Comparison of <Yongle Dazhen> and <Sikuquan>...

The ****similarity between the Yongle Dictionary and the Siku Quanshu: both are extremely large in scale! The difference between the two is that one was compiled by the Ming Dynasty and the other by the Qing Dynasty, and that the Sikuquanquan is comparatively richer than the Yongle Daxian.

The Yongle Dictionary was compiled during the Yongle period of the Ming Dynasty, bringing together more than 7,000 ancient and modern texts, divided into 11,095 volumes, with a total of 370 million words! The Siku Quanshu was compiled during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, bringing together more than 3,500 kinds of ancient and modern books, divided into more than 36,000 volumes, totaling no less than 800 million words!

The editing and copying of the Yongle Dictionary involved more than 2,000 people, including important ministers and ordinary "copyists". The Siku Quanshu only copyist recruited nearly 4,000 people, involved in the collection of ancient books, organizing, editing officials are countless.

Interestingly, the Qing Dynasty's editors must have known how hard it was to copy books, so they introduced a set of "incentives". They selected from the failed candidates with good handwriting, and stipulated that each person should copy at least 1,000 words a day, and after five years of copying, according to the number of words, they were categorized into different grades, and were awarded official positions according to their grades -- if they copied 2 million words, they could be promoted to city leaders!

Summary: The number of sets of these two books is too small. Only one set was copied from the Yongle Canon, which was dedicated to the Yongle Emperor himself. The Siku Quanshu was copied in seven sets, but the cost of plate making and printing at that time was still much higher than hand copying. So these two books are with non-treasured and treasured value, but now we see the Yongle Dictionary and the Siku Quanshu, basically is later people re-edited after the printing and printing out.