The compilation of the Siku Quanshu, which is the complete collection of all Chinese literature, was a great event conducted under the circumstances that the society was filled with peaceful atmosphere,and the finance of the empire was stable. Most important of all , the compilation was greatly supported by the emperor. Qianlong Emperor wanted to state that what he inheritated was from the Confucian orthodoxy and thereby consolidate the legitimacy for the Manchu ruling Chungyuan, or the Central Plain. Such being the case, the nature of the unprecedented series of Chinese literature was set to be the guidance applied by the scholars. As the compilation work of the Siku Quanshu kept going, the Siku Quanshu Zongmu was created to illustrate the main purpose of each book in it, research on the whole story about certain academic development, enumerate the pros and the cons of each book, and judge the differences among all the schools. As a result, later generations like us can understand clearly the academic guidance that the authority in Qing Dynasty provided with those scholars, and we can know the range for academic thoughts the authority planned to build.
Besides, the Spring and Autumn Annals is written by sages, and the sublime mind of the sages was hidden in the articles of it.The Spring and Autumn Annals therefore is of great value and academic standing among all the Confucian classics. Moreover, the Spring and Autumn Annals was an important subject in the imperial examination,and all the scholars who wanted to seek for official ranks studied it diligently. The Annals records the history of Lu for a period of 242 years, so it deeply influenced the clerisy in ancient China.In the light of this, the research questions in the study are as follows:
(I) How did the authority in Qing Dynasty view the Spring and Autumn Annals when the Siku Quanshu was being compilatied?
(II) What was their proposition on the Spring and Autumn Annals?
The study consists of six chapters. The motive of this study is explained in chapter one, and the results from previous research are summarized as well. The field of this research and the methodology are also mentioned here. In chapter two, the procedure about book collecting and the bannedn books are discussed. The analysis on the selecting criteria for Spring and Autumn Annals Category is presented in chapter three. In chapter four, the key points for content deleting and altering adopted in the Spring and Autumn Annals Category are discussed. And we explain the academic thoughts toward the Spring and Autumn Annals among the officers who were in charge of the compilation of the Siku Quanshu in chapter five. The summary of the research results is presented in chapter six.