Literary Records of the Examination (Upper, Middle, and Lower)

Author: Zheng Weizhang
Publisher:
Publishing Time: Not available
Features: In the past, Ye Changchi spent seven years compiling the preliminary draft of Records of Book Collectors in Verse (hereinafter referred to as Ye's Poem). On August 17, 1890, during the 16th year of the Guangxu reign (1890), he presented it to Pan Zuyin, Grand Tutor of the Heir Apparent and Minister of Revenue, for review. Pan was deeply impressed upon first sight and immediately wanted to have it published. Soon after, he fell seriously ill and, in his final moments, still urged the prompt completion of the final draft for publication. Several years after Pan's death, the six-volume edition was finally engraved and published by Jiang Biao. Several years later, Ye himself engraved the seven-volume supplemented edition. Wang Songwei called this book a "masterpiece of the art world," while Wu Yusheng remarked that it was a "creation unparalleled in over two hundred years, and as long as the text endures, this book will forever remain in the world." Why did Pan and others hold Ye's Poem in such high regard? Because the development of Chinese civilization over thousands of years has always been inseparable from books! History is a long river, and any individual is merely a water molecule in it, fleeting in an instant. Only an unsinkable great ship, sailing from ancient times to the present and onward forever, exists. It is books! The Chinese nation is one that loves books, hence the historical emergence of generations of bibliophiles. Activities such as collecting, copying, collating, engraving, editing, cataloging, and annotating have become important historical endeavors in Chinese literature for thousands of years. Especially since the Qing Dynasty, these activities have been even more vibrant and have achieved remarkable accomplishments. Thousands of Chinese bibliophiles, or depriving themselves of necessities to buy books, or neglecting sleep and rest to diligently copy books, their eyes weary from strain; or constantly marking and correcting texts, engrossed in book collation all day long; or bankrupting themselves to engrave books, honoring the spirits of ancient scholars above and enlightening future generations below; or lining their shelves with thousands of volumes, meticulously annotating and cataloging each one; or enduring hardships to rescue ancient books and prevent them from leaving the country. They loved books as their lives, regarding hunger as food, cold as clothing, illness as medicine, solitude as friendship, and becoming so devoted to the Song and Yuan dynasties that they reached a state of madness. All the tens of thousands of existing ancient books embody their hard work and dedication. They have made immortal contributions to the prosperity of Chinese culture. Their history is worthy of being recorded. However, except for a few high officials and renowned scholars, most people devoted their lives to books without seeking fame or fortune, so "their names were not mentioned by the learned, and when the silk scrolls scattered, the fields grew silent." Sun Qian, who exchanged books with Huang Yujì, Ye Wan, and Zhou Zaijun during the early Qing Dynasty, was forgotten by later generations when Quanzongweng visited Wu in the Qianlong era, leaving no trace of his legacy. Wu Qian lamented that the local gazetteers of the Qianlong and Jiaqing eras did not include Ye Wan, saying, "This is a great regret." Qian Chen recorded the deeds of Ye Yi (Lin Zong) in Notes on Diligent Reading, especially noting his hope that "this book would preserve his name for posterity." During the Kangxi and Yongzheng reigns, Zheng Yuanqing compiled Records of the Lake in 120 volumes, which were lost by the Jiaqing era, and Fan Kai found only one volume, compiling it into Records of Book Collectors in Wuxing, documenting sixteen bibliophiles in Wuxing, marking the beginning of specialized works on bibliophiles. During the Jiaqing and Daoguang eras, the great bibliophile Gu Guangqi wanted to record the "origins of figures and the schools of classics in Wu," believing it to be "a duty of those who love the past." Huang Pili wanted to "write brief biographies of each and compile them into a collection," considering it "also a responsibility of those who cherish ancient culture." Chen Kui also wanted to "compile the origins of book collections from various families for the literature of our county," but none of these projects were completed. In the late Qing Dynasty, Ding Shen imitated Zheng Yuanqing's Records of the Lake to compile Records of Book Collectors in Lin'an in four volumes, but it remained a specialized work on book collectors in Hangzhou. As for a comprehensive compilation of bibliophiles across the country from ancient to modern times, none had been done before. It was not until the Guangxu era that Ye Changchi, a talented scholar from Suzhou, began to gather and compile the deeds of bibliophiles from the late Five Dynasties to the late Qing Dynasty, completing Records of Book Collectors in Verse, which included 739 people, 329 of whom were from the Qing Dynasty. This marked the first time that the activities of bibliophiles since the Five Dynasties and Song Dynasty were outlined, truly a foundational work. Thus, this book has been highly valued by the literary world for over a century. Liang Qichao and Chen Yuan both listed it as an important work in national studies. Many later scholars followed, supplemented, and expanded upon it, such as Lun Ming, Liu Shengmu, Feng Xiong, Xu Shaoshi, Mo Boqi, Wang Dalong, Wang Jian, and Wu Zeyu, among whom are particularly noteworthy. Ye's Poem laid the groundwork and deserves great credit. However, it also had notable shortcomings. Initially, Ye intended to "write a biography for each person," but due to the difficulty of organization, he followed the examples of Li Lei's Poems on Events of the Southern Song Dynasty and Shi Beiyans' Records of Jin Origins in Verse, compiling it in the form of poetic annotations—neither literature nor historical accounts. For each person or group of people, he wrote a poem, followed by several historical records as annotations. The poems were tasteless and useless, and the historical records were not, some too brief to be clear, others too lengthy and disorganized, making reading inconvenient. As a historical work, it cannot be called appropriate. Many entries lack sufficient historical material, and a large number of famous bibliophiles were omitted, leaving much room for supplementation. Moreover, Ye's rule of not including living individuals meant that many contemporaries and those of the past century were excluded, and there are countless others. As for later works, some have been lost, others still adhere to the poetic annotation style, some are mere notes, varying in depth and scattered across different sections, making them difficult to find. Therefore, it is necessary to create a new style, supplement the omissions, continue the unfinished work, and compile a more systematic and comprehensive work. I am not knowledgeable enough, and my reading is far from thorough, but I take "devoting my middle years to the chaos of literature" as my motto, and thus I am determined to write Comprehensive Examination of Bibliophiles (Qing—Modern), as this period is close to our own time, highly practical, and a time of great activity in bibliophilic endeavors. For twenty years (with a few exceptions due to changes in my work), I have devoted myself to this task, day and night, in all seasons, tirelessly. I have diligently compiled and collated materials from over 1,460 ancient texts, including collected works, series, local gazetteers, notes, diaries, chronicles, catalogs, annotations, and other types, organizing them into biographies of each individual. The hardships and joys of this work are not for outsiders to speak of, nor do I need to speak of them. I believe that the tracing of the origins of classics and the revelation of the virtues of the unsung deserve my efforts, so despite the hardships, I find joy and satisfaction in this labor. As for the part before the Ming Dynasty, it still awaits completion.