In the 17th century when it kept its door closed to international exchanges, Japan was not totally isolated from the outside world. Not only did it permit Chinese and Dutch merchant ships to enter the port, but it kept in touch with the Ryukyu Islands and Korea as well. A Japanese poet named Ayira Gyokuzan wrote 100 Odes to Mume Blossom and sent it as a present to Chen Shunze, a scholar of the Ryukyu Islands. In the spring of 1713, Chen introduced it into Fuzhou, and Wang Dengying, a Chinese scholar in the Qing Dynasty, wrote a preface to it. In 1714 when Chen was sent to Japan on a diplomatic mission, he gave the preface to Ayira Gyokuzan, who included the preface in his anthology of poems to be published the following year. This has been a muchtold story in the history of cultural exchange in East Asia.As an anthology of Chinese poems, Meihua Baiyong (《梅花百咏》), or 100 Odes to Mume Blossom (in translation), features 100 poems on the same topic in imitation of the tradition of Chinese poems. The content, form, compiling and transmission of this anthology have justified the statement that the "Book Road" existed in the history of East Asia.Chinese poems on mume blossom, which were better known in the Northern and Southern Dynasties, were introduced into Japan not long after that, becoming a fashion in the Nara period. Statistics show that Manyosyu contains 118 Japanese poems on mume blossom, surpassing the number of 44 poems on cherry blossom. Ancient Japanese cherished a greater love for mume blossom than one imagined. And apparently, it was the Chinese culture that helped the Japanese cultivate the love.At the turn of the Tang and the Song Dynasty, there appeared a fashion of writing 100 poems on mume blossom at one go. The first such poet was Qin Guan in the Northern Song Dynasty, with Liu Kezhuang, Wei Gui, and Wang Dashan and Wen Zhengming following suit in the Southern Song, the Yuan, and the Ming Dynasty respectively. Thus, "100 Odes to Mume Blossom" became a fixed poetic form.It was in the Kamakura period that this fashion was introduced into Japan, in which Japanese took in this novel poetic form through copying, reprinting and translation. It was not until the Edo period that Japanese began to imitate this form, which was represented by 100 Odes to Mume Blossom by Ayira Gyokuzan. Although it was written under the influence of Chinese literature, demonstrating aesthetic awareness, literary interest and rhetorical devices characteristic of the Chinese style, the anthology is, after all, the work done by a Japanese, in which Japanese scenes are depicted and Japanese mentality are revealed. Therefore, it cannot be deemed a Chinese work.

Tokihiko Nishimura (1865—1924) is known as a sinologist specialized in Chu Ci stuides in the Meiji and Taischo periods in Japan. His contribution to the studies chiefly includes (A) his collection of over 100 kinds of ancient books on Chu Ci (or Poetry of the Chu) and (B) his collected books largely with his proofreading, textual criticism, prefaces and postscripts, and his four monographs. (A) Of the said collection there are 16 Ming Dynasty blockprinted editions, all being reliable texts according to China national bibliography; 40 Qing Dynasty blockprinted editions (14 reliable texts); and 12 Japanese blockprinted editions and 27 copies hand written by Nishimura, which are all rare to the Chinese scholars. For example: (1) 17 volumes of Supplementary Notes on the Syntactic and Semantic Analysis of Chu Ci (collated by Liu Meiqi in 1749), and books (collected in Jiguge Pavilion), which he proof read and punctuated. (2) 17 volumes of Syntactic and Semantic Analysis of Chu Ci (collocated by Zhuang Yunyi in 1750), which he punctuated and tried to restore to what Wang Yi's version of Syntactic and Semantic Analysis of Chu Ci is like. Those are regarded by Sun Yirang and Liu Shipei as the "perfect editions". (B) In this category, there are (1) 1 volume of handwritten A Study of Wang Yi's Notes on Chu Ci, which Nishimura based on the collation of such 10 editions as the handcopied Variorum of Literary Selections of the Tang Dynasty with Zhuang Yunyi's books, with a view to retaining the original notes by Wang Yi; (2) 4 volumes of handwritten On the Compilation of Chu Ci, 100odd pieces of literature regarding Chu Ci and his author Qu Yuan after the publication of Records of the Historian, which he collected and compiled into an information bank; (3) 2 volumes of handwritten On Prose Poems by Qu Yuan, which, regarded as a survey of Chu Ci and best known to the Japanese scholars for its extensive and meticulous textual research, have the blockprint edition of 12article Volume 1 and contain in 10article Volume 2 such 8 written articles as "Exile", "Life Story", and "Records on Li Sao" (Sorrow after Departure), as well as the other 2 ("Lisao Studies" and "Notes") with no writing at all; and (4) handwritten Collected Commentaries on Chu Ci, which are written on the upper and lower margins of the pages of 17volume Supplementary Notes on the Syntactic and Semantic Analysis of Chu Ci, including 5 different items: collected commentaries, classification of differences, explanation of differences, annotations on pronunciation and meaning, and punctuation.