How many ancient books are left in China?

After Ming Chengzu ascended the throne, he ordered people to compile the Yongle Grand Ceremony. Yongle Grand Ceremony is an epic ceremony compiled by Yao and cabinet officials in the history of China. This is an encyclopedic collection of China documents. It was originally named "Documentary Masterpiece". Later, Ming Taizu Chengzu changed its name to Yongle Dadian, with a total volume of * * * 22937, 1 1095, with a word count of about 370 million. ? Yongle Dadian is known as "the largest encyclopedia in the history of the world", and its compilation is more than 300 years earlier than the encyclopedia edited by Diderot in France and the Encyclopedia Britannica in Britain. It is the most brilliant achievement of ancient science and technology in China. However, this book has been handed down to this day, with only over 400 copies left. How was it destroyed?

The loss of the original manuscript of Yongle Dadian can be said to be a great mystery of the Ming Dynasty. Emperor Jiajing loved Yongle Ceremony very much. After a big fire, Emperor Jiajing was afraid that the fire would destroy this masterpiece. Therefore, Emperor Jiajing appointed two ministers, Gao Gong and Qu Jingchun, to be responsible for proofreading and compiling the manuscript of Yongle Dadian. This copy took five years to complete. However, after copying, the manuscript disappeared inexplicably. There are several speculations about the whereabouts of the manuscript. Some people think it may be buried in Yongling as a funerary object of Emperor Jiajing. Others think that it was destroyed by a fire in the Wanli period. Some people think that after Li Zicheng entered the customs, the Palace was burned down, and the Yongle Grand Ceremony was destroyed at that time.

The disappearance of the manuscript has become a mystery, but even more bizarre is that there are few copies left. The loss of the copy is actually not a natural disaster, but a man-made disaster. During the Qianlong period of Qing Dynasty, due to the compilation of Sikuquanshu and the inventory of Yongle Dadian, some of them were stolen. During the Xianfeng period, due to Eight-Nation Alliance's invasion of China and poor management, officials took out part of it and sold it. Some of them were taken away by foreigners.

It's really sad that there are few such great masterpieces left because of these human factors.