Taiping Guangji

The work was completed in 978, and printing blocks were cut, but it was prevented from official publication on the grounds that it contained only xiaoshuo (fiction or "insignificant tellings") and thus "was of no use to students."

The title refers to the Taiping Xinguo era (太平興國, "great-peace rejuvenate-nation", 976–984 AD), the first years of the reign of Emperor Taizong of Song.

[2] The collection is divided into 500 volumes (卷; Juǎn) and consists of about 3 million Chinese characters.

[1] In the 17th century, the vernacular novelist and short story writer Feng Menglong produced an abridged edition, Taiping Guangji Chao (太平廣記鈔), reducing the number of stories to 2,500 in 80 volumes.

The Taiping Guangji was compiled by Wang Kezhen (王克贞), Song Bai (宋白), Hu Meng (扈蒙), Xu Xuan (徐铉), Zhao Linji (赵邻几), Lü Wenzhong (吕文仲), Li Fang (李昉), Li Mu (李穆), and others.