Yan Kejun (1762-1843), courtesy name Jingwen, No. Tiejiao, was born in Ji Village, Zhili Town. He was a writer, calligrapher, and bibliophile in the Qing Dynasty, and a famous textual scholar in China. He was studious and well-read since he was a child. In his youth, he traveled to various places, as far as Guangdong in the south and outside China's customs in the north. In the fifth year of Jiaqing in the Qing Dynasty (1800), he passed the imperial examination, and in the second year of Daoguang (1822), he was appointed professor of Dejian. Soon he resigned due to illness and returned home to devote himself to academic textual research and academic research. He studied Xu Shen's "Shuowen" and authored 2 volumes of "Shuowen Shenglei", 15 volumes of "Shuowen Yi" and co-authored 30 volumes of "Shuowen Jiao". Yan Kejun is especially famous for his editing and textual research. He is the author of 10 volumes of "Tang Shi Jing Compilation", 4 volumes of "Inscriptions and Postscripts on Inscriptions on Stones", and compiled more than 1,200 volumes of "Silu Tang Lei Collection" together with the classics and history. He also edited "Ancient Three Dynasties, Qin, Han and Six Dynasties". "Article" Volume 746, etc.
Yan Kejun is very rigorous in his studies. When he wrote "The Compilation of Stone Classics of the Tang Dynasty", he believed that with the rise of engraving and printing in the late Tang Dynasty, the engraved books were actually read and copied based on the verses of the Stone Classics. "It is the end of the ancient version and the beginning of the modern version." "Yu Shi has made his own mistakes, hoping to correct the errors for the current version and explain the mistakes of the Tang and Tang Shijing." Therefore, in his "Compilation of the Tang and Tang Shijing", he stated that the "Tang Shijing" has been revised. All changes and differences from the current version are recorded one by one and annotated. Even today's scholars believe that Yan Kejun's "Tang Shi Jing Compilation" is the most complete scripture in the world. When compiling "Ancient Three Dynasties, Qin, Han and Six Dynasties", he believed that his contemporaries such as Dong Hao and others compiled "The Complete Texts of the Tang Dynasty". There should also be a collection before the Tang Dynasty. In order to compile this collection, it took 27 years, from middle age to The white-haired old man compiled "Essays on Three Ancient Dynasties, Qin, Han and Six Dynasties", which collected more than 3,000 writers. All of them were accompanied by biographies of the authors. He went over the group of books word by word and corrected them if there were any slight similarities or differences.
Yan Kejun is also a bibliophile, with a collection of more than 20,000 books. Although the collection of books cannot be called rich, they are all fine volumes. He said: "The Yu family is poor and cannot gather many books." Whenever "I encounter a rare copy, I will write it carefully, or if I am willing to sell it, I will not hesitate to buy it." The purpose of his collection of books is to study. He said: "Everything necessary for writing is also available."
Yan Kejun had profound attainments in calligraphy, especially in the study of seal script and official script. In August of the 13th year of the Jiaqing reign of the Qing Dynasty (1808), he reengraved the imitation stone rubbings of Qin Langye Terrace according to what was recorded in "Historical Records". By the Qing Dynasty, only 13 lines and 87 words remained, and he rewrote the entire text, totaling 454 words. Qing Dynasty scholar Shen Shandeng commented on this: "The size of the calligraphy and painting, whether fat or thin, has remained unchanged, and the defects have been repaired to complete the text, so that readers can see that the original work has not been damaged for two thousand years, and it is a precious treasure."