Heavenly Creations: Middle Volume While the header refers to Song Yingxing’s famous encyclopedia Tiangong Kaiwu, the text provided is a philosophical commentary by Fang Bao regarding the Rites of Zhou. This suggests this manuscript may be a miscellany or a specific edition where these texts are grouped together.

...the growth of spring and summer—the vegetation—will not be lush. This is the Way of Heaven: treating the empty as the solid.

If administrative regulations are not established, then the benefits of the other three seasons cannot be fully realized. The occupations of the four classes of peopleOriginal: Simin (四民). This refers to the traditional social hierarchy of imperial China: scholars, farmers, artisans, and merchants. would have no foundation. This is the Sage’s way: treating the empty as the solid. Therefore, the office is named the SikongOriginal: Sikong (司空). Historically translated as the "Minister of Works," the author here emphasizes the literal meaning of Kong (Empty/Vacancy), arguing the office manages the "empty" time of the year to provide "solid" benefits for the state., and its duties are defined as: "To enrich the state, to nourish the myriad people, and to bring forth the hundred goods."

Among the duties of the Minister of Works, housing, the management of the four classes of people, and the timing of the land’s resources are the priorities; technical crafts and construction are merely the final details. Today, not one of the great principles or major laws of this office remains. This is because the feudal lords Original: Zhuge (諸侯). The regional rulers of the Zhou Dynasty who eventually asserted independence, leading to the Warring States period. hated how these regulations constrained them, and so they all destroyed the official records.

Only the methods of the various craftsmenOriginal: Baigong (百工). Literally "the hundred crafts," referring to the professional artisans and engineers of the state. and their manufacturing have been passed down from antiquity. One imagines that the old government archives once held these records as well; because they were practiced daily for the people’s livelihood and guarded through the generations by master artisans, they could still be transmitted and described.

However, when one examines the records for the ArtisansOriginal: Jiangren (匠人). A specific section of the Artificers’ Record (Kao Gong Ji) focusing on architecture and urban planning., the planning of the capitalOriginal: Yingguo (營國)., and the creation of drainage and irrigation channelsOriginal: Gouxu (溝洫)., they only provide the measurements of height, width, length, and depth, while...