Qinzi 秦子

Qinzi 秦子 "Master Qin" was a treatise written by Qin Qian 秦菁, who lived in the state of Wu 吳 (222-280) during the Three Empires period 三國 (220-280).

The imperial bibliography Jingji zhi 經籍志 in the official dynastic history Suishu 隋書 lists a book Qinzi with a length of 3 juan that was already lost during the early Tang period 唐 (618-907). The Tang-period collection Yilin 意林 by Ma Zong 馬總 (d. 823) mentions a 2-juan-long book Qinzi, which can mean that the Qinzi being in circulation at that time was already fragmentary.

The Qing-period 清 (1644-1911) scholar Ma Guohan 馬國翰 (1794-1857) collected fragments of the Qinzi surviving in encyclopaedias like the Beitang shuchao 北堂書鈔, Yiwen leiju 藝文類聚, the commentaries to the Wenxuan 文選, the Taiping yulan 太平御覽 or Danqian zonglu 丹鉛總錄, and assembled them to a small book that he published in his series Yuhan shanfang yiji shu 玉函山房輯佚書.

From these fragments, it can be seen that the Qinzi was a book with a broad range of content written in an exquisite language.