在吳德功《瑞桃齋文稿》的作品中，有四篇蘊含著求進的思想，亦即「不論人或物，在世上都需要有力人士的賞識才能名揚天下，否則只能與草木同腐而凐沒不彰。」這四篇作品分別是〈遊龍目井記〉、〈竹瓶記〉、〈觀榕根井記〉、〈東螺石硯記〉。此一求進思想，呈現吳德功積極向上的處世態度，很可能是促使他向日本人靠攏的因素之一，希望透過日人的賞識提拔，藉以推動他個人的理想。本文的探討，除了分析其求進思想的內涵外，也將分析其求進思想的起因和發展歷程；此外，吳德功撰寫這四篇作品時，都存在著一些固定的書寫模式，以及篇章修辭上的技巧，本文亦將一併討論。透過本文的研究，發現其求進思想起因於中國歷史人物的啟發，並因科舉考試屢次失利，懷才不遇而深化了求進思想，最後因日本政府對他的賞識任用，而使其求進思想明顯得到實現，也因此完成許多事功。至於其傳達求進思想的書寫模式則有兩點：一是先尋找具有特色，卻聲名不顯之「物」為書寫對象；二是透過「感物言志」的手法，讓求進思想由「物」而轉向於「人」。最後在傳達求進思想的篇章修辭技巧上，本文透過「篇章結構學」的分析，發現吳德功運用了論敘法、賓主法、正反法、知覺轉換法等多種技巧，手法相當多變。

Among the ancient works of Te-kung Wu Juei Tao Chamber Poetry Anthology, four contain the idea of progress, that is, ＂No matter which person or thing, they cannot become renowned to the world unless they win recognition from powerful people, otherwise, they will only rot and disappear like grass and trees without being known to the world. The four works are respectively ＂The Story Of Traveling Longmu Well＂, ＂The Story of Bamboo Bottle＂, ＂The Story of Watching Ronggen Well＂ and ＂The Story of Dongluo Inkstone＂. The idea of pursuit of progress reflected the active attitude and philosophy of life of Te-kung Wu, and it might be one of the reasons why he chose to rely on the Japanese. He hoped that the appreciation and promotion from the Japanese could help advocate his personal ideas. In addition to analyzing the connotations of his idea of pursuit of progress, this study also intended to analyze the causes and developmental process of his idea of pursuit of progress. Moreover, Te-Kung Wu wrote these 4 works using some fixed writing models and rhetorical skills of various chapters, which were also investigated in this study. The investigation in this study discovered that the causes of his idea of pursuit of progress included the inspiration from Chinese historical figures, his repeated failures in the Chinese imperial examinations, and his frustration of being unable to fulfill his ideals in spite of his talent, which deepened his idea of pursuit of progress. Eventually, due to the Japanese government's appreciation of his talent and appointment, he apparently fulfilled his idea of pursuit of progress and thus achieved many successes. He used two writing models to convey his idea of pursuit of progress: one was to search nameless ＂objects＂ with strong features as the writing objects; the other was to use the method of ＂expressing emotions using objects＂ to covey his idea of pursuit of progress to ＂people＂ through ＂objects.＂ Lastly, in terms of the rhetorical skills of various chapters that convey idea of pursuit of progress, this study analyzed the ＂structure of various chapters＂ and discovered multiple skills and versatile approaches used by Te-kung Wu, including narrative method, guest-host method, positive-negative method, perceptual transformation method, etc.