Abstract:

 Shao Yong is a wellknown writer in the North Song Dynasty. He professes that he has created 3,000 pieces of poetry. But in his several editions of Yichuan' s Farming Collection, only more than 1,500 pieces are discovered. How about the other 1,500 pieces? A consultation of the collections, essays and catalogues in the Ming and Qing dynasties shows that Shao Yong also has a book entitled The Destiny of Preexistence, which is not well known to the academic circle. The book includes two prefaces. One of them is written by Shao Bo, who is Shao Yong' s grandson. And the main body of the book includes some poems about ancient Chinese divination and cosmological beliefs. And it is in Yongle Encyclopedia that an unabridged The Destiny of Preexistence is discovered, which includes 1,493 pieces of poetry. Hence it may be concluded that Shao Yong indeed writes 3,000 poems. Either in content or in style, The Destiny of Preexistence is the exact same as Yichuan' s Farming Collection or The Law of the Universe.