Du You

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Du You (Chinese: 杜佑; pinyin: Dù Yòu; Wade-Giles: Tu Yu, 735–812), courtesy name Junqing (君卿), was a Chinese scholar, historian and prime minister of the Tang Dynasty, who devoted thirty-six years to the compilation of the Tongdian, a historical encyclopedia with 200 sections (volumes), a collection of laws, regulations, and general events from ancient times to his own. He was born to an official family in what is now Xi'an, Shaanxi, almost eighteen years before the abrupt rebellion of An Lushan.

He was a client of Wei Yuanfu (韦元甫), and "a political thinker on a grand scale"; comparable to Ibn Khaldun. While working in Wei's staff for the military government of Huainan, in 766 CE he began the Tongdian.^[1]

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