"Yongle Canon" is known as the world's largest encyclopedia ever, the whole book of about 370 million words, a total of 1110 volumes, its content includes China's pre-Ming Dynasty literature and art, historical geography, philosophy, religion and applied science and other aspects of the rich information, it can be said that this book is all-encompassing, all-encompassing, compared to the British "Encyclopedia" is more than that.
▲ Fragment of the Yongle Canon
Regrettably, however, the original of this historically all-encompassing encyclopedia is missing, and even the copies of the Ming and Qing dynasties are incomplete, and there are only more than 400 copies that still exist in the world, less than a quarter of the whole book. So where is the original copy of the Yongle Canon now? What does it mean if it is found by people?
Let's first understand the past and present lives of the Yongle Canon.
The first compilation of the Yongle Canon was completed in the second year of Yongle, Zhu Di gave the name "Literature Dacheng", but when Zhu Di handled his daily official duties, he always had to read this book to solve some of his doubts, and in the process of flipping through, the Yongle Emperor found that there was a lot of content in this book, which was not entered.
▲Portrait of Ming Chengzu Zhu Di
Therefore, in the spring of the following year, Zhu Di ordered a second revision of the book, and the number of people involved in the reconstruction of the book reached 2169 people, which can be said to have used a lot of manpower and material resources, and it was not until the fifth year of Yongle that the book was revised and completed, and the Yongle Emperor renamed it the Yongle Canon.
After the compilation of the Yongle Canon, the Yongle Emperor ordered a copy to be copied for the sake of safety, the original was collected in the Forbidden City in Beijing, and the copy was collected in the Nanjing Forbidden City, but in 1449, the Nanjing Forbidden City caught fire, and the first copy of the transcription was burned.
Later, during the jiajing emperor's period, there was also a fire in the Forbidden City in Beijing, and fortunately, the Jiajing emperor had already prepared, which allowed the original of the Yongle Canon to escape the disaster.
After this battle, the Jiading Emperor was afraid that the palace would catch fire again, so he ordered people to copy the copies again to prevent future troubles. But the strange thing is that since the Jiajing Emperor made people transcribe the copy, the original has disappeared, and to this day, the original of the Yongle Canon is still a mystery.
According to historical records, the Jiajing Emperor loved the "Yongle Canon" very much, in the jiajing emperor's bedside, often placed several copies of the "Yongle canon" for reading from time to time (the Jiajing Emperor is also a good child who loves to learn), according to various indications, some people speculate that the original of the "Yongle canon" is in the jiajing emperor's underground palace, this statement has been recognized by many people, but the Jiajing Emperor's Yongling tomb has not been excavated so far, so the "Yongle canon" is not here and no one knows.
The second theory of the direction of the Yongle Canon was burned by Li Zicheng, who after he invaded Beijing, he allowed his subordinates to burn and loot, and when Li Zicheng fled from Beijing in defeat, he also set fire to the Forbidden City, and in such a chaotic world where everyone was in danger, no one could worry about the fate of a book, and perhaps this book was burned in the war at the end of the Ming Dynasty.
If the real Yongle Canon is found one day, perhaps some historical events will be rewritten, and the process of Chinese historical and cultural research will be accelerated and improved.
Perhaps, we can also discover some science and technology of the Song and Ming dynasties, and perhaps in some way will promote the development of science and technology today. Moreover, perhaps the now lost knowledge of Chinese medicine recorded in the Yongle Canon will contribute to the development of Chinese medicine and the health of mankind. In short, if the Yongle Canon can be found, it will definitely make a huge contribution to human society.