Chapter 7 Section 2 Summary of Book Creation in Past Dynasties

Creation is the primary link in the book production process, and creators are intellectuals in various periods of history.Intellectuals have always been not an independent class, either subordinate to this class, or subordinate to that class.Therefore, their thinking, their feelings, their angles and standpoints for understanding the world, and their abilities and methods of changing the world cannot but be restricted by class and age.The creation of books in the past dynasties not only reflects the class consciousness of the creators, but also reflects the corresponding atmosphere of the times, and also reflects the different tendencies and styles of different creators.

After Confucius, especially after entering the Warring States period, the slavery society transformed into a feudal society rapidly.The embankment of slavery has been breached, but not completely collapsed; a new type of feudal society has sprouted, but it is still very fragile, extremely unsound, and extremely immature.How to maintain the old fortress, make it linger, or make a comeback, this is the problem that the slave-owner class and its spokespersons have to think about and solve all day long; And the issues that its spokesperson thinks about and solves all day long.The two armies confront each other, and each wants to change the world according to its own worldview, so a very active situation has formed in the ideological circle.Everyone expresses their opinions and advocates their own opinions. This is the so-called "contention among a hundred schools of thought" during the Warring States Period.

The contention of a hundred schools of thought during the Warring States period was essentially a debate between different classes and different political lines, and a debate between different philosophical viewpoints on the ideological front.In the debate, in order to meet the needs of a certain class or class, each other tried their best to promote their views and propositions in order to defeat each other, promote themselves, win the acceptance of those in power, and realize their ideals of governing the world.It is this kind of active debate that has produced a large number of private works, thus bringing the creation of official books in our country into a new historical period and the first climax of book production.For example, early Confucianism, Taoism, and Mohism.After the middle period of the Warring States period, there were Mencius and Xunzi in Confucianism; Yin Wenzi, Shenzi, and Zhuangzi in Taoism; Shang Yang, Wu Qi, Shen Buhai, Han Fei; Shi [shi is] and so on, they all have their own works.At the same time, the medical book "Nei Jing" and the medicine book "Materia Medica" also appeared in the field of science and technology; in the field of literature, there appeared the immortal masterpiece-Qu Yuan's "Li Sao".In addition, monographs appeared on astronomy, calendar, agriculture, animal husbandry, history, geography and other aspects.

The works of this period, especially the works of the philosophers, are generally good at speculation, which is determined by the contention of a hundred schools of thought.Meng Ke sighed in "Mencius Teng Wengong Xia": "I am not easy to argue, I have no choice." These two sentences can represent the general state of mind of the pre-Qin scholars.Even literary works, such as Qu Yuan's "Li Sao", also have this speculative atmosphere of the times.It can be seen that the creation of books has been linked to the political and economic changes of society from the very beginning.

In the early Han Dynasty, drawing lessons from the rapid demise of the Qin Dynasty, the policy of "rest and rejuvenation" was adopted, which quickly restored and developed the economy.The cultural policy was also relatively enlightened. Several important schools of thought that were once severely suppressed by the Qin Dynasty, such as the Huang-Lao School, the Xingming School, and the Confucian School, were advocated to varying degrees, and a group of insightful political schools emerged. writers and accomplished writers.Jia Yi, Jia Shan, Chao Cuo, Mei Cheng, Zou Yang, Zhuang Ji, etc., were all famous politicians and writers in this period. They wrote many political articles and literary works, which shows that the book creation in this period, tends to recover.

By the time of Emperor Wu of the Western Han Dynasty, the social situation had undergone great changes.Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty himself was a man of great achievements in both literature, governance and martial arts, which contradicted the vassal king's continued advocacy of the Huang-Lao School in the early Han Dynasty for political purposes.Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty implemented the policy of "removing a hundred schools of thought and respecting only Confucianism" with the political power in his hands, which completely ended the situation of contention among a hundred schools of thought that had occurred since the Warring States Period, and made Confucianism and Confucian works transformed and interpreted by Dong Zhongshu a complete success. official philosophy and classics.Since then, in the feudal society of more than two thousand years, although Confucianism has also experienced challenges from various aspects, it has always been in a dominant position.Therefore, the creation of books is also restricted by it, and often revolves around Confucian classics.For example, there are endless works on Confucian classics, such as annotations, scriptures, interpretations, textual research on the names and objects of the classics, geographical textual research, biographies, interpretations, interpretations, and interpretations, etc.All of these, we can find the source of the initial development in Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty's policy of "removing a hundred schools of thought and respecting Confucianism alone".

"Jian'an Character" is a glorious chapter in the history of literary creation and literary development.Looking for the reasons for its formation also has its specific historical background.That is, the rulers of the three countries all experienced the Yellow Turban Uprising and witnessed the power of the people. In addition, their backgrounds were not high, so they more represented the interests of the middle and small landlord class.In particular, Cao Cao and his group occupying the north not only represented the interests of the small and medium landlord class politically, but also reflected the artistic taste of this class in literary thought.Cao Cao and his sons Cao Pi and Cao Zhi were both creators and advocates of poetry, and many famous literati gathered around them.They jointly learned from Yuefu folk songs and created many excellent works, breaking the situation of dominance of Ci Fu since the Han Dynasty.Cao's father and son and the literati who followed them were all witnesses to the warlords' melee at the end of the Han Dynasty. They all had deep emotion and sympathy for the disasters that the war brought to the people.Their works are rooted in this, not only reflecting the suffering of the people, but also showing their ambition and talent to change this social reality.Liu Xie commented on the literary works of this period in "The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons: Time Sequences" and said: "Looking at the time, the literature is elegant and generous, good from the chaotic accumulation of the world, the customs are declining and the custom is resentful, and the ambition is deep and the pen is long." The most important thing is that the writers of this period dared to face the reality, reflect the turmoil, but were full of worries about the country and the great ambition of saving the world and helping things.This is the characteristic of Jian'an writers, and also the character of Jian'an's works.Later generations opposed vanity in their literary creation, advocated emphasizing reality and having something to say, and most of them took Jian'an's strength of character as a model.It shows that the creation of books in this period, especially the creation of literary books, reflected the social reality and characteristics of the times at that time.

The Li Tang Dynasty was the heyday of the development of Chinese feudal society.At the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Li and Tang Dynasties drew lessons from the rapid failure of the Sui Dynasty and adopted a series of relatively enlightened policies on a series of major issues. established and consolidated. In the Tang Dynasty, especially in its early period, all kinds of ideas, schools of thought, and religions could develop and spread freely.The prosperity of Buddhism, Xuanzang's journey to the west and Jianzhen's journey to the east are all symbols of the prevalence of Buddhism.The translation of Buddhist scriptures has a larger scale and a higher level, and Buddhist classics have been developed by leaps and bounds.The supreme ruler of the Tang Dynasty was surnamed Li, so Lao Tzu Li Er was recognized as their distant ancestor, and he was posthumously named Emperor Taishang Xuanyuan.And Lao Tzu was the originator of the pre-Qin Taoist school, so they respected Taoism and advocated Taoism.The imperial examinations of the Tang Dynasty once listed Lao Tzu's and Zhuang Zhou's books as must-read books.Therefore, Taoism and Taoist works have also been sorted out and created.The Tang Dynasty advocated literature from the beginning of the emperor, especially poetry, and even developed an imperial examination system based on literature.Therefore, poets and poems appeared in large numbers in the Tang Dynasty, which became a golden age for the development of poetry.There are more than 3,200 writers and nearly 60,000 famous poems included in "Full Tang Poems".Under the reform and advocacy of Chen Ziang, Han Yu, Liu Zongyuan and others, prose also made brilliant achievements, which was the first of the eight great masters in Tang and Song Dynasties.To meet the needs of poetry creation, the class books for checking allusions and the rhyme books for checking rhymes have also been supplemented and compiled successively.The novel has also developed from the previous note novels such as ghosts, ghosts, trivia, and anecdotes to legendary short stories of the Tang Dynasty.The Tang Dynasty also attached great importance to mathematics, and the country specially set up a Taixuetang to study mathematics, so the mathematics works handed down since ancient times, such as "Zhou Bi [bi] Suan Jing", "Nine Chapters of Suan Shu", "Wu Cao Suan Jing" , "Zixu", etc., have been carefully organized into dozens of books, which are used as textbooks for class reading.Even more efforts were spared in the collation of Confucian classics. The government organized Kong Yingda and a group of Confucian scholars to revise the Five Classics and form the Five Classics Justice, which was promulgated throughout the world.All these show that the prosperous Tang Dynasty was also very prosperous reflected in the creation of books.

Song Dynasty Li You's book "Song Dynasty Facts" records that Song Taizong Zhao Guangyi said: "Although the king defeats the enemy with martial arts, he must eventually govern with literature and virtue." This can be said to be a high-level summary of Song Taizong's historical ruling experience and a profound summary.Based on this understanding, the cultural policy of the Song Dynasty became more prominent than before.When Song Zhenzong arrived, he wrote "Advocating Confucianism" at the same time as he wrote "Advocating Confucianism".It is proposed that Buddhism and Confucianism "have the same way but different traces", and advocate the three teachings of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, which complement each other.Therefore, the collation of Confucian classics, Buddhist classics, and Taoist works have reached an unprecedented level.Coupled with the encouragement of imperial examinations in the Song Dynasty for official careers, it also stimulated the enthusiasm of all social strata to study and take exams, to be admitted to officials, and to be rich and wealthy.Therefore, in the creation of poems, words and prose, there has also been an extremely prosperous scene.Coupled with the general prevalence of engraving and printing in the Song Dynasty, it provided favorable conditions for book creation and production.Therefore, the works of the Song Dynasty related to Confucian classics, Buddhist collections, Taoist collections, history books, political books, class books, series books, various anthologies, miscellaneous notes, poems and songs, medical books, medicine books, military books, almanacs, laws, regulations, etc. A large number of books were created, compiled and published, forming a golden age in the history of Chinese book development.

The number of books created and published in the Ariake generation is almost the sum of the books produced in all previous eras.The reason is probably closely related to the policy of exempting book tax announced in August of the first year of Hongwu (AD 1368).However, the "Yongle Dadian" compiled in the early Ming Dynasty was still for political purposes. The compilation of "Yongle Dadian" began in July of the first year of Yongle (1403 A.D.) by Ming Chengzu Zhu Di.Why did Zhu Di propose to compile this large-scale tome as soon as he ascended the throne?This has a deep political background.After the death of Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang, because the prince Zhu Biao died early, according to the practice of the emperor's succession, the throne was passed on to the eldest grandson Zhu Yunqi (wenwen) for succession.Zhu Yunwen is Emperor Jianwen.He was very young at the time, and he was deeply disturbed when he saw that his uncles had heavy soldiers, so he took measures to eliminate the power of the feudal king.Zhu Di was the fourth son of Emperor Taizu of the Ming Dynasty. He was named King Yan and stationed in Beijing.He saw that his military power might be deprived, so he used the name of "Jing Nan" to set up troops and went south. In the fourth year of Jianwen (AD 1402), he invaded Nanjing, drove away Emperor Jianwen, and became emperor himself. Ming Chengzu.This incident was a battle for the throne between uncles and nephews. According to the orthodox concept, it was a bit "rebellious", which aroused resistance and public condemnation from some scholar-officials.Zhu Di thought of taking advantage of what Zhu Yuanzhang wanted to do but could not do in the future—compile large-scale books, show off the rule of law, win people's hearts, and eliminate the injustice between the government and the opposition.At that time, it was also said that Emperor Jianwen hid in the temple, so when the "Yongle Dadian" was rebuilt, the monk Yao Guangxiao was invited out, and many monks and Taoists were recruited to participate.This is the background of the compilation of "Yongle Dadian". "Yongle Dadian" has a total of 22,937 volumes, 11,095 volumes, and 370 million words.They are all copied in regular script.It was the largest encyclopedia in the world at the time. In 1900, the Eight-Power Allied Forces invaded Beijing, and the entire book was looted and destroyed.So far, there are only more than 400 volumes in the world, which is only a little more than 3% of the original book.After the middle of the Ming Dynasty, capitalism began to sprout within society.With the germination and development of capitalism, the number of cities and towns continues to increase, and urban civilians continue to emerge.The urban commoners are not completely different from the rural peasants in the feudal society. After they have enough food and clothing, they have higher requirements for spiritual and cultural life.In order to meet the cultural needs of this class, more and more dramas and novels were created.Ming Shenzong Wanli Emperor Zhu Yi (yiyi) Jun was a feudal emperor living in the budding state of capitalism.He not only has the absolute authority of a feudal emperor, but also has the characteristics of a luxurious and licentious life in this social state. He is addicted to alcohol, greedy for sex, dependent on wealth, and arrogant. He is a famous feudal emperor with all four poisons.In feudal society, what is good at the top must be good at the bottom. Some local officials, wealthy businessmen, and top workshops are also very extravagant.To suit the tastes of these people, some boring literati create pornographic novels.This is the social reason why there are a number of yellow works in the novels of the Ming Dynasty.

The outstanding feature of book creation in the Qing Dynasty was the great prosperity of textual research, and there were endless works on the collation of ancient books and research on ancient books.The reason is also the social basis for their generation.First, academics in the Qing Dynasty were pioneered by Gu Yanwu, Huang Zongxi, Wang Fuzhi and others who were survivors of the late Ming Dynasty.After the demise of the Ming Dynasty, they learned from the pain and missed their homeland, so they made a profound summary of the reasons for the demise of the Ming Dynasty.One of them is that they believe that the failure of the Ming Dynasty was caused by academic vainness and inability to apply it to the world.So they devoted themselves to practice, emphasizing learning, textual research, empirical evidence, and application. This had a great influence on the prosperity of Pu Xue in the Qing Dynasty and the creation of Pu Xue's works.The second is that the three dynasties of Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong successively promoted literary inquisitions, which made literati cautious and cautious, and dared not involve in current affairs.So he piled up old papers and escaped from reality with tireless textual research.Therefore, the creation of textual research works in the Qing Dynasty was, on the one hand, the positive orientation of people such as Gu Yanwu in the early Qing Dynasty to learn from reality, and the other was the result of the negative influence of the literary inquisition in the early Qing Dynasty. During the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, there was a huge project in book creation, which was the compilation of "Siku Quanshu".Emperor Qianlong advocated the compilation of "Siku Quanshu", the banner is to promote ancient culture, in fact, he wants to collect posthumous writings from all over the world through the compilation of "Siku Quanshu".Then, the collected posthumous letters of the past dynasties were dealt with in three situations.All books that directly reflect anti-Qing thoughts shall be destroyed; all works that refuse to surrender to the Manchu Qing, or that offend Qing politics and others, as well as pornographic and evil books shall be banned from circulation; Books that hinder the dignity of the Manchus will be deleted.Therefore, some people say that the compilation of "Siku Quanshu" in the Qing Dynasty is "containing prohibition in levy", which is very reasonable. "Siku Quanshu" is a huge series, containing more than 3,400 books, divided into four sub-collections of classics and history.At that time, seven parts were transcribed, which were stored in Wenyuan, Wenyuan, Wensu, Wenjin, Wenhui, Wenzong and Wenlan.The names of the seven pavilions include six pavilions with three points of water, which means that water can overcome fire and avoid disasters.But in Wenzong Pavilion in Zhenjiang, there is no three points of water in Zongzi.It is said that because of the flooding of Jinshan Temple, it is already full of water and can no longer ask for water.The number of books collected by each department is not exactly the same, and the number of volumes is also not exactly the same.Take Wenjinge Volume 1 as an example, with a total of 36,304 volumes and more than 900 million words.It is still the largest book series in the world.Many classics that were included in the "Siku Quanshu" at that time were originally lost, and the "Siku Quanshu" was handed down.From this perspective, the compilation of "Siku Quanshu" has made great contributions to the inheritance and preservation of culture.However, during the compilation process, a large number of books were banned and destroyed, and classics were deleted and modified at will, which greatly damaged culture and committed crimes.Therefore, some people concluded that the compilation of the "Siku Quanshu" in the Qing Dynasty was the "culprit" for Chinese culture.This is true. It can be seen that the creation of books in the past dynasties is a tortuous reflection of the political, economic, and cultural conditions of each corresponding era; it is the product of the spirit of the times, humanistic admiration, and specific policies; it is the materialization of the thinking and the solidification of consciousness of book creators in each era.