At the beginning of the Song Dynasty, (976-997 reigned, formerly known as Song Guangyi, later renamed as his younger brother) ordered the writer Li and others to edit a large-scale classified encyclopedia, formerly known as Taiping General Category. Because Taizong read by the day, it is called Taiping Yulan for short. This book was first compiled in the third year of Taiping Xingguo (AD 977) and completed in the eighth year (AD 985), with a total volume of 1000 and 55 chapters. The book has a wide collection of books, as many as 1690 kinds, including more than 100 kinds of biographies of Han people and more than 200 kinds of old local chronicles, which are not handed down from generation to generation.
Song Taizong attaches great importance to the editing of this book, reading three volumes in person every day. If he can't see it because of something urgent, he must make it up another day. Some people say that Taizong is too busy with government affairs every day and is too tired to squeeze out so many books. Taizong said, "As long as I open my book, it will be beneficial. I'm not tired. "
The idiom "reading is beneficial" is often used to indicate that reading is beneficial, and it is a noun that encourages people to study hard.