18. The Yongle Encyclopaedia was comprised of more than twenty-three thousand chapters, of which only eight hundred have survived intact to the modern age
Although predominantly known for his military endeavors, the Yongle Emperor – who ruled China as part of the Ming dynasty from 1402 until 1424 – was also a passionate intellectual. Commissioning a year after his coronation a mighty manuscript, entitled A Complete Work of Literature, upon its completion in 1404 the Emperor rejected the finished product as insufficient and demanded more volumes. Expanding the pool of writers from one hundred to more than two thousand, these scholars spent the next four years accumulating knowledge from across the nation and compiling this information into a singular text.
Completed in 1408, the Yongle Encyclopaedia can only be described as the most all-encompassing epic work of literature in human history. Comprising almost twenty-three thousand chapters, totaling more than three-hundred-and-seventy million characters and occupying forty cubic meters, the encyclopedia included the totality of knowledge as of the fifteenth century. However, although narrowly saved from a fire in 1557, for unknown reasons but likely involving unintentional burning, the original text has not survived. Instead, fewer than four hundred copied volumes, entailing eight hundred chapters, have endured to the modern day, comprising just three-and-a-half percent of the original work.