is the largest encyclopedia in the history of the world, which was completed by more than 2,111 scholars in five years during the Yongle period of the Qing Dynasty. There are more than 11,111 volumes, with an astonishing 371 million words. It is estimated that a person may never finish reading it. What exactly does Yongle Dadian contain? Because the encyclopedia certainly contains all the contents, it plays a very important role in our understanding of ancient culture, but not many have been preserved from 1755 to 79111. Most of them were destroyed or scattered overseas.
Let's start with the original and copy of Yongle Dadian.
It was presided over by Wang Ziyao and Hanlin Bachelor appointed by the Ming Emperor. It took more than 3,111 people to participate and Yongle was completed in six years. More than 3,111 people participated in editing, copying and marking, and compiled 7,111 or 8,111 kinds of ancient and modern books, including classics, history books, books, collections, interpretations and Taoist scriptures. By the winter of Yongle six years, there were sixty volumes in the catalogue, twenty-two thousand eight hundred and seventy-seven volumes in the text and eleven thousand and ninety-five volumes. The total number of words is about 371 million words, and it is named Yongle Dadian.
It was written in Nanjing, but after writing, I only made one book. When Zhu Di moved to the capital in the 19th year of Yongle, Chen Xun, the editor, was ordered to choose one from the collection of ***111 cabinets in Wenyuan Museum and transport the original Yongle Dadian to Beijing Palace. Arrive in Beijing and store in Wenlou. The remaining 111 cabinets of books are temporarily stored in Zuoshunmen North Gallery. Zheng Tong built Wenyuan Pavilion in six years, so books from Zuo Shunmen's North Gallery were transported into the Pavilion, and Yongle Dadian was still stored in Wenlou. In the fourteenth year of orthodoxy, the Wen Yuan Pavilion in Nanjing caught fire, and all the manuscripts and other books in the pavilion were burned. From then on, Yongle Dadian became an orphan.
for various reasons, it has been shelved since it was written. Records: "There are indeed many horseback riding, but I have no time to find them, and I have never heard of anyone who has a short reading exhibition." There were 277 years and 16 emperors in the Ming Dynasty. During this period, except Emperor Xiaozong of Ming Dynasty, who recorded the Yongle Dadian and synopsis of the Golden Chamber to Tai Hospital in order to live a hundred years, only Emperor Shizong of Ming Dynasty "used rhyme to search, 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 "Dadian" 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's forty-first year, 119 calligraphy and painting students were enrolled, and copying painting was officially started. 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 and receive the Grand Ceremony, and copy it completely according to the original, so that the content is word for word and the format is exactly the same. Sanye is copied every day, and it is not allowed to be altered or hired. This preserves the original appearance to the greatest extent.
by the time Zhu Hou _ died in December of the 45th year of Jiajing, the re-recording work had not been completed, and it 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? The speculation of later generations mainly has the following different views:
First, it is said that Emperor Sejong of the Ming Dynasty was buried in Yongling. Because among the emperors of the Ming Dynasty, only Xiaozong and Sejong read the Grand Ceremony. 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 Huang Lu, was excavated in Shandong, there were books like Da Dian. Ming Yongling is more spectacular
Secondly, some studies think that it is hidden in a wall between Huangshi. 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 3.5 meters thick and the north-south wall being 6.1 meters thick, which is very rare in architecture. The original work may be hidden in the wall of Yellowstone Collection.
Third, Guo Moruo and other teachers' rites destroyed the talent pool of the aspiring Guo Jian-zi-jian diploma at the time of Ming Dynasty's death, and thought that the original work had been burned at the end of 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 the records in "Da Dian", the manuscript of "Ye Huo Bian Addendum" was moved to the Hanlin Academy by Huang Shiyi. When Wang Zu saw it in the 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 down." 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 11,111 copies of The Grand Ceremony. For example, it is easy to find the original in the Qing palace, but it was not recorded in the year of Dadian, which proves that there was no original hidden in the Qing palace at that time.
The Grand Ceremony we have seen so far was copied during Jiajing's reign. 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.
second question: I want you to know the copy of the Grand Ceremony.
The copy of Yongle Dadian has a history of more than 411 years, and it has experienced war, theft and so on. According to incomplete statistics, there are only about 411 copies of Yongle Dadian scattered at home and abroad. If we continue to search, we will not rule out new discoveries in the world.
since the copy of Du Gongbu's History of Poetry, which was annotated by Huang's thousands of books, was re-recorded as the original, and the original no longer exists, let's introduce the version of the copy:
Carrier material
Paper: The Grand Ceremony is made of mulberry bark and paper bark as the main raw materials. 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 produced in large quantities before and after Jiajing. The paper is white and flexible, and it is a good choice for printing books. Book collectors are commonly known as "white cotton paper books". 1.12 mm 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 ingredients 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, the fonts of imperial examination papers were required to be regular and uniform in size. Therefore, students, pavilions, and officials of the Imperial Academy appointed by scientific research are all good at this kind of words. In general, regular script in Ming Dynasty is flashy and unpretentious, with the charm 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: All kinds of 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 picture. Therefore, these illustrations are the remains of painters' paintings in the Song, Yuan and early Ming Dynasties, which are of great value in the history of painting. < P > This book is a hand-painted bamboo silk column book with a frame of 35.5cm high and 23.5cm wide and two sides. Eight lines, 14 and 15 words in a single line, and 28 words in a small line and two lines. There are big red mouths and red fish tails at the top and bottom of the plate. On the tail of the fish, the title of "Yongle Dajuan" is written, and on the tail of the fish, the leaf times are written. Its sidebars, trunk and fishtail are all hand-painted, and hundreds of thousands of pieces of paper are needed for "External Compilation of the Tun Pavilion". Hand-painted fence is also a big project. Presumably, if tools are not used, the speed will be slow and uneven. It may be that the sidebar and the book mouth are hollowed out with thin plates and fixed, and then the board is painted red with a brush. The vertical grid in the column is another time. The scroll system in ancient China mostly used Wu Si grid, and it is said that there was a special pen bed. In the book, the text is in ink, and the quoted title and opening words are in red. The sentence is covered with a little red circle. Zhu Mo is smart and easy to read.
the binding form
is Bao Bei Zhuang, that is, each page, the characters face outward and are folded in half by the middle seam. The spine of the book is twisted tightly with paper, and the outside is wrapped 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, entitled "Volume 31 of Yongle Grand Ceremony". Attached to the right is a small square yellow silk label, which lists the bibliography and the order of the book. Each volume has 31-51 leaves, and each volume has two volumes, but there are also one or three volumes. This book is 52 cm high and 31 cm wide.
The third question is about the scattered edition of Yongle Dadian.
According to records, the manuscripts of Jiajing from 1755 to 79111 were kept in the Imperial Palace for about 151 years, and 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 books in the imperial palace has been borrowed and sorted out by ministers, and it has been constantly lost and suffered various damages. Qianlong used this book from 1755 to 79111 in the thirty-eighth year. During the inventory, it was found that 2,422 copies, about 1,111 copies, were missing. This time, more than 311 missing books have been collected.
Jiaqing and Daoguang used the Grand Ceremony when compiling Yongle Grand Ceremony and Tianlu Linlang 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, with losses ranging from 1755 to 79111, 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, there were less than 5,111 books in the book Yongle Dadian.
According to another record, the following year, Weng Tong _ went to the Imperial Academy to check the Grand Ceremony, with only 811 copies left. Finally, in the 26th year of Guangxu, Eight-Nation Alliance invaded Beijing and the Imperial Academy became a battlefield. In the year of Yongle Dadian, in addition to the burning and destruction of war and man-made robbery, the books in the Hanlin Academy were completely wiped out at this point. The invaders smuggled a large amount 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 11,111 copies of this book "Da Dian" were once hidden in the yamen of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, but it almost disappeared in less than one hundred years. When the Capital Library was established in 1911, the second year of Xuantong, the Ministry of Education only allocated 61 volumes of The Grand Ceremony as the initial collection of the Capital Library, which were looted.
The fourth question is about the collection of Heavenly Creations in the National Library of China. The destruction of
is not only a great academic achievement of China, but also a great loss of world culture. Teacher Zheng Zhenduo, who made great contributions to the search for Da Dian, felt 51 years ago: If Da Dian has been preserved till now, we can have a more complete view of the history of ancient Chinese literature. Let's just say that this "Grand Ceremony" with a deposit of 111 yuan and a deposit of 34 yuan, we can already get a lot of rare and important information from it.
After research by scholars at home and abroad
In fact, when the Capital Library was built in the late Qing Dynasty, the Ministry of Education proposed to transfer the remaining "Da Dian" books of the Hanlin Academy to the Capital Library, but it was not handled. In 1912, the government of the Republic of China was established, and Zhou Shuren was appointed as 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 "The Grand Ceremony" kept in the Imperial Academy to the Ministry of Education for safekeeping by the Capital Library, which was 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 61 volumes were sent to the Shi Jing Library, which was the first batch of "Da Dian" volumes collected by the National Library.
On the basis of carefully sorting out and properly protecting these 61 volumes of Sikuquanshu, the Capital Library collects them everywhere. In the meantime, the Capital Library changed its name several times, but the collection of the grand ceremony never stopped. By 1934, the collection of Quantangwen had reached 93 volumes.
In p>1931, 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. In May, 1933, the Ministry of Education ordered the Beiping Library to move the Song and Yuan Dynasty's fine works, the Qing Dynasty's unified annals, the Ming Dynasty's annals and the selected editions to the south, just in case. After the Beiping Library received the electricity, it soon 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, we can clearly see the southbound transportation of Dadian at that time.
After the "August 13th Incident" in p>1937, Shanghai fell and the European War broke out soon. The domestic situation has further deteriorated, and the collection security of the National Library in Shanghai has been threatened. Acting curator Yuan Tongli and Shanghai office Qian Cunxun contacted the American side through the embassy in the United States and decided to re-select these rare books and transport them to the United States for preservation. Among the 3111 volumes selected, there are 61 volumes of the Grand Ceremony. It arrived in the United States before the Pacific War and was kept by the Library of Congress. In 1965, these rare books were transferred to Taiwan Province Province, and now they are temporarily stored in Taiwan Province Province.
during the anti-Japanese war in p>1988, 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. Yuan Tongli, the curator, raised money everywhere to buy books. Among the rare books collected during that period, there are two volumes of Da Dian.
in p>1949, after the founding of the People's Republic of China, the party and the government paid more attention to the protection of cultural heritage, and the collection of Da Dian became a brand-new situation.
In p>1951, the Department of Oriental Studies of Leningrad University in the Soviet Union returned 11 volumes of The Grand Ceremony 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 an exhibition of "Da Dian" to publicize the value of "Da Dian" 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 of The Grand Ceremony to the National Library for centralized collection.
On August 21th, 1951, Mr. Zhou Shutao donated a book of Yongle Grand Ceremony in his family library to the state for free, and wrote to the state map: "I have a book of Grand Ceremony in my old collection, including Hangziyun, with volumes of 7612-7613, and I would like to donate it to your museum. It is also the bounden duty of the people of China to return the pearls to Hepu. Almost at the same time, at the initiative of Mr. Zhang Yuanji, the board of directors of the Commercial Press unanimously agreed to donate 21 volumes of Yongle Dadian collected by the Oriental Library of the Commercial Press
What deserves our gratitude is that in the 1951s and 1961s, 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. By 1965, the collection of Yongle Dadian had reached 221 volumes.
There is also a legendary story in the process of ceremony collection. In 1983, a copy of Da Dian was found in the home of Sun Honglin, a farmer in Ye County. When it was discovered, the head and feet of this Yongle Dadian had disappeared, and there were patterns and shoes in 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 saved the book Yongle Dadian, which is also a blessing in its circulation. Knowing the important value of this book, the bamboo slips sent it to the Yexian Cultural Center, which transferred it to the national map for professional repair.