Chapter 6 Conclusion of Section 5
To sum up, the development of ancient books in my country has political, academic, and social reasons.It started in Wei, developed in Sui and Tang, flourished in Song and Ming, and was perfected in Qing.After more than 1,500 years of occurrence and development, it reached its peak in the Kangxi and Yongzheng periods; thereafter, there was an intermittent period.After Daoguang of the Qing Dynasty, the speed of writing books decreased significantly, and the books compiled after Qianlong were all small and medium-sized, except for some large-scale ones such as "Lian Shi".And the quality is very ordinary, the situation is very depressed.Call it an intermittent period, but it has nothing to do with the textual research that flourished in the Qianjia era. Some people even say that textual research directly led to the decline of Leishu.Regarding the situation at the peak of textual research, Liang Qichao once said in his "Academic History of China in the Past Three Hundred Years": The textual research between the Qian and Jia Dynasties almost monopolized the power of the academic circles, and the Qing Dynasty, which has always admired the Song Dynasty. The emperor is still popular.Therefore, rich officials and even wealthy businessmen who are a little more fashionable must be "arty" and follow these great scholars to say a few words of textual research.
Therefore, after the development of history to the Qianjia period of the Qing Dynasty, the popular classishu was criticized and rose.Scholar-bureaucrats all regarded Leishu as a humble study, and they only used Leishu as a tool for compiling and textual research.It is believed that it is because of the convenience provided by similar books that some scholars abandon the basics and focus on the details (not focusing on the fundamentals, but only work on the details), just want to take shortcuts, refuse to read a lot of books, and do solid learning, forming a bad atmosphere.This is actually obliterating the special use of class books and focusing on its side effects.It is really convenient to have class books for composition and annotation; but scholars never read the original books, do not study the source, and it is easy to plagiarize, which leads to fraud.Under such circumstances, in March of the 20th year of Jiaqing (AD 1815), a minister requested that the bookstore be strictly prohibited from publishing "Lei Dian" and other books.From then on, as the trend spread, the fashion changed, and the current habits changed, the demand for reading books decreased day by day, and compilations became less and less common; even the books compiled by the predecessors were not widely circulated.This seriously affected the compilation of Leishu, and the status of Leishu was greatly reduced. For more than 1,500 years, class books have gone through the road from appearance to prosperity and development, and finally to gradual decline.
In general, according to the records of Yiwenzhi and Jingjizhi in the past dynasties, there are about 600 to 700 kinds of books from the Six Dynasties to the Qing Dynasty; There are more than 500 kinds).Due to the collection and classification of the vast literature materials of the past dynasties, it still shows a high reference value and is a rich heritage.Although it is a product of the feudal era, its essence can still be used today; after all, it occupies an important position in the cultural history of our country; when future generations want to understand the splendid cultural history of our country, they should know the wonderful flower of "Lianshu".
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