# The Zhengtong Daozang prints an imperial Daoist canon that fixes which Laozi-related texts count

Date: 1445

## The fact

In 1445 the Zhengtong reign printed the Daozang, an imperial canon of Daoist texts that includes Daodejing commentaries and liturgical works under the [Laozi](/people/laozi) cult. Canonisation preserves and it also polices which books are inside.

## Context

An official canon is a governance tool. Ming court sponsorship is not a library gift without strings. Later reprints rest on this freeze.

Laozi is not the sole author of every later object, law, or museum label that uses the name. Shared work with courts, excavators, printers, spouses, officials, and later states does not erase a documented role, and it does not make an ancient person the signer of a twentieth-century statute.

## Evidence and sources

Official museum, encyclopedia, agency, or edition pages and an independent publisher independently describe this instrument.

Official or archival record: Britannica — Daozang (https://www.britannica.com/topic/Daozang; Encyclopaedia Britannica).

## Significance

A canon can hide as well as keep. Do not treat 1445 as a critical edition.

A canon can hide as well as keep. Do not treat 1445 as a critical edition.

## What is established and what is not

Established as a dated public record of this instrument.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit.
Later competitions, monuments, translations, UNESCO listings, and museums are not converted into extra lifetime acts. The attached driver is [institutional-corruption](/drivers/institutional-corruption). The welfare reading used in this dossier is worsening. That reading is an impact-path choice, not a property stored on the Fact itself. Confidence is stated on the impact path. A later English edition is not a recovered autograph. If a number is not in the two records named above, it is not supplied here. Later competitions, monuments, translations, UNESCO listings, and museums are not converted into extra lifetime acts. The attached driver is institutional-corruption. The welfare reading used in this dossier is worsening. That reading is an impact-path choice, not a property stored on the Fact itself. Confidence is stated on the impact path. A later English edition is not a recovered autograph. If a number is not in the two records named above, it is not supplied here.

## People

- Laozi: https://factrail.ai/people/laozi

## Drivers

- Institutional Corruption: https://factrail.ai/drivers/institutional-corruption

## Sources

- https://www.britannica.com/topic/Daozang
- https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/daoi/hd_daoi.htm

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/lz-zhengtong-daozang-1445