Qian Daxin

During his early life Daxin achieved fame in the Southern area of the Yangtze River for his poetry and prose, which prompted the Qianlong emperor to grant Qian Daxin the title of "First-Degree Scholars (举人)" and give him a job as the Secretary of the Cabinet (内阁中书) in the 16th year of Qianlong reign.

In the 19th year of the Qianlong dynasty, Qian Daxin took the imperial examination, was rewarded with a degree as an Imperial scholar (秀才), and was appointed as a member of the Hanlin Academy, which revised, edited, and criticized literary and history files.

Qian spent 15 years on completing his project, Examination of Variances in the Twenty-Two Dynastic Histories (廿二史考异), it was also a project that expended his research on stone inscriptions and to demonstrate the important impact on 18th century Chinese historians.

As a result, Qian was able to create four collections of notes on his holdings, the number increased from 1800 to more than 2000 items.

Qian Daxin was one of the well informed men or his time focusing on western astronomy and mathematics.

They built a way for a cumulative field of investigation that came to a climax in 19th and 20th century breakthrough in the application of epigraphy and archaeology to research on the oracle bones.