Chapter 109 Book Burning Order

In response to Chunyuyue's proposal from the feudal princes, Li Si wrote to Yingzheng to answer. The book said: "The five emperors did not return to each other, and the three generations did not attack each other. Each ruled, not the opposite, but the time has changed. Today, your majesty has created a great cause, and the merits of the world are definitely not known by foolish scholars. And what Chun Yuyue said is true. What is the law of the three dynasties? At a different time, the feudal lords are competing with each other, recruiting and studying abroad. Today, the decree has been made, and the decree is issued. The people are in charge of the family, and they are working on agriculture, and the scholars are studying the decree. , Because it is not in the current world, it will confuse the head of Guizhou.

The prime minister, Si Mo, said to death: In ancient times, the world was scattered and chaotic, and there was no way to unite it. It was written by the princes together. All the words were said to harm the present, and they pretended to be false to confuse the truth.Today the emperor does not own the world, don't choose black and white.Private learning and non-teaching, when people hear the order, they will discuss it according to their own learning, when they enter, they will be wrong, and when they go out, they will discuss it.If it is so forbidden, the main force will fall to the top, and the party will become the bottom.Forbidden. "

As for how to prohibit it, the book says again: "I invite historians who are not Qin Ji to burn them. If they are not doctoral officials, those who dare to collect poems, books, and languages ​​of a hundred schools of thought in the world will keep them and burn them. Those who dare to speak poetry and books will abandon the market. The ancients are not the same family as the present. Officials who do not know what they know are guilty of the same crime. They are ordered not to burn for 30 days, and tattooed as city dan. Those who do not go are books on medicine, divination and tree planting. If you want to be a scholar, take the official as your teacher. "

In the book Yingzheng, Yingzheng criticized, yes.Meaning, I think it will work. This is the famous Qin Huo burning book in history.For this move, later generations have a lot of negative comments.However, before echoing those criticisms in the past, it is necessary for us to understand the details and practical consequences of the burning of books in detail.Praise others to the point of itching, and scolding to the point of pain.Only by knowing yourself and the enemy can you avoid a hundred curses.If one hears the word "burning books" and doesn't delve into it, they will immediately shoot up the case, swear at it, and make an angry denunciation, and I secretly think that "fucking" is too hasty.

First of all, from Li Si's perspective, burning books has its logical inevitability.In Li Si's letter, Chunyuyue's request for enfeoffment was refuted by only using the eight words "the matter of the three generations is not enough".Immediately, Chunyu Yue and others were characterized as "learn from the past without learning from the present, and confuse the head of Guizhou with the non-current world".And there are many people like Chun Yuyue, "When people hear the order, they discuss it with their own learning. When they enter, they disagree, and when they go out, they discuss it." What people learn comes from books, so, Banning books or even burning books is the proper meaning of cutting grass and roots.

The ancients used bamboo slips, knives and pens to write books.Unlike today, hundreds of thousands of works are published every year, and in Schopenhauer's words, they are all "rich in content, unique in insight, and all indispensable".This also determines that there cannot be too many varieties of books burned by the empire, roughly as follows: First, the official historian is not a reporter from Qin Dynasty, that is, the historical records of the Six Kingdoms, which ridicule Qin because of its many. 2. Poems and Books, Bajiayu.In particular, poetry and books are the weapon warehouses of Chunyu Yue and his ilk.Burning is tantamount to disarming, let's see how you can quote it.

What needs special attention is that from Li Si's letter, all the books of the empire at that time, including those that were ordered to be burned, had complete backups in the government.Zhu Xi also said: Qin’s burning of books was only to teach the world to burn them, and his court still kept them; if it is said, “Those not in the hands of Qin Ji and doctors, burn them all”, then he still kept the Six Classics and the like, but the people of the world still kept them. None.