[中山詩文集] / Chūzan Poetry Anthology

Chūzanshi bunshū (Chūzan Poetry Anthology) was engraved for the first time in Fuzhou, China in 1725. It is Ryukyu’s first comprehensive anthology of Chinese poetry and has great significance in Ryukyu-Chinese literature. The book begins with a foreword that includes the message given by King Shō Tei to the envoys going back to China, and it includes works by royal family members like Shō Kōki and Shō Jun, envoys from China, and those closely related to the compiler of the anthology Tei Junsoku, including a poet from Kume Village, and Junsoku’s teacher and poet friends in Fuzhou. The book is centered on Junsoku’s body of works including Setsudōenyūsō. The book is treated philologically as an 1856 jūkokubon (reprint), the same year indicated in the foreword by Tei Junsoku’s sixth great-grandson, Tei Tokuyū. Since Tei Tokuyū’s foreword was written at the Ryukyukan (the Ryukyuan base of operations in Fuzhou), it is likely that this edited book was also printed in Fuzhou, and the woodblocks were preserved in Ryukyu.