Sikuquanshu

The Sikuquanshu (“Complete Library in the Four Branches of Literature”) involved the scrutiny of entire libraries, both imperial and private, and was carried on for 10 years under the direction of the scholars Ji Yun and Lu Xixiong, the emperor himself intervening on several occasions in…

…culminating in the great government-sponsored Siku quanshu (1772–82), which undertook to collect for reprinting the best editions of the most important books produced in China, using as selection criteria the methods of the empirical school.