It is the largest encyclopedia in the history of the world, which was completed by more than 2,000 scholars in five years during the Yongle period of the Qing Dynasty. More than 10,000 volumes, an astonishing 370 million words. It is estimated that a person may never finish reading it. What exactly does Yongle Dadian contain? Because of course, encyclopedias contain all the contents and play a very important role in our understanding of ancient culture, but not many have been preserved from 0755 to 79000. Most of them were destroyed or scattered overseas.

Let's start with the original and copy of Yongle Dadian.

Presided over by Wesley Wang and the Hanlin Bachelor appointed by the Ming Emperor. The number of participants exceeded 3,000, and Yongle completed it in six years. More than 3,000 people participated in editing, copying and marking, and compiled 7,000 or 8,000 kinds of ancient and modern books, including classics, history books, books, collections, interpretations and Taoist scriptures. In the winter of Yongle six years, there were 60 volumes in the catalogue, 22,877 volumes in the text and 11,095 volumes in the text. The total number of words is about 370 million words, and it is named Yongle Dadian.

It was written in Nanjing, but only one book was published after it was written. When Judy moved to the capital in the 19th year of Yongle, the editor Chen Xun was ordered to select one from the cabinet collection of Wenyuan Museum *** 100 and transport the original Yongle Dadian back to Beijing Palace. To Beijing, Wenlou Store. The remaining 100 cabinet books are temporarily stored in Zuoshunmen North Gallery. The Wenyuan Museum was built by Zheng Tong in the sixth year, and books from Zuo Shunmen's North Gallery were transported into the museum. The Yongle Dadian is still stored in the Wenlou. In the fourteenth year of orthodoxy, the Nanjing Wen Yuan Pavilion caught fire, and all the manuscripts and other books in the museum were burned. Since then, Yongle Dadian has become an orphan.

For various reasons, it has been shelved since it was written. Record: "There are indeed many people riding horses, but I have no time to look for them, and I have never heard of anyone who has a short reading exhibition." In 277, there were 16 emperors in Ming dynasty. During this period, except for Emperor Xiaozong of Ming Dynasty, who recorded Yongle Dadian and synopsis of the Golden Chamber to Tai Hospital in order to live over 100 years old, only Emperor Shizong of Ming Dynasty "searched by rhyme, but one or two cases were absent".

In the thirty-sixth year of Jiajing, the Beijing Palace caught fire, and the Fengtianmen and the Three Great Halls were burned down. Sejong was afraid of hurting the nearby wenlou and ordered all the "ceremonies" to be driven out. In order to prevent accidents, he also decided to re-record a copy. This matter was shelved for several years, and in the autumn of Jiajing forty-one, 109 calligraphy and painting students were recruited, and copying painting officially began. Before re-recording, Sejong and Cabinet Minister Xu Jie made strict rules and regulations after careful study. Transcribers go in early and go out late, register for the ceremony, and copy it completely as it is, so that the content is word for word and the format is exactly the same. Loose leaves are copied every day and are not allowed to be modified or rented. This preserves the original appearance to the greatest extent.

Zhu Hou died in December of the forty-fifth year of Jiajing, and the re-recording work was not completed, which lasted for five years until April of the first year of Qin Long.

It was only after the Ming Dynasty that the original Yongle no longer existed. Where did the original go? Future generations' guesses mainly have the following different views:

First, it is said that Emperor Sejong of the Ming Dynasty was buried in Yongling. Because among the Ming emperors, only Xiaozong and Sejong read big gifts. Sejong loves Bao Shu, so the original is likely to be buried in Yongling. There were many people who loved books in the Ming Dynasty. In the last century, when the tomb of Zhu Tan, the king of Huanglu, was excavated in Shandong, there were books like Da Dian. Ming Yongling is more spectacular.

Second, some studies think that she is hiding behind a wall in Yellowstone. Wang et al., a famous historian and professor of Shandong University, think that the Forbidden City, which was built in the 13th year of Jiajing of Emperor Shizong of the Ming Dynasty, has a peculiar wall, with the east-west wall being 3.5m thick and the north-south wall being 6. 1 m thick, which is very rare in architecture. The original may be hidden on the wall of Yellowstone Collection.

Thirdly, Guo Moruo and other teachers' rites destroyed the talent pool of Guo Jian, who was aspiring to Zijian's diploma, when the Ming Dynasty perished, thinking that the original work had been burned in the late Ming Dynasty. More precisely, the original was burned by the peasant uprising army led by Li Zicheng. Rebels were forced to evacuate after 42 days of occupying Beijing. When they retreated, they set fire to the palace buildings.

Fourth, it was destroyed by a fire in the Qing Dynasty. According to "Da Dian", the manuscript of "Night Work Supplement" was moved from Huang Shiyi to the Imperial Academy. When Wang Zu saw it in imperial academy, he guessed the original "because he knew it was still in the Qing Palace and Gu Mo could see it." By the end of the Qing Dynasty, Miao Sunquan not only inherited this theory, but also further developed it: "In the second year of Jiaqing, a fire broke out in Gan Qing Palace and the original was burned." Some scholars point out that this is groundless. Because Qianlong cleaned up the books in the palace, all the rare books were concentrated in Zhaoren Hall next to Gan Qing Palace. But there are more than 10 thousand copies of the ceremony. For example, it is easy to find the original in the Qing palace, but it was not recorded during the grand ceremony, which proves that there was no original hidden in the Qing palace at that time.

The grand ceremony we are seeing at present was copied during the Jiajing period. Where is the original? Whether it is still between heaven and earth, because there is no clear record in the history books, we might as well send a glimmer of hope and hope to see her again one day.

The second question: I want you to know the copy of the ceremony.

The copy of Yongle Dadian has a history of more than 400 years, and has experienced war and theft. According to incomplete statistics, there are about 400 copies of Yongle Dadian scattered at home and abroad. If we continue to search, we will not rule out new discoveries in the world.

As the manuscript of Huang Buqian's Poem History was re-recorded as the original, the original no longer exists. Here is the version of the manuscript:

Carrier material

Paper: The present is made of mulberry bark and papermulberry bark. At that time, it was used to be called white cotton paper in the north. It is called "cotton paper" because its longitudinal stripes break like cotton silk. This kind of paper was mass-produced before and after Jiajing. White and elastic paper is a good choice for printing books. Book collectors are commonly known as "white cotton paper books". 0.12mm thick white cotton paper.

Ink: Huizhou ink is the most famous ink in Ming Dynasty, and its output is also very large. It is made of various components of Huangshan pine smoke and sold all over the country. Hui merchants such as Cheng's and Fang's have been operating for generations and are well-known overseas. Zhu Mo is made of cinnabar minerals, and its color will last for a long time.

Font illustration

Font: except that the first word of the title is written in a variety of seal script, official script and cursive script, the text is in regular script. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, imperial examination papers required regular fonts and uniform sizes. Therefore, students, pavilions and imperial academy officials appointed by scientific research are all good at this. Generally speaking, regular script in Ming Dynasty is flashy and has the rhyme of Song and Yuan Dynasties. After the end of the Ming Dynasty, influenced by Dong Qichang, the fonts pursued roundness, and the pavilion characters became increasingly mediocre. The font is neat and neat, and there is a free and easy spirit. It is actually a masterpiece.

Illustrations: The illustrations in Yongle Dadian include stories of people, Bo Gu artifacts, palace buildings, gardening flowers and trees, maps of mountains and rivers, etc. With the traditional white line brushwork, the characters are vivid and vivid, and the works are exquisite. When Jia Lu was a deputy, it was also the painter who used the original painting. Therefore, these illustrations are the remains of painters' paintings in the Song, Yuan and Ming Dynasties, and they are of great value in the history of painting.

This book is a hand-painted bamboo silk column book, with a frame height of 35.5cm and a width of 23.5cm, with two sides. Eight lines, single line 14, 15, small line and double line with 28 words. There are big red mouths and red fish tails at the top and bottom of the plate. The name "Yongle Dajuan" is written on the fishtail, and the leaf age is written on the fishtail. Its sidebar, trunk and fishtail are all hand-painted, and hundreds of thousands of pieces of paper are needed for the "outside editing of the pavilion". Hand-painted fence is also a big project. Presumably, without tools, the speed will be slow and uneven. It may be that the sidebar and the book mouth are hollowed out and fixed with a thin plate, and then the board is painted red with a brush. The vertical grid in the column is another time. In ancient China, the scroll system mostly used Wu Si lattice, and it is said that there was also a special pen bed. In the book, the text is in ink, and the quoted titles and opening words are in red. The sentence is covered by a small red circle. Zhu Mo is clever and easy to read.

Binding form

In order to wrap Beizhuang, that is, every page, the characters face outward and are folded in half by the middle seam. The spine of the book is twisted with paper, covered with a whole piece of yellow cloth, and then wrapped with cardboard to make the book cover. After mounting, a long yellow silk bookmark with a blue border is pasted on the top left of the book cover, which is entitled "Yongle Dadian Volume 30". There is a small square yellow silk label on the right, which lists the bibliography and the order of books. Each volume has 30-50 leaves, and each volume has two volumes, but there are also one or three volumes. This book is 52 cm high and 3 1 cm wide.

The third question is about the scattered edition of Yongle Dadian.

According to records, the manuscripts of Jiajing from 0755 to 79000 were kept in the Imperial Palace for about 150 years, and were moved to imperial academy to worship a pavilion from 1723 to 1735 during the Yongzheng period of the Qing Dynasty. Since then, this collection of imperial palace books has been borrowed and sorted by ministers, and it has been constantly lost and suffered various damages. Qianlong used this book from 0755 to 79000 in thirty-eight years. During the inventory, it was found that 2422 copies were missing, about 1000 copies. This time, more than 300 lost books have been collected.

Jiaqing and Daoguang used the Grand Ceremony when compiling Yongle Grand Ceremony and Tianlu Lin Lang Bibliography. During this period, due to lax supervision system, a large number of officials stole it. In addition, in the tenth year of Xianfeng, the British and French allied forces invaded Beijing, and the Hanlin Academy was savagely destroyed and robbed. The losses ranged from 0755 to 79000, which was countless. You Ying's invading army plundered the most and shipped it back to China as a trophy. When the Hanlin Academy was renovated in the first year of Guangxu, the book Yongle Dadian was less than 5,000 copies.

According to another record, Weng Tong _ went to imperial academy to check the Grand Ceremony the following year, with only 800 copies left. Finally, in the 26th year of Guangxu, Eight-Nation Alliance invaded Beijing and imperial academy became a battlefield. During the Yongle reign, except for the burning and destruction of war and man-made robbery, the library of the Hanlin Academy was completely eliminated at this point. The invaders smuggled a large number of plundered wealth and cultural relics back to China, and the "grand ceremony" was scattered in libraries and private hands all over the world. Some domestic literati and calligraphers are also scrambling to buy collections, thinking that imported goods can live in them. More than 10,000 copies of this "Da Dian" were once hidden in the yamen of Ming and Qing Dynasties, but it almost disappeared in less than 100 years. In the second year of Xuantong, when 19 10 Capital Library was established, the Ministry of Education only allocated 60 volumes of Da Dian as the initial collection of the Capital Library, and it was looted.

The fourth question is about the collection of heavenly creations by the National Library of China.

The demise of China is not only a great academic achievement, but also a great loss of world culture. Teacher Zheng Zhenduo, who made great contributions to the search for the Grand Ceremony, felt 50 years ago: If the Grand Ceremony can be preserved until now, we can have a more complete view of the history of ancient Chinese literature. Let's just say that this deposit of 100 yuan, the "grand ceremony" of 34 yuan deposit, we can already get a lot of rare and important information from it.

After the research of scholars at home and abroad

In fact, when the Capital Library was established in the late Qing Dynasty, the Department proposed to transfer the remaining "Grand Ceremony" books of the Hanlin Academy to the Capital Library, but it was not handled. 19 12, the government of the Republic of China was founded, and Zhou Shuren was the first section chief of the Social Education Department of the Ministry of Education, in charge of libraries, museums and other departments. With his suggestions and efforts, the Ministry of Education asked the State Council to send the book "Gift" collected by imperial academy to the Ministry of Education, which was kept by the Capital Library and approved by the State Council. The Ministry of Education immediately sent staff to Lu Runxiang and delivered 64 copies of the Grand Ceremony to the Ministry of Education. Except for 4 volumes displayed in the Library of the Ministry of Education, the remaining 60 volumes were sent to the Shijing Library, which was the first batch of "Grand Ceremony" volumes collected by the National Library.

On the basis of carefully sorting out and properly protecting these 60 volumes of Sikuquanshu, the Capital Library has collected them everywhere. In the meantime, the Capital Library was renamed several times, but the collection of the ceremony never stopped. By 1934, the collection of Quantangwen has reached 93 volumes.

193 1 year, after the September 18th Incident, the situation in North China was turbulent and the government ordered the antiquities to move south. Beiping Library first packages Dunhuang scriptures, rare books of ancient books, rubbings, maps and precious western books, and then stores them in safe places such as Tianjin Mainland Bank. 1May, 933, the Ministry of Education ordered the Beiping Library to move the Song and Yuan fine works, the unified chronicle of the Qing Dynasty, the chronicle of the Ming Dynasty and the anthology of the Ming Dynasty to the south, just in case. After the Beiping Library received the electricity, it quickly transported the rare books, including The Grand Ceremony, to Shanghai, stored them in the warehouse of the public concession, and set up the Shanghai office of the National Beiping Library to take charge of the management. On the saved packing list, you can clearly see the southbound transportation of the big store at that time.

1937 After the "August 13th Incident", Shanghai fell and the European War broke out soon. The domestic situation has further deteriorated, and the collection security of Shanghai National Library has been threatened. Acting curator Yuan Tongli and Shanghai office Qian Cunxun contacted the US through the embassy in the United States and decided to re-select these rare books and transport them back to the United States for preservation. Among the 3000 selected volumes, there are 60 volumes of the Grand Ceremony. It arrived in the United States before the Pacific War and was kept by the Library of Congress. 1965, these rare books were transferred to Taiwan Province province, and now they are temporarily stored in Taiwan Province province.

1988 During the Anti-Japanese War, the national crisis was at the forefront, but patriotic intellectuals never stopped rescuing and collecting rare books of ancient books. Zheng Zhenduo, a teacher trapped in Shanghai, keeps going in and out of bookstores, looking for rare books and keeping in touch with the National Library. Curator Yuan Tongli raised money everywhere to buy books. Among the rare books collected during that period, there are two volumes of Da Dian.

From 65438 to 0949, after the founding of People's Republic of China (PRC), the party and government paid more attention to the protection of cultural heritage, and the collection ceremony became a brand-new situation.

195 1 year, the Department of Oriental Studies of Leningrad University in the Soviet Union returned the Grand Ceremony (Volume 1 1) to the government of China. The Ministry of Culture will receive it and hand it over to the National Library. To commemorate this move, Guo Tu held a "Grand Ceremony" exhibition to publicize the value of the "Grand Ceremony" and its looting experience. This exhibition has greatly aroused the patriotic enthusiasm of people from all walks of life. Some patriots and bibliophiles have handed over their collections to the National Library for centralized collection.

195 1 On August 20th, 2008, Mr. Zhou Shutao donated a book of Yongle Dadian in his family library to the state map for free, and wrote to the state map: "There is a book of Dadian in my old collection, including Hangziyun, with a total volume of 7602-7603, and I would like to donate it to your library. I will return the pearl to Hepu and become a public. Almost at the same time, at the initiative of Mr. Zhang Yuanji, the board of directors of the Commercial Press unanimously agreed to donate the 2 1 volume Yongle Grand Ceremony collected by the Oriental Library of the Commercial Press.

What deserves our gratitude is that in the 1950s and 1960s, when the economy of the Republic of China was very difficult, Premier Zhou Enlai attached great importance to the collection of cultural relics and allocated special funds to buy a batch of precious ancient books from Chen Qinghua, a famous Hong Kong bibliophile, including four volumes of Yongle Dadian. By 1965, the collection of Yongle Dadian has reached 220 volumes.

There is also a legendary story in the collection process of the ceremony. 1983, a copy of the ceremony was found in the home of Sun Honglin, a farmer in Yexian County. When it was discovered, the head and feet of the Yongle Grand Ceremony had disappeared, and there were patterns and shoes on the book. Fortunately, although the peasant women at that time could not read, the tradition of respecting words and cherishing paper inherited from their ancestors preserved the book Yongle Dadian, which is also a great blessing. After learning the important value of this book, the Sun family sent it to the Yexian Cultural Center, which, after receiving it, handed it over to the professional restorers of Guotu for repair. This ancient book, which has been wandering for many years, is finally integrated with other books in Yongle Dadian. Up to this year, the collection of grand ceremonies in the National Library has reached 22 1 volume.

In 2007, China ancient books protection plan was launched. When the experts went to Shanghai to identify the first batch of national precious ancient books, a new volume "Da Dian" appeared in front of them again. After two years of operation, it will be put into the National Library of Tibet. This volume is a volume with the word "Yun Lake", which can be combined with part of the original map of Tibet.

The collection and preservation of rare books in the National Library of China is a microcosm, which reflects the history of rare books collection in the National Library of China from one side. Over the past century, people have been moved by the support of the government, many patriots and people who care about the cause of the national library, the return of foreign collection units, and the hard work of several generations of library staff. As a staff member of the National Library, I will never forget it.

Question 5: The grand ceremony outside the National Library.

In addition to the collection of the National Library, there are nearly 200 volumes of Yongle Dadian in the hands of Shanghai Library, Sichuan University and public and private collectors in Britain, Japan, Germany, the United States and other countries and regions. According to the known information, there are 30 collectors:

National Library of China, Shanghai Library, Sichuan University Library, Taiwan Province Provincial Central Library, Taiwan Institute of History and Language, National Library of Japan, Oriental Library, School of Humanities of Kyoto University, Affiliated Library of Kyoto University, Japan Tian Li Library, Japan Jingjiatang Library, Japan Shidao Library, Japan Osaka Library, Japan Takeda Hashimoto, Japan Ishiguro, Japan Nana Nana Ogawa Hongzhi, British Museum, Oxford University Library, Institute of Oriental Languages, University of London, Cambridge University, Madden University, Hamburg University Library, Cologne Simulation Library, Berlin Ethnology Museum, Library of Congress, Harvard University Library, Cornell University, Boston Library, Far East College in Hanoi, South Korea, Li Wangzhi Library in Old Beijing.

We see more collectors in Britain and Japan. When Eight-Nation Alliance invaded Beijing, imperial academy became a battlefield, and the British Embassy was less than 1 m away from the wall of imperial academy, so it is easy to explain why there are more British collections in the ceremony. In Zhai Lansi's diary, there is a volume of Yongle Grand Ceremony recorded in the Library of Congress from England. 1989, Ireland discovered five volumes of Yongle dadian. In 2002, a scanned copy of Yongle Dadian from Aberdeen was presented to the National Library at the International Symposium on Yongle Dadian 600, which was unknown at that time. Some scholars revealed at the meeting that the New York Public Library also has the collection of Yongle Dadian. The number of Japanese collections of Yongle Dadian may be a favorable factor. 1920, Oriental Library purchased 10 copies of Yongle Dadian from Wenqiutang Bookstore in Kyotaro, Tanaka, and then purchased 1943 the Yongle Dadian in six times, with 63 copies and 34 copies respectively. Around 1940, Oriental Library tried to buy 49 copies of Liu Jiayetang at one time, but failed because of the war and insufficient funds. At that time, it passed through the Manchu Railway and was collected in Dalian Library. After World War II, it was returned to Beijing Library through the old Soviet Union. Maybe through our general survey of ancient books, there will be new discoveries.

Yongle dadian archives catalogue