Ming Taizu Hongwu twenty-one years (1388), that is, I wanted to compile a book to discuss "compiling a hundred classics as' Lei Yao', but I didn't finish it. After Ming Chengzu acceded to the throne, in order to organize knowledge, Jie Jin and others were invited to write books and make statements. Compilation purpose: "As for astronomy, geography, yin and yang, medical divination, Buddhism and Taoism, and the number of skills, all the books that have been a subset of history since the book was signed should be compiled into one book, so don't be too complicated! "The process is called 147 people, and the first book was written in the second year of Yongle (1404), which was first named literature integration; After reading it, Ming Chengzu thought that "there are still many books not ready" and he was not satisfied. In the third year of Yongle (1405), the Prince Shaofu Yao, Li Shangshu Zheng Ci, Liu Jichi and others were ordered to rebuild, and they were compiled by 2 169 people in the ruling and opposition. Organize the establishment of supervisors, presidents, vice presidents, presidents and other positions, and be responsible for all aspects of work. Jiang Yongwen and Zhao Tongyou are vice presidents respectively, and Chen Ji is the president of the capital. He participated in all the books in Wen Yuan Pavilion. In the fifth year of Yongle (1407), the book was finalized and submitted. Ming Chengzu was very satisfied and personally prefaced it, and named it Yongle Grand Ceremony. It was not officially written until the winter of the sixth year of Yongle (1408). According to the Record of Entering Yongle Grand Ceremony, there are 22,877 volumes in the book, 60 volumes in the catalogue, and 1 1.095 volumes.

During the revision of Yongle Dadian, no changes were made to the collected books, and the original contents of the books were retained by incorporating all kinds of books. However, according to experts' research, there are many mistakes and omissions in Yongle Dadian, which is not called "never abridged phrases". Xie Baocheng pointed out that in 1963, the article "medical eye" under the rhyme of "eye" in Yongle Dadian was quoted from Lin Tang Yu, and the original text was from the book of sounds and pictures, Volume 6, Feather Department. The situation that Yongle Dadian arbitrarily deleted and revised this article is very serious.

There is only one original book of Yongle Dadian, which was revised during Yongle period. What exists today are all manuscripts of Jiajing period. Ming Shizong liked Yongle Dadian very much and often took it with him to look for a prescription. Jiajing forty-one years in August life copy. Qin Long was originally sent back to Nanking after initial success. It was originally hidden in Wenyuan Pavilion, but the copy does not contain Huang Shibi. There were 8,000 copies of this set of books during the Qianlong period, so some people suspected that they were not copied at that time. The whereabouts of the original work has always been a mystery, and there are many speculations in the history circle. Gu's Record of the Day concluded that the ceremony was "all lost". There is also a speculation that the original book has been sacrificed to Emperor Jiajing. After Jiajing's death, he didn't bury him immediately, but waited for a long time. At that time, the manuscript was in progress, and some people thought it was waiting for the end of copying. There are only 8,000 copies of Jiajing manuscript left, which makes people suspect that they may be eager to be buried and have not finished copying. If so, it has been confirmed by remote sensing that all the permanent tombs buried by Jiajing are water, so the original work of Yongle Dadian can no longer be seen by future generations.

The Yongle Grand Ceremony of Ming Dynasty was lost. In the thirty-eighth year of Qianlong (1772), I sorted out Sikuquanshu and found that the Yongle Dadian had lost 2422 volumes, about 1000 copies. The official of Siku Library sorted out a large number of lost books from Yongle Dadian, among which 385 kinds were included in Siku Quanshu, thinking that "the essence has been collected, the dross can be donated, and the original (book) can be discarded". In the tenth year of Xianfeng (1860), the British and French allied forces invaded Beijing, and imperial academy was looted and a large number of "grand ceremonies" were lost. In the first year of Guangxu (1875), when the Hanlin Academy was renovated, there were less than 5,000 inspection ceremonies. The rapid loss of Yongle ceremony is mainly due to the staff stealing things themselves. It is said that Wen once stole 100 copies of Yongle Dadian. In the 20th year of Guangxu (1894), when Weng Tonghe entered imperial academy in June, there were only 800 volumes left. Now there are about 400 volumes, 8 10 volumes, less than 4% of the original book. In the 26th year of Guangxu (1900), imperial academy was burned by the Boxer Rebellion, and more than 300 volumes of Yongle Dadian were damaged. In the 27th year of Guangxu (190 1), on June 11th, the British Embassy returned 330 copies of the ceremony. Soon, it was divided up by the guards. When imperial academy Grand Ceremony was handed over to Shi Jing Library on 19 12, there were only 64 volumes left.

At present, the National Library of China has 16 1 volume, and the Library of Congress of the United States also has 40 volumes. There are 5 1 volumes in all parts of Britain, including the British Library, Oxford University Library, London University School of Oriental Languages, Cambridge University, Hamburg University Library, Cologne University Library and Berlin Ethnology Museum. Japan's Library of Parliament, Japan's Oriental Library, Japan's Kyoto University School of Humanities, Japan's Kyoto University Affiliated Library, Japan's Lisan Library, Japan's Jingpeitang Library, Japan's Stowe Wenxun, Japan's Osaka Prefectural Library, Japan's Takeda-CHO, Japan's Ishiguro Liu Chuan, Japan's Nana Ogawa Hiroshi, South Korea's Old King Lee Library also have collections, and the National Palace Museum in Taiwan Province Province has 62 volumes.