dingling underground palace was composed of five halls, namely, "five rooms and three tunnels". Through microgravity method, Wang Qian obtained the gravity anomaly distribution map of Dingling underground palace on the ground, which is very consistent with the actual structure of Dingling underground palace. Wang Qianshen told reporters that there are more than 10,000 copies of Emperor Yongle, and it takes at least 40 cubic meters to put them up. If it is found through microgravity measurement that Yongling is also a "five rooms and three tunnels" like Dingling, it means that there is no room for Yongle Dadian in the underground palace. If the survey results show that there are two more annex halls in the yongling underground palace, at least it means that there is a place to put the Yongle Dadian.
So can the existing technology measure what is stored in the underground palace? Wang Qianshen said that microgravity measurement is measured by the density of objects, and the greater the density, the clearer the measurement. If metal is stored in the underground palace, it can be measured, but the density of paper is too small to be confirmed by microgravity measurement. "If there are really two more halls, we’ll find a way then!" Wang Qianshen said.
However, before the scientists could find a way, their report to National Cultural Heritage Administration was rejected. "National Cultural Heritage Administration said, with the current technical means can’t guarantee that cultural relics will not be oxidized after being unearthed. In case the Yongle Dadian is damaged after it is unearthed, it is better to keep it in the underground palace. " Wang Qian deeply understands National Cultural Heritage Administration’s decision.
An experiment that had been planned for a long time was put on hold. Whether there is the original Yongle Dadian in Yongling is still a mystery.
suffer many mishaps in one’s life
The original of Yongle Dadian mysteriously disappeared, and the copy of Jiajing, which was circulated in the world, was also ill-fated.
On the occasion of Dingge in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, there was great chaos in the world, and no one ever thought of Yongle Dadian again. It was not until the reign of Emperor Kangxi that Xu Qianxue and Gao Shiqi, great scholars, stumbled upon Jiajing’s copy of Yongle Dadian in the golden chamber of the Imperial Historian. According to records, the Yongle Grand Ceremony was not complete at that time. How it was lost, no one can tell.
The so-called "revision of classics in prosperous times", emperor Qianlong, who also embraced the ideal of creating prosperous times, began to sort out ancient books. He thinks that although the editing method of Yongle Dadian is easy to search, it is difficult to see the whole book by breaking it up and compiling it into various items. On the other hand, he thinks that the book collection of Yongle Dadian is too complicated, and the revision of the book should be based on Confucian orthodox classics.
In the thirty-eighth year of Qianlong (1773), Emperor Qianlong initiated the compilation of Sikuquanshu. Sikuquanshu is divided into four parts: classics, history, books and collections, with a total of 3462 kinds of books, many of which are collected from Yongle Dadian. In order to compile Sikuquanshu, Ji Xiaolan once organized an inventory of Yongle Dadian. He found that at that time, 1215 copies of Yongle Dadian had been missing, leaving 9881 copies.
No one can say clearly how the things that exist in ouchi are lost.
However, it is not difficult to see that the gentleman in Liang Shang coveted the Yongle Grand Ceremony in a case that happened in the editing process of Sikuquanshu. Huang Shouling, the editor of Sikuquanshu, took six volumes of Yongle Dadian home to read privately and was stolen. Emperor Qianlong was very angry when he learned about it. He said, The Yongle Grand Ceremony is an unprecedented book in the world and should not be allowed to be edited and carried out. He ordered the infantry to lead the ministers to be honest and strict with the thieves. "Yongle Dadian" is a royal thing, and bookstores and paper shops are afraid to buy it. In desperation, thieves have to quietly put six copies of "Yongle Dadian" back to the Yuhe Bridge. It’s a false alarm to get it back. Since then, the Siku Quanshu Museum has learned a lesson, and it is strictly forbidden for ministers to take the Yongle Dadian out privately.
In the fifty-seventh year of Qianlong (1792), Sikuquanshu was completely completed, with a total of 3,462 books, 79,338 volumes, more than 36,000 volumes and about 800 million words. In terms of the amount of words, Sikuquanshu is nearly three times as large as Yongle Dadian. However, due to the host’s over-emphasis on the collection of orthodox books, many books on science and technology, novels and operas are excluded, and the breadth of books collected is far less than Yongle Dadian. What is even more criticized is that the rulers’ selfishness caused the Qing court to tamper with and destroy a large number of folk books in the process of compiling Sikuquanshu. The most typical case is that in Yue Fei’s famous work "Man Jiang Hong", "Hungry for pork, laughing and thirsty for Huns’ blood" was included in Sikuquanshu and turned into "Hungry for meat, laughing and wanting to spill blood". Not only are there no anti-Manchu characters in Sikuquanshu, but even the characters that predecessors touched on Qidan, Jurchen, Mongolia, Liao, Jin and Yuan have to be tampered with. What’s more, even people surnamed Hu have changed their surnames. According to statistics, more than 3,100 kinds of books were banned during the compilation and revision of Sikuquanshu. Books with practical value, such as Heavenly Creations, Physics Tips, Military Readings and Biography of General Ming, are also banned. No wonder, some people think that the editing process of Sikuquanshu is a cultural disaster. In contrast, the eclectic spirit of Yongle Dadian is even more precious.
Unfortunately, after the compilation of Sikuquanshu, the Qing court paid less attention to Yongle Dadian. After Daoguang, it was even shelved in the Imperial Academy, allowing insects to eat and rats to bite. And many scholars, selected from hundreds of millions of scholars, also play a shameful role as a book thief.
In 1860, the second Opium War failed, and the Qing court had to agree to build embassies in Beijing. Many officials stole the Yongle Dadian, which was kept in the Imperial Academy, and sold it to foreigners at a price of 12 taels of silver. Zhang Sheng told reporters that Liu Shengmu, a contemporary, recorded officials’ book-stealing tricks in "Essays on Chu Zhai": "I was admitted to the hospital in the morning, brought a bag, wrapped in a cotton jacket, about the size of two books of Yongle Grand Ceremony, and was discharged at night, put the jacket on my body and stole two books of Yongle Grand Ceremony."
According to records, in the first year of Guangxu in Qing Dynasty (1875), there were less than 5,000 copies of Yongle Dadian in the Imperial Academy. In the 20th year of Guangxu (1894), there were only over 800 volumes of Yongle Dadian.
In this way, when the Imperial Academy was burned during the Gengzi period, the Yongle Dadian had already lost nine tenths. Since most of the Yongle Dadian was not destroyed by the boxer, can people hope that it still exists in the world? Professor Zhang Sheng said with a smile: "In theory, there should be more Yongle Dadian, but in fact, people have only found more than 400 copies at home and abroad so far, and it has become more and more difficult to find a new one in recent years."
the finest fragments of fox fur
In September, 1901, China signed the humiliating "Xin Chou Treaty" with eleven countries. According to the treaty, China will compensate all countries for 450 million taels of silver, which will be settled at the exchange rate of currencies of all countries, with an annual interest of 4% to be paid off in 39 years, with a total principal and interest of more than 980 million taels of silver, known as "boxer indemnity" in history. From the Qing government to such a large sum of money, countries were very satisfied and began to retreat from the occupied areas.
In June, 1901, the Foreign Affairs Department of the Qing government received two letters from the British Embassy, asking the Foreign Affairs Department to send personnel to the British Embassy to pick up the remaining Yongle Grand Ceremony. After the war and burning, officials were surprised that the Yongle Dadian survived.
Zhang Sheng told reporters that in order to avoid being "burned in the camp", people in the British Embassy began to fight the fire as soon as the fire broke out in the Imperial Academy. In this process, many ancient books escaped, and of course, there were also a few shoplifters. In The Embassies of Gengzi are Besieged, Putnam Will mentioned that many people who know China culture know that these books are more valuable than gold, so they hide them. One of the most typical is george morrison, then a reporter for The Times and later a political adviser to Yuan Shikai.
According to Tanaka Issei’s "The Process of Collecting the Remnants of Yongle Grand Ceremony in oriental library, Japan", after the fire in the Imperial Academy, Mo Lixun and Japanese student Naoko Naoki and Tokyo Daily newspaper correspondent Koichi went straight to the fire and grabbed several copies of Yongle Grand Ceremony from the shelves of the Imperial Academy for their own. According to Tanaka Issei’s estimation, there are at least 14 volumes of Yongle Dadian in Mo Lixun, and most of them were collected in Mo Lixun Library. In 1917, Mo Lixun packaged his books and sold them to Kumiya Iwasaki, the tycoon of Japanese Mitsubishi chaebol, including Yongle Dadian. Later, these books became the predecessor of "oriental library".
However, foreigners like Mo Lixun who "know the goods" are still a minority. After Gengzi, when the British Embassy collected the remaining Yongle Dadian, it still recovered more than 300 copies.
Professor Zhang Sheng told the reporter that according to the records of the Qing Foreign Affairs Department, the Foreign Affairs Department of the Qing government received a total of 330 copies of Yongle Grand Ceremony returned by the British Embassy. "At that time, the Treaty of Gengzi was just signed, and some countries returned the looted goods and occupied places in succession. Therefore, it is understandable that the British Embassy took the initiative to return the Yongle Grand Ceremony removed from the Hanlin Academy." Zhang Sheng explained.
However, the Qing government at that time was teetering and precarious, and it was too busy to manage these national treasures for the rest of the life. The Hanlin Academy has burned down. Where are these books to be piled up? The gatekeeper of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the Hanlin scholars who were in Beijing at that time and asked them to deal with it. Unexpectedly, these normally sanctimonious Hanlin saw that the Qing court was in a mess, and even carved up more than 300 copies of Yongle Dadian privately.
When the situation stabilized, the Qing government searched for some Yongle Dadian. However, once the national treasure is lost, it is difficult to get it back. In 1912, when Lu Runxiang, a bachelor of the Imperial Academy, handed over the remaining Yongle Grand Ceremony to the Ministry of Education of the Republic of China, there were only 64 volumes left. Later, the remaining 64 volumes of Yongle Dadian were handed over to the Jingshi Library, the predecessor of the National Library, for preservation.
During the whole period of the Republic of China, China was struggling in the mire of turmoil and disorder, but a group of cultural institutions and individuals with a sense of responsibility and mission always regarded the rescue of Yongle Dadian as their duty. Zhang Sheng told reporters that Yuan Tongli was the most prominent one.
Mr. Yuan Tongli went to the United States to study in 1921, and after graduation, he studied in European countries. He is a library major, and pays special attention to the inspection of libraries in various countries. In the British library, he found the remnant of Yongle Dadian. The following year, he found four volumes of Yongle Dadian in the library of Leipzig University in Germany. Yuan Tongli, who was extremely excited, wrote an article "An Examination of Yongle Dadian" when he was still on the road, and recorded these volumes of Yongle Dadian scattered in Europe in detail.
Zhao Aixue, a researcher at the Ancient Books Museum of the National Library, told the reporter that Yuan Tongli, as the deputy director of Beiping Library (the predecessor of the National Library), was still committed to finding the surviving Yongle Dadian. By 1939, he had conducted eight investigations and found 367 volumes of Yongle Dadian at home and abroad. For the Yongle Dadian hidden in the hands of private collectors, he will try his best to buy it. If he can’t buy it, he will try his best to shoot and copy it.
Before the July 7th Incident, the situation in Peiping was in danger. Yuan Tongli was worried that the rare books of ancient books in Beiping Library would fall into Japanese hands, so he and his colleagues transported 300 boxes of rare books to the French Concession in Shanghai for preservation. With the failure of France in Europe, the French Concession was in jeopardy. Academic circles are worried about the safety of these rare ancient books, and Yuan Tongli is even more restless. So, he began to plan to transport these books to the Library of Congress for temporary storage.
It took more than a year to contact and find a ship to transport. It was not until October 1941 that these rare books were delivered, including 60 volumes of Yongle Dadian selected by others. In 1965, these 60 volumes of Yongle Dadian were sent to Taiwan Province and are now in the National Palace Museum in Taipei.
According to statistics, by the end of 2017, there were 418 volumes, more than 800 volumes and some zero pages of Yongle Dadian known to exist at home and abroad, which were scattered in the hands of more than 30 public and private collectors in 8 countries and regions around the world. The National Library of China has successively collected 224 volumes of Yongle Dadian. Zhao Aixue told reporters that most of the Yongle Dadian in the national library was collected after the founding of New China. Among them, the largest one was the 52 volumes of Yongle Grand Ceremony returned by Lenin Library of the Soviet Union in 1954.
At the beginning of the founding of New China, Qvanxian Zhang, then deputy director of Beijing Library and Minister of Russian Department, found in the collection catalogue of Lenin Library that there were 52 volumes of Yongle Dadian.
In the early years of the Republic of China, Liu Chenggan, a wealthy businessman in the south of the Yangtze River, was keen on collecting rare ancient books after doing business. At that time, it was the Dingge period, many aristocratic families were in decline, and many rare books of ancient books were scattered to the market. With abundant financial resources, Liu Chenggan widely collected ancient books, and in 1920, he established Jiayetang Library in Nanxun, Huzhou, his hometown. According to statistics, there were 1.67 million ancient books in the heyday of Jiayetang Library, including 44 volumes of Yongle Dadian. These "Yongle Dadian" were all exiled to the people during the Gengzi period. According to Liu’s descendants, the purchase price of each volume of "Yongle Dadian" was around 100 silver dollars.
With the invasion of the Japanese invaders, Liu Jiasheng’s intentions plummeted, making ends meet. Liu Chenggan had to sell more than 1000 Ming edition books to the Central Library. It is said that Liu Chenggan was seriously ill for this reason, but at this time, he was still reluctant to release Yongle Dadian. It was not until 1942, when the Japanese invaders were pressing hard, that he reluctantly sold 44 copies of Yongle Dadian to the library of Liaoning Manchuria Railway Co., Ltd. In the summer of 1945, the Soviet Red Army marched into the northeast and took over the library of Manchuria Railway. All the old collections of Manchuria Railway were confiscated as enemy property.
Zhang Quanxinli will inform China about the collection of Yongle Dadian in Lenin Library. Feng Zhongyun, the director of Beijing Library, found sokolov, then the acting plenipotentiary of the Soviet Foreign Cultural Association in Beijing, and said that China was willing to exchange other books with historical value in Beijing Library for Yongle Dadian.
In fact, in 1951, the Oriental Department of Leningrad University in the Soviet Union returned 11 volumes of Yongle Dadian to the government of China. After learning that the Beijing Library is working hard to collect the Yongle Dadian scattered at home and abroad, the Soviet side decided to return 52 copies of the Yongle Dadian collected by Lenin’s library to China. The following year, East Germany also returned three volumes of Yongle Dadian to China.
At the beginning of the founding of New China, Yongle Dadian, which was scattered in the hands of private book collectors all over the world and all over the country, returned to Northern Tibet (the predecessor of the national map) one after another.
There is a new book in this world.
In November, 2007, Cheng Youqing, a research librarian of the National Library of China, went to East China to check rare books with Yang Chengkai of China Academy of Social Sciences, Shi Anchang of the Palace Museum and Meng Xianjun of Cultural Relics Publishing House. Just arrived in Shanghai, Shi Anchang, whose hometown is in Shanghai, told everyone that an old neighbor said that he had two volumes of Yongle Dadian in his hand and wanted to ask an expert to identify it.
At that time, everyone thought that the probability of finding Yongle Dadian among the people was relatively low. The latest discovery was made in 1983 at the home of Sun Honglin, a farmer in Yexian County, Shandong Province.
That year, Sun Honglin went to the county to attend a cultural system class. During the break, Sun Hongji of the county library pointed to a calendar made of Yongle Dadian to popularize relevant knowledge. Sun Honglin suddenly blurted out, "I have one at home." At first, Sun Hongji thought Sun Honglin was bragging, but he didn’t expect to go to his house to see that it was really a Jiajing copy of Yongle Dadian. Sun Honglin said that in those days, his aunt thought that the book at home was large in size and suitable for clamping shoes, so she took it to her husband’s family when she got married.
Although the old lady can’t read, she inherited the tradition of "respecting and cherishing word paper" from her ancestors and didn’t damage the part with words, so the contents of this volume of Yongle Dadian were completely preserved. This book "Yongle Dadian" is the rhyme of "door", which records the shapes, allusions and stories related to doors throughout the ages.
Since then, Yongle Dadian has never appeared among the people. Therefore, when I heard that there was another "Yongle Dadian" in this world, several experts held out little hope. Cheng Youqing told reporters that in those years when he worked in the National Library of Ancient Books, people often took fake Yongle Dadian to the National Library, some were photocopies, some were imitations at first glance, and even the size of the folio was wrong. At that time, he joked: "If this is true, it is worth 10 million!"
That evening, the collector Ms. Yuan came to the hotel where several experts stayed with two volumes of Yongle Dadian. Of the four people, only Cheng Youqing, who works in Guotu, has access to the original of Yongle Dadian, so everyone recommended him for appraisal.
Ms. Yuan brought two volumes, and Cheng Youqing opened the first volume and found that it was a photocopy, thinking that it was really impossible. However, after the second book appeared, he was shocked.
Each volume of Yongle Dadian is 50.3 cm long and 30 cm wide. The book jacket is hard mounted with multiple layers of rice paper, and the outermost layer is wrapped in yellow silk. There are 8 lines in each half page, 1 line in big characters and 28 words in small characters, which are extremely prominent.
At present, this volume of Yongle Dadian is exactly the same as the Yongle Dadian that Cheng Youqing saw in the national library. Ms. Yuan’s book Yongle Dadian is the word "lake" with the rhyme of "mode", and its content is related to the word "lake". Previously, Guotu had collected two volumes of the word "Lake". In Cheng Youqing’s impression, this volume was just missing in the middle. However, to be on the safe side, he immediately called his father who had worked in Zhonghua Book Company and asked him to help him check the existing catalogue of Yongle Dadian.
"As soon as I check, there is no such book, then there is no doubt!" After more than ten years, it is still difficult for Cheng Youqing to hide his excitement when talking about the scene at that time.
It was confirmed that this volume of Yongle Dadian was authentic, and the experts present and the collector Ms. Yuan were very happy. Ms. Yuan told Shi Anchang in Shanghai dialect that she wanted to sell this book "Yongle Dadian". Cheng Youqing lived in Shanghai when he was a child, and he can understand a little Shanghai dialect. After listening to Ms. Yuan, he immediately said, "If you want to make a move, you can consider the national map."
Folk found a new book "Yongle Dadian", and National Cultural Heritage Administration and Guotu were very cautious when they were delighted, and organized experts to conduct four rounds of appraisal. Cheng Youqing said that he was still conducting a general survey of ancient books in South China and did not participate in the appraisal. However, he heard that Mr. Fu Xinian, an academician of China Academy of Engineering and director of the National Cultural Relics Appraisal Committee, had read this volume of Yongle Dadian and said humorously, "Prepare money!"
How much does it cost for this book "Yongle Dadian" to enter Tibet? Cheng Youqing said that it is not clear. However, in the hearts of book lovers, a book of Yongle Dadian is much more valuable than gold.
Today, there are only over 400 known volumes of Yongle Dadian, which is incredibly small compared with its original volume of 11,095 volumes. Will there be an unknown volume of Yongle Dadian buried in an unknown corner? Many scholars and experts feel that after so many years, there is little hope of discovering Yongle Dadian again. However, reality always surprises people inadvertently.
In August, 2014, Liu Bo, an associate researcher of the National Library of Ancient Books, who is a visiting scholar at Harvard Yanjing Library in the United States, received a message from Ma Xiaohe, a Chinese librarian of Harvard Yanjing Library, that a new volume of Yongle Dadian, with volumes 10270 and 10271, was discovered in Hantington Library. There are no experts in Chinese ancient books appraisal in Hantington Library, so I want to hear the professional opinions of Harvard Yanjing Library.
Liu Bo, who works in Guotu, has seen the original Yongle Dadian, so the Harvard Yanjing Library wants to invite him to Los Angeles. Soon, Hantington Library sent pictures of the newly discovered Yongle Dadian. Liu Bo saw that the format was exactly the same as the Yongle Dadian in the national map collection, but the volume number was not in the existing catalogue. He was somewhat sure that this new and contemporary Yongle Dadian should be authentic.
Soon, Liu Bo finished his work in Harvard Yanjing Library and flew to Los Angeles. He was received by Yang Liwei, the Chinese librarian of Hantington Library, the discoverer of Yongle Dadian. There are many Chinese documents donated by old overseas Chinese in Hantington, but there was no Chinese librarian in the museum before, so these documents have never been sorted out. After Yang Liwei was hired to enter the Hantington Library, he began to sort out the Chinese materials in his collection. Unexpectedly, he found this book Yongle Dadian at once.
This volume of Yongle Dadian was donated by a lady named Blake Whiting to Hantington Library in 1968. Her father Joseph Whiting lived in China as a missionary for 40 years. After 1900, Whiting briefly returned to the United States and brought back this volume of Yongle Dadian.
Liu Bo told reporters that the original cover of this book "Yongle Dadian" is gone, and the collector has given it a yellow hardcover cover, which looks like a western hardcover book on the surface.
This volume of Yongle Dadian consists of two volumes: Volume 10270, The Teacher’s Son, and Volume 10271, The Man’s Son. Liu Bo carefully read the literature, and found that the contents were the notes of the Book of Rites, namely, "Jiao Shizi" and "Wen Wangshi", with 12 kinds of quotations. After comparing the Catalogue of Ancient Books in China, he found that four of them have been lost.
Whenever, it is exciting to find a new volume of Yongle Dadian. Although five or six years have passed since this volume of Yongle Dadian, and no new Yongle Dadian has been found, Liu Bo believes that there will be Yongle Dadian waiting for people to find it somewhere in the world. "After all, there are still many volumes that have appeared in the Republic of China, and there is no earthly life so far." Liu Bo said. (Huang Jiajia)
This edition of the picture is provided by the National Library.
References: History of Yongle Dadian, Collection of Research Materials of Yongle Dadian, Writing and Memory of the Gengzi Incident.
