A massive conspectus of “precedents” (li) compiled by a legal private secretary with much professional reputation (according to the prefaces) and meant to be an aid for administrators. Part of the contents are extracted from such collections as the Qinding chufen zeli 欽定處分則例 and Xuzeng 續增 chufen zeli (i.e. the punishments for civil officials), Zhongshu zhengkao 中樞政考 (for military officials), Xianxing 現行 zeli (supplementing the Penal Code), and others—all of which are “indispensible guides for the science of government” (皆仕學津梁必不可少), according to the fanli, but difficult to master by any single official, according to Li Fu’s preface; they are carefully footnoted to each entry. The rest of the precedents are based on unpublished “cases” (cheng’an 成案) or ministerial propositions (often relaying memorials by high provincial officials) approved (yiyi 依議) by the emperor ; the exact date of the emperor’s rescript is always provided. The entries follow the order of the statutes in the Code, which made it possible to organize in an easily searchable way a large quantity of materials at the same time very diverse and connected to each other—in the words of the compiler, “the laws of the Court, the evaluation of officials, and the life and death of the people” (朝廷法令，吏治之考成，民命之生死). Each juan corresponds to a section (the entire first part, viz. the mingli 名例, which is not divided into sections, is contained in j. 1). This makes for juan of very unequal length, from a few folios to over a hundred. The only exceptions to this pattern are the first section (zhizhi 職制) of the part on “officials” (li 吏), which extends across j. 2-4, and the section on “granaries and treasuries” (cangku 倉庫) in the part on “revenue” (hu 戶), which uses j. 9-10. J. 34 is devoted to the regulations and precedents on fugitives (taoren 逃人). The part of the work described above apparently corresponds to the original recension, all the dated entries being from the Kangxi reign. Most juan feature a detailed mulu indicating the title of each statute in a black cartouche (including those statutes for which no precedents are provided in the text proper), followed by the captions of each precedent, and, most conveniently, providing the page numbers—certainly an oddity in a traditional Chinese mulu. In the 1734 ed., j. 35 and 36, respectively entitled Xuzeng yi 續增一 and Xuzeng er 二, are devoted to a supplement whose entries with their page numbers have been inserted in the mulu of the chapters of the original work; the dated entries are from the first three years of the Yongzheng reign. J. 37-41 (Xuzeng san 三 to qi 七) are a further supplement to the work, with detailed mulu at the beginning of each juan, encompassing all the sections of the Code; the dated entries are from the 4^th to 7^th years of Yongzheng. J. 42 (Xuzeng ba 八) is yet another supplement, whose mulu and entries cover the entire Code, although only a selection of statutes are represented; the entries extend through the 10^th year of Yongzheng. In the 1737 ed. in 45 j., j. 43-45 are devoted to Xuzeng 9, 10 and 11, respectively. Most juan are headed by the name of the compiler together with a collator (校訂), who varies depending on the juan. From Supplement 3 onwards, sometimes only Zhang Guangyue’s name appears.