The previous lecture mentioned that Prime Minister Li Si proposed burning books, and Qin Shihuang readily approved it, but then left a question: If Qin Shihuang only re-employed Confucian scholars, would it be peaceful and fully protect cultural diversity?

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The previous lecture mentioned that Prime Minister Li Si put forward the suggestion of burning books, Qin Shihuang readily approved it, and then left a question: If Qin Shihuang reused all Confucian scholars, would it be peaceful and fully protect the culture? What about diversity?

unified thinking

most likely does not. Human beings are unitary by nature. From values ​​​​to eating habits, the familiar is always good and is the yardstick for evaluating all rights and wrongs, good and evil. The unfamiliar is always dangerous. You must either get rid of it quickly or avoid it for fear of being caught. Only when people from all over the world, with their own living habits and values, live in the same environment by mistake, and although they can't stand each other, can they neither destroy each other nor avoid each other, can this be done? Diversity is not accepted. And deep down, people only speak out in support of diversity out of self-protection and fear that one day they will become a minority on which issue.

We can refer to Germany in modern history: not long after the Nazis first entered the political stage, a massive book burning movement broke out in Germany, burning a large number of so-called works that were "not in line with the German spirit", including those we are very familiar with. Remarque 's anti-war masterpiece "All Quiet on the Western Front", this great literary work that should have been the pride of Germany has been criticized as a language impulsive that undermines morale and the people's morale.

What is intriguing is that the planning and execution of the book burning incident was neither a government act nor a political party act, but a passionate and spontaneous act by a group of university students, to which the German people responded with excitement, ecstasy and excitement. This is really human nature, so it is not difficult to imagine that not only Shang Yang, Han Fei and Li Si regarded the various schools of thought as poisonous snakes and beasts, but even great Confucian scholars such as Mencius and Xunzi were also eager to Monopolize the right to speak, so that all "harmful" doctrines will never have a chance to speak.

Confucian public case

This kind of Confucian thought is likely to have existed as early as the era of Confucius . There is a famous record in "Historical Records" that when Confucius was 56 years old, he acted as the prime minister of the state of Lu and held great power. The first thing he did after taking office was to kill Shaozhengmao. The Shao Zhengmao who was killed was a senior official of the State of Lu, and his bad deed was to disrupt the political situation. In this way, within just three months of Confucius' rule, the political landscape of Lu State changed drastically, and everything was good.

Around the Song Dynasty , some people began to doubt this record in "Historical Records". As soon as the voice of doubt came out, it caused a lot of resonance. The reason is not difficult to understand: first, Confucius always talked about benevolence, and one should give full play to his moral appeal after taking power. Why would he kill people as soon as he comes up? Second, since Shaozhengmao has the status of a doctor, then according to Zhou etiquette, "the punishment cannot be punished" "Dafu", even the king cannot kill the doctor, let alone Confucius.

In this way, "Confucius punished Shaozhengmao" became a major public case in the history of Confucianism. The public is justified when he says it, and the mother-in-law is right when she says it. It has not been clarified to this day.

Whenever I encounter this kind of problem, the first thing I will ask is: What is the source of historical data for Sima Qian and ?

There is no way to verify this. We can only say that the earliest record of Confucius' execution of Shaozhengmao comes from "Xunzi". In the records of "Xunzi", it is only mentioned that Shaozhengmao was a famous person in the state of Lu, but it was not mentioned that he was a doctor. In this way, Confucius seemed to have the power to decide Shaozhengmao's life and death. But there is another suspicion in the "Xunzi" version, that is, the whole thing is too much like a fable. Xunzi seems to want to use this story to illustrate one of his political ideas, that is, dissidents with social influence should be severely punished by the government. Best to kill.

Xunzi gave a series of programmatic opinions on the principles of governing the country. One of the words is "Those who act against the times will be punished with death." This means that as long as a person's talents and behavior violate the current system and mainstream values, he will be punished. Then it should be killed.

Xunzi listed Shaozhengmao's crimes, a total of 5, saying that as long as he committed any one of them, it would be a capital crime.When we look at these five crimes from today's perspective, we will find that this Shaozhengmao did not commit murder, arson, robbery or theft. He neither violated criminal law nor civil law. He only promoted some heresies that Confucius considered Heretical views, and being able to explain these views clearly and logically. Isn't it a bit too much to kill all of them?

Since the Warring States Period and , on the one hand, has become more and more noisy and fierce, and academic authorities will inevitably get angry at dissidents. On the other hand, the trend of centralization in the real world has become more and more intense. Centralized management If the model wants to maintain stability and efficiency, it must ensure a high degree of ideological unity. Even if it can return to the acquaintance society model under the feudal system, the three views of the community can be different, but the same is true within each community. Dissent will not be tolerated. Therefore, we can even see in Confucian classics that not only spreading heretical speech is punishable by death, but also dressing up in strange clothes, using strange techniques, talking about weird theories, pretending to be gods and ghosts, taking advantage of loopholes in the law, etc. are all punishable by death.

The above content about capital crimes comes from "Book of Rites·Royal System". Since this author hates people taking advantage of legal loopholes, it means that the era he lived in should be after the Warring States Period, when statutory law has been widely used. Once the law is written down, there must be loopholes to exploit, and there must be smart people to exploit such loopholes.

So we can see that although "Xunzi" and "Book of Rites" do not advocate book burning, they are highly consistent with the underlying logic of book burning. They all believe that in a sound society, everyone There should be a single set of values ​​shared, and any behavior that might cause ideological waves should be resolutely eradicated.

It will come naturally

Therefore, when Qin annexed the six countries, and Qin Dynasty established a centralized political system in the world, whether it is unifying thoughts or suppressing thoughts, even without Li Si's proposal, it will be a matter of course. , even if there was no book burning, private schools would be destroyed and dissidents would be executed.

Although Qin Shihuang and Li Si burned books, they did not kill anyone because of it. If we compare the various literary prisons in later generations, these two instigators can be called extremely merciful. The reason why they have been infamous for burning books for thousands of years is largely because they did not have enough historical experience to refer to and did things too stupidly.

Today we will know that burning books is a thankless effort, but instead stimulates cultural figures to go out of their way to hide private collections of books. The method that is both effective and lovable is the imperial examination system. Once a very small number of official textbooks directly become the candidates for promotion, then other books do not need to be burned at all, and they will naturally be lost. Even if they are not lost, their social influence will naturally be approaches zero.

Folk reaction

So, how will folk scholars react to the book-burning order?

" Zi Zhi Tong Jian " found a sample, which was a conversation between Chen Yu and Kong Yu from Wei Dynasty.

Chen Yu from the Wei Dynasty said to Kong Yu: "Qin will destroy the books of the ancestors, and Ziyu will be the master of books. How dangerous it is!" Ziyu said: "I am a useless scholar, and those who know me are only friends. Qin is not me. Friend, I am not in danger! I will hide it until someone asks for it, and there will be no danger. "

Let me briefly introduce the background. Chen Yu was from Daliang. There is an article "Biography of Zhang Er and Chen Yu" in "Historical Records" which talks about his legendary life with Wang Nian's friend Zhang Er . It talks about Chen Yu's love for Confucianism. As for Kong Yu, "Historical Records of Confucius" briefly mentioned that he was a descendant of Confucius and the son of Kong Bin.

Kong Bin, courtesy name Zishun, was the Prime Minister of Wei State during the era of King Anli of Wei. Later, when he was idle at home, he made a famous saying about the international situation: "There is no good doctor for a fatal disease." He also gave it to Lord Xinling. 's son is the famous person who gave advice on the funeral of Lord Xinling.

As the son of Kong Bin, Kong Yu inherited Confucian scholarship very well, but he did not go out to be an official. It is likely that he continued to live in Daliang because of his father.

When the book-burning order was promulgated, Chen Yu was worried about Kong Kun's safety and hurriedly came to visit. This content of "Zizhi Tongjian" is taken from "Kong Congzi". In the version of "Kong Congzi", Kong Yu is also called Kong Jia , with the courtesy name Ziyu, so we refer to it in "Zizhi Tongzi" In "Jian", I saw that the person Chen Yu asked was named Kong Yu, but the person who answered was named Ziyu. Kong Kun's answer was: "Don't worry about me, I'm fine. I am engaged in useless learning, so there are only a few close friends who know me. The Qin government is not my close friend and will not know that I have banned books here. I am prepared to Hide the book and wait for future generations to visit it. When the person seeking the ancient book appears, it means that the disaster has been eliminated."

said a few words: Kong Yu really waited for a turning point in the times during his lifetime. Chen Sheng. , , Wu Guang, rose up, and Chen Yu helped make Kong Kun accept Chen Sheng's offer and become a doctorate officer in the new government, but he also died with the new government. "Historical Records: The Family of Confucius" records the ending of Kong Yu: "Doctor Chen She worked for and died under Chen."

The book burning incident ends here. The emerging Qin Empire still has many major projects to do. Do it, we’ll talk about it in the next lecture.

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