Leiden University Libraries (UBL) has been able to acquire an extraordinary Chinese manuscript at auction in Hong Kong. It concerns an Imperial Edict (dated 1582) from the Ming dynasty period, at one time part of the former collection of well-known sinologist and author of detective-novels Robert van Gulik. The purchase was made possible thanks to a contribution from the Rombouts Fund for Chinese Special Collections, a named fund at LUF, and support from the UBL Friends Foundation.