Commission of the Siku Quanshu
- When
- 1772
- Where
- Qing capital (inferred institutional context; passages say only 'the capital')
The Qianlong Emperor ordered the creation of the Siku Quanshu in 1772, initiating a massive literary compilation project.
The project was commissioned in 1772. Local and provincial officers were put in charge of locating and collecting important books. The emperor encouraged owners of rare or valuable books to send them to the capital. Towards the end of 1772 he issued a decree promising that books would be returned and owners not punished for Anti-Qing sentiment; less than three months later, four to five thousand books were handed in. The passages name the capital only generically, so Beijing is recorded here as inferred institutional context rather than a stated commission site.
Sources
- Siku Quanshu Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-27
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.