Zhao spent most of his youth in the capital Bianjing (modern day Kaifeng), where he entered the royal Taixue academy to study the classics.
[1] Zhao Mingcheng started his civil service career in 1103, but was quickly involved in an imperial court power struggle between his father and the infamous politician Cai Jing.
After the Jingkang incident of the Jin–Song wars, worried by the approaching Jurchen army, the couple was forced to flee to the South and forsake most of their collection and research notes at Zhucheng.
When asked by Li about how to handle their collection should there be another Jurchens attack, Zhao told her to "discard furniture, then clothes, then books and scrolls, then antiques" and to "carry the most treasured items with you" so "you can live or die with them together."
[2] Zhao Mingcheng was fascinated by ancient art and artifacts in his early years, partly influenced by the academic interests of leading scholars such as Ouyang Xiu.
[3] Zhao's most important scholarly achievement was Jin Shi Lu, in which he recorded the details of nearly 2,000 antique inscriptions, with carefully researched analysis about their histories.
The intellectual leader of the Song dynasty Zhu Xi praised the book for its "well-organized structure, precise analysis and impressive bibliography" and spoke highly of its stylistic prose.
Rudolph argues that Zhao's emphasis on consulting contemporary sources for accurate dating is parallel with the concern of the German historian Leopold von Ranke (1795–1886).