He has high attainments in classics, primary school, natural calculation, geography, epigraphy, collation and so on. When studying politics in Zhejiang, he revised the classics. He is good at epigraphy, respecting monuments and making biographies, and he has written Annals of Zhongzhou, especially two books: On the School of Calligraphy in the North and South and on the Postage of the North Monument and the South Monument. This idea had a far-reaching influence on the calligraphy circle in the late Qing Dynasty, and also established its position as a first-class theorist in the history of calligraphy.