Abstract:
A scholar in late Tang Dynasty and a native of Chengdu, Yong Tao became a Jinshi in the eighth year of Dahe, and Yazhou governor in his final official career. Although
Old Tang Book and
New Tang Book did not set up biographies for him, what he had done were recorded in
Chronicle of Tang Poetry,
Yunxi Friends' Discussion,
Warning Records and
Biography of Tang Talents. As a poet, he won an international reputation. Unknown scholars in Koryo selected his ten seven-rhythm poems into
Ten Copied Poems, as seven of them have been lost in China, these poems are remaining precious cultural relics. Later, a famous monk Zishan compiled a book
Ten Copied Poems with Interlinear Notes of Sages. There are some lost works in classics, history, books and collections cited in the annotation, and these are essential and helpful for those who study documents and materials stored in other surviving documents in the form of quotation. Shi Zishan's annotation was ridiculed by later generations as "writing errors". Now, after comparing with other books, deleting redundant words and sentences, supplementing lost text, and correcting errors, the book is made more perfect, better restore and understand the content of Yong Tao's poetry, and it becomes conducive to academic exchanges between China and foreign countries.