Essential Works for Governing (Complete Five-Volume Set) [First Volume]

Essentials of Governing from Various Books is a monumental work compiled by Wei Zheng and others under the orders of Emperor Taizong Li Shimin, a great ruler of his generation, for the purpose of governance. It covers three major categories: Confucian classics, history, and philosophy, spanning from the pre-Qin period to the Jin Dynasty. It compiles the essence of articles related to self-cultivation, family harmony, statecraft, and world peace from the Six Classics, various histories, and various philosophers' works, totaling fifty volumes and over five hundred thousand Chinese characters. The book features a clear structure, a definite purpose, a practical orientation, and a balance between literary merit and content. With precise selection and editing, it closely aligns with the compiling purpose of "e;governing the country with wisdom."e; It retains the original style of the quoted works, allowing readers to understand the whole from the part and explore the beginning and end of events' development. Meanwhile, it appropriately edits and combines the selected texts to make the articles more concise and the arguments clearer.The "e;Three Complete Versions"e; of Essentials of Governing from Various Books is based on the Japanese Tenmei edition of Wanyubei Cang included in the Continuation of the Four Great Libraries of China. It provides annotations and vernacular translations for both the main text and the small print ancient annotations. In particular, the annotation and translation of the ancient annotations in the book are unique among the current annotated and translated versions of Essentials of Governing from Various Books.