Siku Quanshu - 四庫全書

More than 3500 titles of "all four classes" of literary production or erudite China were edited, collated and transcribed in this prestigious project of the Qianlong emperor (reg. 1735-1796). An army of 360 scholars worked over almost 10 years from 1773 until 1782 under the guidance of Ji Yun 紀昀 et al. Seven manuscript copies of the over 36 thousand volumes were produced,; four copies still exist today, with the one originally housed in the Forbidden city in the Wenyuange 文淵閣 being the most complete one. Whereas the declared aim was to prevent works from getting lost and to compile from numerous editions one more reliable and with less writing mistakes for the use of the emperor, an effect was also that everything that denigrates activities of the ruling Manchus or their past was eliminated from the texts. Nevertheless the Siku quanshu kept its position and esteem among scholars and researchers until today. The Diaolong Siku quanshu database is included into the Diaolong portal with several other voluminous resources that can be searched at the same time and with a representation of text and scanned image that can be navigated comfortably by switching between the two. Download is confined to page by page text files.