In the Qin Dynasty, why did you burn Confucian poetry and books?

Because the Qin Dynasty continued to use Legalist politics from top to bottom, Confucianism was the thorn in the side and a thorn in the flesh of Legalist thought. Therefore, the most targeted doctrine of the Qin Dynasty is, of course, Confucianism. We all know that the Qin Dynasty was the first unified dynasty in China's history for thousands of years; Therefore, it has always been of extraordinary significance to the entire history of Chinese civilization, and it can be said that it has a remarkable status.

Although the Qin Dynasty was quite strong in military strength at its peak, it was also extraordinarily vast; However, the controversy surrounding the Qin Dynasty did not stop from time to time. For example, the "high-pressure rule" applied by the Qin Dynasty, the excessive oppression of the people by the Qin Dynasty, and so on.

On top of that, the Qin Dynasty had a famous campaign called "Burning Books and Pit Confucianism". Although judging from the "Historical Records" alone, it seems that what the Qin Dynasty burned was nothing more than books such as the Yin and Yang family and the Wei Wei; However, combined with other historical materials and archaeological documents, we can easily find that the Qin Dynasty was most targeted at that time, of course, Confucianism.

Why did the Qin Dynasty look at Confucianism so unpleasantly? He prefers to burn Confucian poetry and books, and pits those Confucian students who are passionate and generous on weekdays and vow to help the world? In fact, the answer is very simple: this is the inevitable result of Legalist thought.

There is a saying in the Legalists, which is called "If the people are foolish, they know that they can be kings". Qin Shi Huang is the ideal monarch of the Legalists; Ying Zheng himself can also be called Shang Ying, the master of Han Fei's thoughts. So, of course, he also understands the importance of "foolish people".

Only by making the people of the whole world stupid can his rule be long-lasting.

There is also a famous saying in the Book of Shang Jun, "If the foolish people don't know and are not good at learning, they will be in a hurry." In other words, by killing all these Confucian scholars and preventing others from having knowledge, they will be able to farm in peace.

Confucianism requires Confucianism to supervise the king and Confucianism to educate the people, which is incompatible with Legalist thought. Therefore, the Qin Dynasty, which applied Legalism from the top down, naturally regarded Confucianism as a great enemy. "Burning books and pit Confucianism" is also inevitable.

Can't afford it. If you don't like Confucianism, you will gain prestige, and if you despise Confucianism, you will pursue and eradicate obstacles.

Because the Confucian ideology at that time was not conducive to his dynastic rule, many of the Confucian poems recorded the methods of those wise kings to govern the country, and this method at that time was actually not suitable for governing the Qin State, and a country could not have two of its own thoughts, so it chose to burn the Confucian book and cut off the ideas advocated by Confucianism.

Because the Qin Dynasty seized the world by violence, it did not pay attention to the Confucian set of ethics, and the concept of Confucianism was contrary to the Qin Dynasty's concept of governing the country, so the Qin Dynasty burned books and pit Confucianism.

Because the teachings of Confucianism were not valued in the Qin Dynasty, and there was a great disagreement with those who were worthy of the government, their books were burned.

1. Qin Shi Huang's book burning was relatively thorough. In 213 BC (the 34th year of the reign of Qin Shi Huang), Qin Shi Huang adopted Li Si's suggestion and stipulated that in addition to the books collected by the doctor's official collection, the books of a hundred schools of thought could be kept privately, except for books on the history of the Qin state, medicine, divination, practical tree planting, and books unrelated to politics, and the rest could be burned. After this large-scale book-burning campaign, the collection of the people, in fact, is the hundred books of the noble families of the Six Kingdoms, which are almost gone.

The only official books of the Qin Dynasty were reduced to ashes in Xiang Yu's fire. This is not only the destruction of Confucianism and traditional Chinese culture, but also incalculable.

Second, Qin Shi Huang's pit of Confucianism is not thorough. Please don't get me wrong, I don't think Qin Shi Huang killed too few people, I just explained the problem with facts. In the second year of the book burning, Qin Shi Huang killed more than 460 people in a pit in Xianyang, and at that time he said that Confucian scholars generally referred to intellectuals, including scholars, so not all Confucian scholars were buried alive.

During the Qin period, Confucianism had been disseminated for more than 300 years, and how many people held and studied Confucianism in the country? Can Qin Shi Huang kill it all in one sitting? Moreover, the Qin Dynasty soon fell, and then Emperor Gaozu of the Han Dynasty, Emperor Wen of the Han Dynasty, and Emperor Jing implemented a more relaxed policy, a hundred schools of thought contended, and later Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty respected Confucianism, and Confucianism ushered in a rare opportunity for development.

However, the Confucian thought of the Han Dynasty went astray because of this. This does not touch on the topic we are going to discuss, so I will not go into details.

One is the contribution of scholars to books. At the end of Emperor Wu, the old house of the Confucian Mansion of the King of Lu Gong, in the wall to get the "Ancient Texts and Books", "Rites", "Analects" and "Filial Piety", all tadpole words, people did not know at that time, Anguo read it in today's text, and was edicted to make a book biography, set as 58 articles, called "Ancient Texts and Books", and "Ancient Texts and Filial Piety Classics", "Analects and Explanations".

The second is the memory records of Confucian scholars in the Han Dynasty, called "Jinwen Shangshu" and so on.