sentences:  Although Song Yingxing's encyclopedia was a significant publication for his age, there had been a long tradition in the history of Chinese literature in creating large encyclopedic works.For example, the "Four Great Books of Song" compiled much earlier in the 10th and 11th centuries (and all four combined, were much more extensive in size than his work).Just a few decades before Yingxing's work, there was also the Ming Dynasty encyclopedia of the "Sancai Tuhui", written in 1607 and published in 1609.