This is a strange question. Chinese characters have been around for thousands of years. Although the fonts have changed over time and the pronunciation has undergone various mutations, our Chinese culture has not become extinct or annihilated, right? No matter how many changes there are, the evolution of words and pronunciation annotations are all available in books, not to mention there are various rhyme books to standardize the use of rhymes and footwork in poems. How is it possible that it doesn’t rhyme when I read it now?
First of all, why is there the Book of Songs? The rulers of the Zhou Dynasty sent a large amount of manpower and material resources to search for these poems among the people, compiled them into volumes, and used them to educate the kings. The kings then used them to educate the people. What was their purpose? Is it to examine folk customs? Although there are reasons for this, it is more important to communicate. When kings negotiate with each other, they can quote sentences from the Book of Songs. The world is getting smaller and smaller, and kings and ministers, as well as the central and local governments, all need to ensure communication. . Therefore, the Book of Songs is the earliest official Chinese language.
When the Qin Dynasty unified the world, why did they have to write the same text? It’s still for the sake of government orders. The change of writing from seal script to official script is nothing more than making writing more convenient. The glyphs have changed, and the dialect language has changed due to the population flow caused by the war, but the central government must have a set of communication methods between bureaucrats, maybe Xi'an dialect? Just like our current Mandarin.
The needs of government orders, especially the introduction of imperial examinations in the Tang Dynasty, made poetry writing a skill for promotion and wealth. Poetry flourished, coupled with the development of phonology, the emergence of rhyme books, and each word stipulated the rhyme part. , what else is difficult to read?
Chinese characters are a very stubborn combination of sound, meaning and form. It is difficult to learn, but it is very tenacious, and it also ensures that Chinese culture has never been epoch-making. Even history has always been recorded by historians. It is not difficult to record the phonological changes of some words. Therefore, as long as you are willing to research and read old rhyme books, you will naturally be able to find those changed pronunciations. What’s more, although many words have changed, more words have not changed under the protection of Mandarin. Since most of it has not changed, the pronunciation must still rhyme to this day. Even if it doesn't rhyme, you can still find the original pronunciation from ancient books, for example, "xia" is pronounced as "xia".
Remember that poetry is rhyme. If a poem does not rhyme, then the pronunciation of the rhyming words must have changed. Just look up "Pingshui Yun" or even earlier rhyme books, and you will definitely be able to Find the correct pronunciation.
It’s like we haven’t learned traditional Chinese characters, but if you take a look, you can almost recognize them. The culture in the blood cannot be cut off so easily.
The only possibility of this incomprehensible situation is that during the Republic of China, someone proposed to completely Latinize Chinese characters. If education is Latinized from an early age, it will be like those children living abroad today who do not understand Chinese at all, let alone the pronunciation of characters in Chinese history. It's not a matter of changes in characters and sounds, it's that they have no concept of Chinese characters at all.