皇明經世文編研究

The ‘Huang Ming jingshi wenbian’ was an enormous prose collection with an
amount of five hundred and eight volumes concerning “state-society servicing” （經世）.
These edited prose were written by Chinese scholars and bureaucrats from 1368 to 1638.
Three scholars from the Jiangsu province, namely Chen Zi-lung, Xu Fu-yuan and Sung
Zheng-bi edited the book. “Jing shi” was supposed to be the most important idea
dominating the imperial China for more than three hundred years, starting from the early
17th century, and it has been widely studied by scholars in the past fifty years. After the
publishing of the ‘Huang Ming jingshi wenbian’ in 1638, there were more than seventeen
other prose collections, tilted “jing shi”, edited later in the Ch’ing dynasty and the early
Min-guo period（from 1826-1913）.This indicated that the ‘Huang Ming jingshi wenbian’
was actually an important model in the history of “jing shi” thought in China. Regretfully
this five hundred volumes work has yet been studied as a whole piece. This research
program is mainly to give a brief account on this book by analyzing the original texts. I
will also attempt to trace the bibliographical and historical background of all the authors
appeared in the book. Scholars in the Ming dynasty are always signified by their
achievements in philosophy. This study may help people know what they had achieved in
the field of social and public affairs.