In recent decades, two amazing discoveries have enriched our research on the Qin Dynasty and its founders: one is the partial excavation of Qin Shihuang's Mausoleum in Mount Li in 1973, and the other is the Qin laws and administrative documents discovered in Yunmeng in 1975. [2] In addition to the latest information provided by the above two discoveries, our research data on this important historical period of the Qin Dynasty are still mainly from the historical records of the Han Dynasty historian Sima Qian. As far as this kind of research is concerned, the most valuable chapter in Historical Records is the sixth volume, namely Chronicle of Qin Shihuang (hereinafter referred to as Chronicle), but other volumes of Historical Records also provide us with some valuable reference materials. [3]
Perhaps it is precisely because of the central position of Historical Records in historical research that Sima Qian's Historical Records, like Qin Shihuang himself, has become a controversial topic. Some of Sima Qian's records of the Qin Dynasty have been discarded by later generations because they are incorrect or exaggerated. For example, Qian Mu clarified that Sima Qian thought Lv Buwei (? ~ before 235) is the mistake of Qin Shihuang's biological father, which is caused by the "curiosity" of Han historians; For another example, Lao Gan pointed out the serious contradiction in Qin Shihuang's matriarchal records in Historical Records. [4] Dirk Bode carefully studied and denied the historical authenticity of the following records in Historical Records: Qin Shihuang was an illegitimate child; 22 1 year BC, starting from Shuide; The punishment of mountain gods in 2 19 BC (translator's press, meaning "make all three thousand criminals cut down the trees of Xiangshan and make it mountain"); The prophecy appeared in 2 15 BC (translator's note, referring to "Yan Lu Sheng sent him back to the sea to work with ghosts and gods, because he recorded books, so he said' Hu Ye died in Qin'"); In 2 12 BC, he killed someone else's scholar (translator's publishing house, meaning "more than 460 people were born in Xianyang"); The meteor fell in 2 1 1 year BC (translator's press, meaning "Dong Jun has a meteor, and there is a stone on the ground, and the stone is engraved with the words" The first emperor died and the land was divided "). [5] Recently, some scholars believe that Sima Qian's description of the internal structure of Qin Shihuang's mausoleum is based on the lax reconstruction of the mausoleum architecture in the Han Dynasty, rather than the architectural concept of the mausoleum in the Qin Dynasty. [6] From a more fundamental level, all kinds of differences of opinion are related to Sima Qian's basic attitude towards Qin Shihuang. For example, Xishan is convinced that Historical Records has a very obvious unfair negative evaluation of Qin Shihuang: "The evaluation of Qin Shihuang's later years is very negative. What's more, Qin Shihuang became a typical tyrant who ruled the country without virtue and righteousness. This point has been pointed out and attracted attention in Historical Records of the First Qin Emperor. This evaluation tendency has penetrated into Sima Qian's mind. " [7] Xishan also analyzed two reasons for Sima Qian's negative portrayal: First, the Han Dynasty needed to embellish the crimes of the previous dynasty, so that the current dynasty rose rapidly and gained legal status instead; Secondly, Qin's suppression of Confucian scholars, whether correct or not, is usually regarded as an attack on historians.
On the contrary, Li Changzhi claimed that Sima Qian's description of the Qin Dynasty was not so negative. He quoted the preface before the Chronicle of Six Kingdoms (volume 15) to illustrate the positive comments made by Han Dynasty historians on this short-lived dynasty and its main rulers. [8] In addition, Zhang believes that as a historian, Sima Qian's main purpose is to "praise the unified policy of the Qin Dynasty" [9]
However, academic articles can often provide insight into Sima Qian's ulterior motives in A Record of the Qin Dynasty. As for the contemptuous attitude of this historian of Han Dynasty, some people think that Sima Qian's real goal is not Qin Shihuang, but his personal enemy in contemporary times: Emperor Wu of Han Dynasty (BC 140~ 87). According to this view, Sima Qian's Qin history was influenced by his personal environment rather than the historical facts of Qin history. To borrow an idiom, Sima Qian means "cursing the Qin Dynasty". In fact, Li Changzhi regards the Biography of the First Qin Emperor as a basic example of Sima Qian's satire, and the object of his satire is the Han Dynasty. [10] and Zhang thinks that an important theme of Historical Records is "praising the inaction in the early Han Dynasty and accusing the greed of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty". [1 1] Regardless of Qin Shihuang's achievements, he and Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty are indeed very similar in "lust and lust", especially in the pursuit of immortality and belligerence.
The purpose of this paper is neither to re-examine the details of these disputes, nor to extensively comment on the historical authenticity of these details recorded in Historical Records. In this paper, the author regards the Biography of Qin Shihuang as a literary text, focusing on how its narrative structure and some basic literary features affect our feelings as readers. The basic intention of this paper is not to cut the text of Historical Records into several small units to explore which paragraphs have been tampered with or are not in line with the facts. Accurately speaking, what the author seeks is what mode and how the text of Historical Records becomes an organic whole to convey some meaning to readers. As a starting point, or as a warning, Robert Alte and Frank Kermode reminded bibliophiles that those factors such as fragmentation, tampering and repetition, that is, those "texts that have long been considered incomplete, may be organic components born after careful consideration in literary works, which can only be understood by readers preset by the author." [ 12]
One of the main objections to the "reader-centered" approach is often put forward as follows: readers, at least in this case, whether secular or educated, are so far away from the language and narrator of events that they can no longer share the feelings of those who are closer to the text age. Unfortunately, it is this convention in hermeneutics that has bound previous scholars more or less. What binds our own imaginative interpretation is the record of early readers' reactions, which is the so-called "strong readers". When this relatively conservative position becomes a straitjacket that restricts our creative interpretation, it has fallen behind the times. However, we must remember that in our creative interpretation adventure, the reading and interpretation from the well-informed domestic readers of the previous generation were ignored. China's problem is that when these early powerful readers focused their academic attention on such classic texts as Historical Records, their vision mainly focused on the details of language and literature, rather than more general and subjective issues related to artistic feelings. However, there are some exceptions. As far as Historical Records is concerned, there is a book that people seldom use-Historical Records Review, which is of great value to our literary readers. The first edition of this book was engraved in 1576 (Wanli four years), and was written by Wang Shizhen (1526~ 1590) and Mao Kun (1512 ~160/kloc-). The value of these comments is that they are often from a literary standpoint. [13] In this study, historical records about forests are often regarded as guides, sometimes as challenges, and more often, they are fully considered by us.
The Biography of Qin Shihuang can be neatly divided into three parts. The last part is about the events after the death of Qin Shihuang, so it has nothing to do with this study. The first two parts are the research objects of this paper. The boundary between these two parts is an important turning point in narrative style caused by the event that happened in the 26th year of Ying Zheng, the king of Qin (22 1). This year, Qin destroyed six countries and finally unified China. Twenty-five years before the Biography of Qin Shihuang, Ying Zheng was called the monarch rather than the emperor. During this period, historical events developed rapidly, and historical records adopted chronological style. Most of the recorded events point to the goal of "unification". The latter part covers the period from the 26th year (2 10) of Ying Zheng, the king of Qin, to the 37th year of his death. In this part, the development of historical events is relatively slow, and historical records become lengthy records of related documents, which may also be mixed with some historical anecdotes and folklore.
Before comparing and contrasting the literary features of these two historical narratives in more detail, we need to briefly discuss the historical sources of Sima Qian's records about the possibility of Qin Shihuang. In the preface to Chronology of Six Kingdoms (Historical Records, Volume 15), Sima Qian described the destruction of historical records caused by the burning of books by Qin Shihuang in 2 13 BC:
Qin was proud and burned poetry books all over the world, especially the historical records of governors, which was laughed at by people. As a result, those who see poems and books once again hide more people, while the historical record hiding room destroys it alone. Cherish, cherish! The unique Ji Qin, without the sun and the moon, is slightly lacking in words. [ 14]
Nevertheless, there is still evidence that books on the historical records of the six countries have not been burned. [15] Confirmed by Sima Qian, the historical records about the Qin Dynasty still spread to the Han Dynasty. Most scholars believe that the contents of the above-mentioned book burning only refer to some specific types of records: as we all know, the chronicle historical materials as the source of the Historical Records of the Zhou Dynasty, the traditional customs of Lu State recorded in the Spring and Autumn Annals, and the traditional customs of Wei State recorded in the Annals of Bamboo Books. Among them, the records about the state of Qin are usually regarded as the main basis of Qin Benji. Therefore, Longchuan Kametaro said: "Qin Benji (Volume 5) takes Ji Qin as the latitude, while Zuo Zhuan, Guoyu and Warring States Policy are the latitudes." [ 16]
The author thinks that the Chronicle of Qin State, which is regarded as the basis of Qin Benji, actually lasted until 22 1 year BC, and was at least partially adopted by Qin Shihuang Benji, which is really specious. However, a large number of historical materials of the Qin dynasty must have been seriously damaged in 208 BC, because this year, Xiang Yu (232 BC? ~ 202 BC) burned Epang Palace, so that by the early years of the Han Dynasty, there were few official historical records about the Qin Dynasty. Nevertheless, some materials have survived. There are 20 "playthings" recorded in History of Han Art and Literature. These documents are described as "the ministers of Qin dynasty played the role of carving stones and famous texts." [17] Although Sima Qian did not explicitly mention these documents, they are probably important sources of information about Qin Shihuang.
Anyway, in this kind of research, the question of historical origin is a very interesting one. In the absence of original materials, will too many literary descriptions actually affect the narrative structure? In this special situation, Sima Qian had so little information that he had to use a little "literary talent", even a little. However, we will not discuss what Sima Qian's intention is here, because this intention is often an uncertain direction of efforts; We don't even speculate on its possible narrative choices here. What we want to examine is how this text is read, that is, how readers construct this special part of Historical Records into a literary work.
In the first part of the Chronicle of the First Qin Emperor mentioned above, there are only two direct quotations that temporarily interrupt this rhythm: one is the suggestion made by Mao Jiaojiao, a Qi man, to the king of Qin, and the other is Liao Wei's suggestion and subsequent description of his monarch, which we will discuss later. Most of the first twenty-five years of Biography of Qin Shihuang was a brief record of military actions and natural phenomena. Records of natural phenomena have been repeatedly mentioned, such as "three-year-old hunger" (former 244); Four years, "October Geng Yin, locusts came from the east, covering the sky. World epidemic "(former 243); Five years, Winter Thunder (first 242); "In seven years, the comet first appeared in the east, saw the north, and saw the west in May" (first 240); "Nine years, see the comet, or the sky" (238 before); Twelve years, the "great drought" (235); Thirteen years "In the first month, comets see the East" (234 before); In seventeen years, "people are in poverty" (the first 230); Nineteen years, The Great Hunger (228 before); Twenty-one years, "heavy rain and snow, two feet and five inches deep" (the first 226). Sima Qian also mentioned in the Official Book: "At the time of Qin Shihuang, there were four comets in fifteen years, and the longest one was eighty days, even longer than the sky." Then Sima Qian said, "Later, the State of Qin defeated the six countries and China and besieged four foreigners." [ 18]
Sima Qian did not directly express what symbolic significance he thought these natural phenomena had. If so, then, from the context, they should be a symbol of the rise of Qin. The readers of Historical Records on Forests are probably influenced by the anti-Qin prejudice of later Confucianism, and they perceive ominous meanings from these recurring natural phenomena. They assert that this "omen" not only means the demise of the six countries, but also is another more important foreshadowing of the "decline" in the narrative. The following text in Xi Xue Ji points out this possibility: "In the seventeenth, nineteenth, thirtieth and thirty-third years of Qin Shihuang, comets were everywhere. This not only indicates the demise of the six countries, but also indicates the demise of Qin. " [19] Another commentator, Li Guangjin (154 1~ 1620), linked every comet with the resistance to centralization, saying: "When God abandoned Qin Shihuang, the first emperor almost failed to ascend to the throne." This reading is in line with people's anti-Qin sentiment, and indeed some evidence can be found in Sima Qian's arrangement of the chronology of the six countries: unlike other vassal States, Qin was not listed as a separate chapter, but was placed in the chronology of the six countries. In this way, it can be seen from the organization of the "six-country chronology" that Qin is only one of many vassal States and is also struggling for the survival of this dynasty. [20]
In the first half of the Biography of Qin Shihuang, the normal fast narrative rhythm slowed down only in a few places. One of the most remarkable is Lao Ai (? ~ before 238) mutiny, Li Si (? ~ top 208) and Liao Wei's strategic suggestions. But these events usually appear in short comments, which is a major feature of the first half of the biography of Qin Shihuang.
Once the country is unified, the narrative style of Biography of Qin Shihuang changes rapidly, and historical records seem to have been integrated into the discussion of state affairs, government announcements, inscriptions and some lengthy narrative explanations. Suddenly, the chronicled history books seem to be full of "playthings" or some similar materials. As the first event of Qin Shihuang's narrative style transformation in the twenty-six years, it basically continued the first half of Qin Shihuang's Biography, namely "Pingqi Emperor" and Qilu Wang Jian. At this point, the country is unified, and the above-mentioned changes in narrative style are reflected in the following plots:
1. delivered a concluding speech, appeased the six countries with the position of the new king, and finally ordered the ministers to propose a new emperor.
2. Prime Minister Wang Wan, jie feng, a doctor too much, and Tingsi suggested that "Tai Huang" be the name of the emperor.
3. King Qin said, "Go to Thailand, write" Emperor "and take the title of" Emperor "in ancient times, and call it" Emperor "."
The imperial edict announced several changes in the official language of the empire, the most important of which was to abolish the traditional funeral ceremony and replace it with a new naming system-he was the first emperor, later generations counted, II and III, and so on.
5. "Pushing the end began with the spread of five virtues", and the rule of Qin Dynasty began with Shuide.
6. Prime Minister Wang Wan "invited philosophers" to rebuild the enfeoffment system.
7. Li Si suggested that the county system should be implemented, arguing that "it is not convenient to place princes."
8. Qin Shihuang adopted Lisi's suggestion.
9. "The world is divided into thirty-six counties", "cars are on the same track, books are on the same character", unified measurement, determination of the territory of the Qin empire, and a series of large-scale descriptions on the formulation of new regulations.
22 1 year BC is undoubtedly the most important year in world history, so any historian with conscience will try his best to describe the historical details of this year as carefully as possible. Nevertheless, the rhythm changes described in the historical records here are very remarkable, and it continues to record the rule of the Qin Dynasty in the last eleven years. This change is obviously from the chronicle to the meeting, with occasional vivid episodes, which may come from some vivid legends in Qin State. For example, it is said that Qin Shihuang once cut down trees in Xiangshan in a rage! [2 1] (Translator's Note: In the 28th year of Qin Shihuang, "The first emperor returned, crossed Pengcheng, fasted and prayed in the temple, and wanted to leave Surabaya, Zhou Ding. Leave thousands of people without water to drink, Ford. It is Hengshan and Nanjun in the southwest across the Huaihe River. Floating river, to Xiangshan Temple. When the wind is strong, you can't get through. The doctor asked, "What is the God of Xiang Jun? The doctor said to him, Yao's daughter and Shun's wife are buried here. "So the first emperor was furious and let all three thousand criminals cut down the trees in Xiangshan and smash its mountains. From Nanjun to Wuguan. )
This legend exists, and Sima Qian's selective adoption of this legend can be verified. The famous record of Jing Ke stabbing the king of Qin (Volume 86) in Historical Records is an example. In this record, Sima Qian told us that the source of the record was provided by an acquaintance of the client, Xia Innocent, who witnessed the assassination of the King of Qin and saved his life. [22]
As I said before, in order to make the compilation of historical events more reasonable, there is the possibility of a sudden change in narrative style. In addition, when we compare these materials at hand, we will find that there are two remarkable and closely related characteristics: one is the ironic juxtaposition of narrative plots; Secondly, the tension and anxiety in Qin Shihuang's tone are reflected in some original documents and historians' records. The above two characteristics are so closely related that when we discuss one, we will inevitably involve the other.
In the second half of Biography of Qin Shihuang, the documentary style gradually slowed down the narrative rhythm, and one of the most prominent performances was the six inscriptions written by Qin Shihuang in recognition of the rise and glory of the Qin Empire. These inscriptions, which aim at boasting, are carefully conceived and deliberately resigned, occupying most of the second half of the biography of Qin Shihuang. Two of them were carved in the 28th year (2 19 BC), two in the 29th year (2 18 BC), one in the 32nd year (2 15 BC) and the other in the crucial 37th year (2 10 BC). Yang Shen (1488~ 1559) said that these inscriptions "go straight into the realm of darkness". [23] But in any case, the inscription of Qin Shihuang and his actions are lofty and magnificent, and the inscription fully emphasizes the political unity and successful political management of the Qin Empire. The inscriptions combine traditional values and legal values. For example, the fragments of the inscriptions that have stood in Langya Taiwan for 28 years are as follows:
Horizontal laws, the discipline of all things. Understand personnel, contract father and son. Virtue, wisdom, benevolence and righteousness reveal the truth. [24]
Such sanctimonious words have made some scholars' evaluation of Qin Shihuang kind and gentle. After quoting all the inscriptions extracted above, Lao Gan said, "The Qin Shihuang we see here is not cruel." . [25] Recently, an article by a western sinologist quoted the above inscriptions to illustrate that Qin Shihuang's legalist thought also integrated important factors of Confucianism. [26] However, it is probably an anachronism to stick the ideas obviously belonging to a certain family on the literature of this period. This kind of discussion needs strict academic definition, which reminds us that to a large extent, it needs special consideration to apply the ideas that belonged to the Han Dynasty before the Han Dynasty. [27]
Moreover, most of these inscriptions were written by ministers specializing in public relations or decision-making thinking. Another point that may be worthy of our attention is that these stone tablets stand in the east, especially on the border of the former Qi State, where the resistance to the rule of Qin State was the fiercest. Obviously, these inscriptions are intended to mold Qin Shihuang into a defender of traditional values. Among these six inscriptions, the masterpiece was written in the meeting of Qin Shihuang shortly before his death. In tone, it is the strongest traditional consciousness among the six. Finally, he explained that the inscription was carved at the request of some flattering officials: "From the courtiers, please carve this stone, just forget the inscription." [28]
For our analysis from the literary point of view, it is more important that Sima Qian described these inscriptions and Qin Shihuang's stupid behavior in an ironic way. [29] For example, in the twenty-ninth year, Qin Shihuang was "a thief". This incident is only a few strokes, followed by a long-term and serious inscription. Zhong Xing (1574~ 1624), a critic of Historical Records, commented on the plot of finding nothing for the assassin. He said: "This frustrating event is often associated with inscriptions that record the achievements of the empire. This is very interesting and has profound symbolic significance. " [30]
A striking example of Zhong Xing's "frustration" or "irony juxtaposition" in the author's own terminology is that Qin Shihuang's biography has changed from three conscientious narratives to Qin Shihuang's useless search for elixir. Sima Qian soon turned his attention to Xu Shi after describing the inscription of Langya Taiwan for 28 years. "Qi Xu and others wrote that there are three sacred mountains in the sea, named Penglai, Abbot and Yingzhou, where immortals live." [3 1]
In the thirty-second year (2 15 BC), Jieshi's inscription ended with a more appropriate hypocritical word: "Please engrave this stone and hang it." What followed was an imperial edict that was ultimately self-defeating: "Ask for fairy medicine because of Han Zhong, harem and Shi Sheng." [32] In the year of Qin Shihuang's death, after the last and most hypocritical inscription, Xu Shi appeared again, defending the reason why he failed to seek immortality medicine: "Penglai medicine exists, but it is often harmed by big sharks, so it is impossible." Qin Shihuang accepted this excuse. In order to get through the road to Penglai Fairy Island, he planned to shoot the fish to death. [33]
Because Emperor Wudi of Sima Qian's era also had the same paranoia of pursuing immortality and elixir (this paranoia can be found in Volume 28 of Historical Records), Sima Qian's description of Qin Shihuang's pursuit of immortality may be a wonderful example of "referring to Qin and cursing Han" regardless of its factual basis. But as far as the research purpose of this paper is concerned, the crux of the problem lies in the fact that these sweet words of self-praise on the inscriptions have nothing to do with Qin Shihuang's meaningless pursuit.
In the text of Historical Records, we also encountered some other strange and ironic changes. After the announcement of the unification of the Qin empire, Historical Records immediately turned to the account of Qin Shihuang's remarks, in which Qin Shihuang traced the history of conquering the six countries from his own perspective. He tried to prove that the demise of the six countries was the inevitable result of his aggression and rebellion. Finally, he concluded: "I dare not punish the chaos in dispatch troops, but rely on the spirit of the temple. The six kings are afraid of it, and the world will be settled." [34]
As Deng Yizan pointed out, reading this first speech after pacifying the Six Kingdoms cannot but remind people of "Tang Gu" and "Wu Cheng" in Shangshu. [35] When imitating the imperial edicts issued by these early emperors, Qin Shihuang seemed to regard his victory as a positive and progressive dynasty change. However, Sima Qian put this speech after a series of harsh military actions by Qin Shihuang, and readers can easily perceive the irony. However, this does not mean that Sima Qian regarded all these military actions as aggression. Sima Qian, like his predecessor Jia Yi (20 1~ 169), also wants to tell us a story about balance in China's early conquest history. Sima Qian once quoted Jia Yi as saying that the six-nation vertical and horizontal alliance "often attacks Qin with ten times the land and millions of people." However, as Qin Shihuang pointed out in his speech, this kind of attack cannot even be compared with the mutual aggression between the six countries. In another article in Historical Records, Sima Qian expressed his confusion about the rapid growth of Qin State, and pointed out: "On Qin Renyi, it is not as violent as that, and Qin Bing is not as strong as Sanjin, but if he dies, he can consolidate the situation, and the benefits will help God." [37]
On another level, these ironic juxtapositions convey the impression that there are two different opinions between the historical narrator and the narrated emperor, which forms a tension. When there are original materials that can make historical features self-evident, this tension is inevitable. Of course, no matter whether Sima Qian had ordinary likes and dislikes for Qin Shihuang, he would adjust Qin Shihuang's own words to varying degrees. Although this adjustment is often inevitable in historical texts, it is crucial in a country like China, because there is a very complicated and even troublesome relationship between China officials and historians. The tension formed by this relationship has been repeatedly discussed by other scholars. Here, the author only uses two mutually corroborating quotations to illustrate: "Mencius Teng Wengong Xia" says: "The matter of the Spring and Autumn Emperor is also." [38] In other words, it is the duty of the emperor to write history. Dong Hu, a representative of historians admired by Confucius, quoted in Zuo Chunqiu Er Nian (607 BC): "Dong Hu has a good history, but his calligraphy is not hidden." [39] From this perspective, historians serve the emperor and the government, but they can't hide evil, which is really very difficult to balance!
Here, the author's purpose is not to explain in detail the internal conflict of the historian's role (that is, to serve the formation of the past history and the formation of the existing country at the same time), but to point out how such a tension determines us to read the biography of Qin Shihuang. In the first twenty-five years of Qin Wang's reign recorded in Historical Records, Qin Wang was basically silent. The king of Qin was promoted to Qin Shihuang, and suddenly he began to make speeches, announce statements and erect monuments. Most of Qin Shihuang's rapid-fire remarks have obvious motives, that is, he wants to create a specific image for himself and describe the objective environment that accompanied him to victory. Qin Shihuang's first statement, as mentioned above, was officially issued in 26 years, aiming at explaining the process of pacifying the six countries. This is indeed a disguised statement of serving oneself through history. We can see that the image of Qin Shihuang created by repeated inscriptions with diminishing effect is somewhat different from that shown by Sima Qian's inscriptions.
Of course, Sima Qian's act of compiling the History of Qin, like his previous history, not only made up for the emptiness of the emperor's self-narrative, but also effectively prevented the emperor from destroying the records that hindered his image. Here, the author would like to mention that it is perhaps the most famous event in the Biography of Qin Shihuang, which is commonly called "book burning". Whether this matter is not discussed in this paper, as stated in Historical Records, the author is concerned about Sima Qian's role in related narratives and its widely accepted way. The "book burning" incident naturally occupied a central position in the Biography of Qin Shihuang and other discussions about the Qin Dynasty since then. [40]
In the thirty-fourth year of Qin Shihuang, the suggestion put forward by Li Si was adopted by Qin Shihuang. This incident, together with the "cheating Confucianism" incident in the next 35 years, became the climax of the struggle between two different groups. One school advocates "taking history as a mirror", while the other advocates formulating corresponding policies according to objective reality. [4 1] Of course, they can be called "Confucianism" and "Legalism" respectively. Qian Mu also analyzed that this distinction was partly due to geographical factors, in which Qilu idealists emphasized culture and history, and Sanjin emphasized the realistic environment and practical interests. [42]
The conflict between the two, no matter how defined, broke out to a climax after the unification of the world. At that time, the prime minister Wang Wan and others advocated the restoration of the enfeoffment system. Reese effectively refuted this suggestion, saying: "It is not convenient to set up princes." [43] A conservative scheme identical to that of Wang Wan was resubmitted eight years later (2 13). The author's name is Chun and Qi Ren. This proposal subsequently triggered a fierce attack by Li Si in 2 13 BC. In Li Si's petition, the three most important suggestions are, "Please ask historians to burn all the records of Qin State." If you are not a doctor, people who dare to collect poems, books and hundreds of languages in the world will learn to keep them and burn them. Some people who dare to speak "poetry" and "books" abandon the market. Ancient people are not people today. "Qian Mu once put forward an interesting point. He thinks that for Reese, burning books has no great significance:
Therefore, those who do not burn books in the next 30 days will only be regarded as "a city". What they really want to stop is "those who look at the past instead of the present", and the punishment for such criminals is severe enough to wipe out nine families. [44]
Of course, it is necessary to master the knowledge of predecessors and observe problems from the perspective of unofficial consciousness, which has been eradicated, at least strictly controlled. We have reason to believe that, from the first century of the Han Dynasty, the most critical turning point in the history of Qin was the moment when books were burned, especially when this order was carried out. For example, after describing the successive military victories of Qin, Jia Yi's On Qin immediately turned to disdain and contempt: "So let's abandon Wang Zhidao first, burn the words of a hundred schools of thought, and put fools first." [45] In the preface to the Chronology of the Six Kingdoms quoted above, Sima Qian made his own brief summary of the important events in the history of Qin, and then immediately turned his pen and ink from unifying Qin to recording Qi, Chu and vassals' anti-Qin.
Scholars in the Han Dynasty are eager to consolidate their political influence, so it is not surprising that they will be very concerned about or even "miss" the academic damage caused by the former Qin Dynasty. Qin Shihuang tried to control history and curb people's criticism of his regime, and finally failed.