Recently, two volumes of the "Yongle Encyclopedia" have been officially included in the Hangzhou branch of the China National Library.
The two volumes of the "Yongle Encyclopedia" that have been collected this time are the "Lake" character volume (volumes 2268-2269) and the "Mourning" character volume (volumes 7391-7392), both of which are written in the imperial palace during the reigns of Emperor Jiajing and Emperor Longqing of the Ming Dynasty. They are connected to the volumes of the same name stored in the National Library. The "Lake" character book mainly consists of place names, involving 436 lake names, and excerpting a large number of local chronicles and poems. The "mourning" booklet introduces the content of "national mourning".
The Yongle Encyclopedia is a large-scale book compiled during the Yongle reign of Emperor Chengzu of the Ming Dynasty, consisting of 22877 volumes and 11095 volumes. It collects seven to eight thousand classic texts from pre Qin to early Ming Dynasty, covering a wide range of content, and is known as the "largest encyclopedia in history".
The preciousness of the "Yongle Encyclopedia" lies in its "preservation of books", which preserves a large number of ancient books that were lost before the Yongle period of the Ming Dynasty. Weng Lianxi, an expert in ancient books and a researcher at the Palace Museum, believes that the inclusion of the "Lake" character book in the collection has connected all the existing "Lake" character books (2260-2283), and has profound value as a literary supplement and academic expansion.
The road to the return of national treasures is full of twists and turns. In May 2020, a French auction house released two volumes of the "Yongle Encyclopedia".
At that time, it was difficult for domestic public collection institutions to participate in the auction, so Weng Lianxi contacted domestic book collector Jin Liang. After hearing the news, Jin Liang invested to repurchase these two volumes of "Yongle Encyclopedia". With the joint efforts of all parties, two volumes of the "Yongle Encyclopedia" were delivered to Shanghai in early 2022. At this point, the long lost national treasure has finally returned to its homeland, writing a beautiful story of cultural relic protection.
Witnessing the official collection of two volumes of the Yongle Encyclopedia, I have fulfilled my long cherished wish of safely returning the 'national treasure' home, "said Jin Liang, who later served as the president of the Zhejiang Classical Literature Research Association. He hopes that when people see them in the version library, they can deeply feel the vastness of Chinese civilization and the resilience of cultural heritage preservation.
For the Version Museum, the inclusion of two volumes of the "Yongle Encyclopedia" is a historic leap in the collection system and has become the most significant treasure of our museum. Chu Beibei, the director of the Hangzhou branch of the National Version Museum of China, believes that this is a major breakthrough in our museum's collection work, exploring the model of "government guidance, social collaboration, and expert empowerment" for the return of overseas cultural relics, and providing reference for striving for more lost cultural relics to return home.
The Yongle Encyclopedia, which combines ancient and modern elements, was reprinted in its original form during the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty. The whereabouts of the original copy are unknown, with only over 400 copies remaining, accounting for less than 4% of the total original volume. There are only 241 copies left in China, with the rest scattered outside. Each volume of the Yongle Encyclopedia can be regarded as a national treasure level cultural heritage.
The value of the collection of the Yongle Encyclopedia goes far beyond the combination of volumes. As a rare and unparalleled book compiled in the Ming Dynasty, its Jiajing copy is the only surviving true edition, carrying a large number of lost documents from the Song and Yuan dynasties, and can be regarded as an invaluable treasure trove for academic research. At the same time, it represents the highest level of calligraphy in the Ming Dynasty, whether it is paper, ink, binding, or the functional system of calligraphers and school officials, it can be regarded as a model of classical literature. What is even more precious is that after hundreds of years of dispersal, every book that exists today is a unique and irreplaceable copy. Every time a classic is collected, it is not only a completion of lost chapters, but also a cherishing and continuation of a historical and cultural period.