The Yongle Encyclopedia collected and arranged documentary material on an enormous scale, preserving some sources that subsequently disappeared. Most of the original work was later lost, and only a portion of its volumes survive. Tracing, editing, and publishing fragments has become an important task in the history of texts.
Historical background
The Yongle Encyclopedia or Yongle Dadian is a Chinese leishu encyclopedia commissioned by the Yongle Emperor (r. 1402–1424) of the Ming dynasty in 1403 and completed by 1408. It comprised 22,937 manuscript rolls in 11,095 volumes. Fewer than 400 volumes survive today, comprising about 800 rolls, or 3.5% of the original work.
Most of the text was lost during the latter half of the 19th century, in the midst of events including the Second Opium War and the Boxer Rebellion. Its sheer scope and size made it the world's largest general encyclopedia, until it was surpassed by Wikipedia in late 2007, nearly six centuries later.
Background
Although known for his military achievements, the Yongle Emperor (r. 1402–1424) was an intellectual who enjoyed reading. His love for research led him to develop the idea of categorizing literary works into a reference encyclopedia to preserve rare books and simplify research. Instrumental to this undertaking were the Yongle Emperor's own changes to the function of the Hanlin Academy.
Prior to his reign, the Hanlin Academy was responsible for various clerical tasks such as drafting proclamations and edicts. The Yongle Emperor decided to elevate the status of the Hanlin Academy and began selecting only the highest-ranking recruits for the academy. Clerical duties were relegated to Imperial officers, whereas the Hanlin Academy, now full of elite scholars, began to work on literary projects for the Emperor.
Development
The Yongle Encyclopedia was commissioned by the Yongle Emperor and completed in 1408. In 1404, a year after the work was commissioned, a team of 100 scholars, mostly from the Hanlin Academy, led by Xie Jin completed a manuscript called A Complete Work of Literature. The Yongle Emperor rejected this work and insisted on adding other volumes.
In 1405, under the Yongle Emperor's command, the number of scholars rose to 2,169. Scholars were sent all over China to find books and expand the encyclopedia. The Yongle Emperor assigned his personal advisor, Yao Guangxiao, a monk, Zheng Ci, the minister of ceremonies, and Liu Jichi, the deputy minister of punishment, as co-editors of the encyclopedia to supervise and support Xie Jin. The scholars spent four years compiling the leishu encyclopedia, under the leadership of general editor Yao Guangxiao.
The encyclopedia was completed in 1408 at the Guozijian in Nanjing (now Nanjing University). It comprised 22,937 manuscript rolls or chapters, in 11,095 volumes, occupying roughly 40 cubic metres (1,400 ft), and using 370 million Chinese characters—the equivalent of about a quarter of a billion English words (around six times as many as the Encyclopædia Britannica).
The leishu was intended to include every commentary that had been written on the Chinese classics, as well as all history, philosophy, arts, and sciences. It was a massive collation of excerpts and works from the entirety of Chinese literature and knowledge. The Yongle Emperor was so pleased with the finished encyclopedia that he named it after his reign, and personally wrote a lengthy preface highlighting the importance of preserving the works.
Style
The encyclopedia's physical appearance differed from any other Chinese encyclopedias of the time. It was larger in size, used special paper, and was bound in a "wrapped back" (bao bei zhuang) style. The use of red ink for titles and authors, an ink exclusively reserved for the emperor, helped to confirm that the volumes were of royal production.
Each volume was protected by a hard cover which was wrapped in yellow silk. Unlike other encyclopedias, it was not arranged by subject, but by (Hongwu zhengyun), a system by which characters are ordered phonetically or rhythmically. The use of this system helped the reader find specific entries with ease.
Although printing already existed during the Ming dynasty, the Yongle Encyclopedia was exclusively handwritten. Each handwritten entry was a collection of existing literature, some of which derived from rare and delicate texts. The importance of the Yongle Encyclopedia was the preservation of such texts, and the vast number of subjects it covered.