Knowledge management is a subdiscipline of management science which study the creating, sharing, using and managing of the knowledge and information within an organization. It also can be taken as a tool to analyze the knowledges’ diffusion and inheritance of traditional crafts, especially the conversion process from internalized tacit knowledge into explicit public knowledge.
As we know, the Taiping rebellion brought great destruction to the economy of late Qing dynasty. In order to recover the manufacture of the essential product, raw silk, the ethos of composing the promoting-supervisory works starting from the early 19th century diffused to the whole country during the last half century of Qing dynasty.
Many scholars and government officers devoted themselves to compile the sericulture and silk-weaving compilations. These compilations made the knowledge flow crossregionally both at home and abroad. Among them, the Quintessential Compilation of Sericulture and Mulberry Affairs (CansangCuibian 蚕桑萃编, hereinafter referred to as CC ) edited by Wei Jie in 1894 can be taken as a representative case.
Wei Jie, who was born in Sichuan province, was appointed to Baoding, the capital of Zhili province to direct the bureau of sericulture and silk manufacture there by Li Hongzhang. As he felt the efficiency of the similar institutes in other places was below the expectation, he considered it was important to compile the instruction manual for officers and as the result, the CC was edited.
From the content of CC , we can summarize the following characteristics, many of which also can be observed in other promoting-supervisory works in late imperial China.

First of all, the presupposed readers were other members of intelligentsia. The manuals were often presented to other government officers, rather than technical experts to get the “peer reviews”. The manual was a result of academic interests, as well as an outstanding administrative achievement. The relative orders from the emperors in past ages were listed at the very starting volumes also suggested the political undertones of the book. It was difficult to trace the practical effects because it can only access to illiterate practitioners indirectly. The latter ones were still used to receive the tacit knowledge explained in words or illustrations.
Secondly, the compiling process can be very rapid. The sources of the promotingsupervisory works can be divided into several classes, such as the classical agricultural books in ancient China, the sericultural books in the high period of Qing dynasty, other contemporary promoting-supervisory works, and the new information from abroad. Specific to the CC , the author quoted, or copied the content from other books the whole paragraph even section. This kind of nonstandard academic behavior was not accord with the school of textual research school flourished in Qianlong and Jiaqing times, however, it can be accepted by pragmatic government officers.
Thirdly, the features made the CC surpass other contemporary books were that Wei Jie recorded the crafts from his hometown, Sichuan, in detail. The descriptions to the brocade weaving manufacture process make readers recall the style in the Tian Gong Kai Wu . However, the effect of the technical transplant from Sichuan to Zhili needs to further evaluate. Besides, as many other contemporary promoting-supervisory works, the CC mentioned the knowledge from abroad, such as the sericulture technology and data from Britain, France. The knowledges were listed in a separating volume with the title containing the word Taixi , which means the objects were originated from western world.
Finally, as many other agricultural books, the illustrations and the rhyming instructions played important roles to realize author’s purpose of practicability for the CC . The volume 13-15 of the CC were assigned to the illustrations. The objects depicted included the instruments used in mulberry utilization, sericulture, reeling silk, and weaving looms, etc. The rhyming doggerels were employed as instruction, many of which were similar with the existing tradition of pictures of farming and weaving. The illustrations and rhyming instructions were helpful for popularizing.
In conclusion, the promoting-supervisory works including the CC , converted some folk tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge via the observation or collection by the authors. However, their supposed readers were mostly the intelligentsia. With the help of administrative power, the manuals can be again converted to the tacit knowledge to the allopatric audiences, selectively. The effect of this kind conscious diffusion by government officers should be evaluated in future studies.