Chapter 111 Section 3 Brief History of Book Burning in Past Dynasties

Regarding the burning of books, Li Si was not the instigator.Before this, Mencius said: The princes eviled the Zhou rituals and harmed themselves, and all of them removed their classics. "Han Feizi" also said: Shang Jun taught filial piety to burn poems and books to clarify laws and regulations. In later generations, burning books is even more common. Niu Hong, a Sui man, wrote "Please open the road to offering books on the above table", which counts the five disasters of the book (I don't understand why, but Xiang Yu is omitted): The emperor of Qin controlled Yu and issued an order to burn books.This book is one of the disasters.At the end of Wang Mang, soldiers rose in Chang'an, and the palace books were burned.This is the second disaster of the book.Filial piety offerings moved to the capital, the officials and the people were disturbed, and the books were too silky, so they all took them as curtains.It was collected and went to the west, carrying more than 70 rides, which belonged to the great chaos in Xijing, and it was burnt for a while.This is the book of the three disasters.Liu and Shi Pingling, Jinghua was destroyed, and the imperial code was established, so the fall was lost.The four evils of this book are also.Master Zhou entered Ying, and Xiao Yi collected Wende books, as well as public and private classics. There were more than 70,000 volumes in total, and they were all burned in the outer city.This is the book of the five evils.

Hu Yinglin of the Ming Dynasty wrote "Shaoshi Shanfang Bi Cong", in addition to the five evils discussed by Niu Hong, he added five evils and listed them as "ten evils": The Kaihuang of the Sui Dynasty was extremely prosperous, and soon it was all ashes in Guangling; the Kaiyuan of the Tang Dynasty was extremely prosperous, and Erqing was all ashes in Anshi; Yu, once again flourished in Xuanhe, and the disaster of the Jin people came to an end; the third flourished in Chunxi, the fourth flourished in Jiading, and the master of the Yuan Dynasty came to an end.However, since the Six Dynasties, there have been five evils again.

In the Manchu Qing Dynasty, when the literary inquisition flourished, it was not only books that were unlucky, but also book authors and book collectors.Because of violating taboos, the living were killed with sticks and the three clans were exterminated, the dead were dissected and the corpses were dissected, and the bones and ashes were smashed. Such cases are too numerous to enumerate.When Cangjie created characters and the ghosts and gods cried, could it be that the ghosts and gods had foreseen that there would be a catastrophe in the Qing Dynasty, so they mourned in advance? The rise of the Literary Inquisition coincided with the so-called prosperous age of Kangxi and Qianlong, and it lasted for nearly a hundred years. The length of time, the severity of the disaster, the number of entanglements, the cruel punishment, and the intensity were unprecedented.

In the Qianlong Literary Prison from 1772 to 1788, only 476 of the 2,320 banned books and other 345 partially banned books survived, which is less than 18% of the listed numbers, and this happened when printing was popularized under. In addition to burning and banning books, the Manchu Qing Dynasty also edited books, that is, "Siku Quanshu".However, there is something tricky about it.Speaking of which, they also use the Spring and Autumn style of writing, expressing praise and criticism between the lines.But who are they praising?Not only themselves, but also the Khitan, Jurchen, Mongol, Liao, Jin, Yuan, etc. in the past were also praised.It's a relationship that can't be done with eight poles, why should they do this kind of favor?The reason is simple. They have one thing in common, that is, they are aliens and invaders to China.In the process of compilation, those works that reflect ethnic conflicts, ethnic oppression, and the fighting spirit of the Han people were discarded and destroyed as much as possible, and those famous works that had to be included were falsified.For example, the famous sentence in Yue Fei's "Manjianghong", "Aspirations eat the meat of the barbarians when hungry, laugh and talk about thirsting for the blood of the Huns."

In this regard, Mr. Lu Xun once commented, "Just looking at the means of Yongzheng and Qianlong dynasties on Chinese works is enough to be thrilling. Not to mention destroying, tearing out, and gouging out, the most insidious thing is to delete and modify. The content of the ancient books. The compilation of the "Siku Quanshu" in the Qianlong Dynasty was praised by many people as a great achievement of a generation, but they not only messed up the format of the ancient books, but also revised the articles of the ancients; The style of the promulgation is relatively strong, so that the scholars of the world will never feel that among our Chinese authors, there used to be people with some backbone." So there was a sigh, "The Qing people compiled the "Siku Quanshu" Ancient books die."

Compared with the primitive fire, isn't this the burning of books at a higher level? As Chekhov said, the sins of others do not make you a saint.Although Li Si was far from the only one who had done the book burning, this was not enough to be an excuse for Li Si.Li Si's book burning was the first of its kind for the imperial government to stifle people's thoughts nakedly. It not only caused serious consequences at the time, but also had a profound psychological impact on later generations.