Shen Defu is a friend of Dong Qichang, a great painter, and Han Guzhou, a poet. All three of them like collecting calligraphy and painting. Once, they agreed to take out their favorite collections and watch each other. They played all day. Finally, Dong Qichang took out a confession of Zhu Juchuan written by Yan Zhenqing, a great calligrapher in the Tang Dynasty. Han Guzhou was amazed after reading it and thought it was a precious collection. But Shen Defu looked at it carefully, but he thought it was a fake. He pointed to the words "The Assistant Minister of the Chinese Book begins broadcasting" on the scroll and said, "There was no Kai in the Tang Dynasty. The name "Kai" was originally divided into two parts when he was an official in Shu in the Southern Song Dynasty. Assistant Minister Zhongshu is a ruling minister, which should be recorded in the history books, but not in the books of the Second Tang Dynasty, because it is wrong to know that the so-called "broadcasting" is actually "closed broadcasting". This man was recommended by Qilu, just at the same time as Yan Zhenqing. Because the open and closed characters are similar (referring to traditional Chinese characters), it is obvious that this is a clerical error caused by the negligence of the scribe, no doubt. " When Dong Qichang and Han Guzhou heard this, they realized that they had been ignored in history and cheated several times.
On another occasion, an antique magnate had a copy of the Book of the New Tang Dynasty, claiming that it was the first edition published in the Northern Song Dynasty. The price is very high, and it is not easy to show it to people. After Shen Defu knew it, he also looked for it. He glanced at it and found that this book was by no means a version of the Northern Song Dynasty, but a product of the late Southern Song Dynasty. At that time, the antique dealer refused to accept it and argued with it. Shen Defu said: "This is easy to identify." He pointed to the word "sincerity" in the book and said, "Why is this word short of a pen? This is obviously to avoid the taboo of Li Zong in the Southern Song Dynasty. Originally expensive and sincere, it was later renamed Yun. How could the bookstore owner who carved the Book of the New Tang Dynasty in the Northern Song Dynasty not know the prophet and predict the name of Li Zong 120 years later and avoid it in advance? It can be seen that it is fake. " Shen Defu's analysis is very reasonable, and antique dealers are speechless.