The Yongle Encyclopedia was an unprecedented cultural endeavor initiated by Zhu Di who, as well as being a skilled military strategist, was also something of a scholar. When gathering information on a particular topic, the emperor found searching through his magnitude of books overly time consuming. He decided to categorize and compiling various works into one encyclopedia so as to facilitate reading and reference. In 1403 he ordered the compilation of classical, historical and philosophical books, those on literature and the branches of study of astronomy, astrology, medicine, divinity, science and technology, into categorized volumes, no matter how large any one might be. Over 100 people toiled on this massive project for a year, and eventually produced a body of work named A Complete Work of Literature.
Emperor Yongle was still not satisfied. He thought the number of books too small and their contents too simplistic, so in 1405 a supplementation project began. The emperor sent people to various parts of the country to purchase books and expanded the number of compilers from 100 to 2,169. The new version was completed in 1408. Zhu Di wrote the preface and named it the Yongle Encyclopedia. The encyclopedia encompassed 8,000 titles dating from ancient times to the early Ming Dynasty, and was composed of 22,877 volumes, including 60 volumes of tables of contents -- a total 370 million characters. All books included retained their original form and wording.
This handwritten encyclopedia was the only one of its kind. On moving his capital Zhu Di had it transported to Beijing and kept in the Forbidden City. A suggestion that the encyclopedia be printed was never taken up as this would have entailed the carving of millions of printing blocks. Eventually a fire in the palace prompted Emperor Jiajing to make a duplicate of the work. He hired over 100 copyists that finished a duplicate in six years.
The original encyclopedia lodged in the Forbidden City has been lost. It is believed to have been destroyed in the mid-17th century warfare that toppled the Ming Dynasty. The duplicate was kept in the Imperial Archives of the Imperial City, but by the late 18th century when Emperor Qianlong was ready to compile his Complete Library of Four Branches of Books, it transpired that 2,400 volumes of the encyclopedia were missing. By the mid-19th century only 64 volumes were left. After years of searching, 150 volumes have since been recovered. Most current publications of poems from the Song, Jin and Yuan dynasties are based on those appearing in the encyclopedia. The recently staged ancient kunqu drama Number One Scholar Zhang Xie was also rehearsed according to the script included in the encyclopedia.