Why did Qin Shihuang burn books?

After Qin Shihuang unified the six countries, he took two important measures to control ideology and culture. During the Warring States Period, due to the drastic changes in social relations, the academic circles showed a new atmosphere of hundred schools of thought contending. In its last few years, the country split into unity; Correspondingly, there has also been a trend of eclecticism and integration of various theories in ideology and culture. After Qin Shihuang unified the six countries, he used the power of feudal countries to implement the policy of ideological and cultural control. Burning books and burying Confucianism happened under such a historical background. After the establishment of the centralized feudal administrative system of absolutism in the Qin Dynasty, some Confucian scholars and refugees quoted poems, books and hundred sayings in view of current politics, taking the past as the past, saying that "it is wrong to advance, but it is wrong to discuss when you leave." In thirty-four years, Dr. Chun Yuyue suggested that children's heroes should be supported, on the grounds that "those who can live for a long time without learning from the past will not hear their voices." Li Si, the prime minister, put forward the suggestion of "burning books" to put an end to the phenomenon that "all students learn from the past instead of the present, confusing the first place with the present", which was recognized by Qin Shihuang. The books burned at that time included two parts: one was the historical records of various countries before reunification, and the other was poems, books and hundreds of languages hidden by the people; As for the history books of Qin, books collected by doctors and folk books on medicine, divination and tree planting, they are not included. All banned books must be handed over to the local government for burning within 30 days. For this reason, a series of laws and regulations have also been formulated, such as abandoning the market for those who even talk about "poetry" and "books", taking those who are past and present as their homes, and making those who see but don't mention it the same crime, and making them the market for the next 30 days. Burning books is a great destruction of ancient cultural classics. Due to the burning of the historical records of the six countries, the chronology of the Warring States period has not been fully clarified so far. The second year after the book was burned, there was another incident of cheating Confucianism. In essence, burying Confucianism is a continuation of burning books, but the causes are different. In his later years, Qin Shihuang sought immortality and hoped that alchemists would look for elixirs. Therefore, the alchemist Hou Sheng and Lu Sheng are very favored. Later, Hou Sheng and Lu Sheng could not continue to cheat, so they fled together on the grounds that the first emperor was greedy for power and could not ask for fairy medicine. Hearing this, Qin Shihuang was furious, thinking that most Confucian scholars were confusing leaders with evil words, so he ordered a proposal and asked all students. More than 460 Confucian scholars were implicated and finally buried alive in Xianyang. After this incident, even Fu Su, the eldest son of the first emperor, felt too cruel. He told Qin Shihuang that at the beginning of the world, people were miserable. I'm afraid it will cause a commotion. Hearing this, Qin Shihuang demoted Fu Su to Shang Jun to supervise Meng Tianjun. After Chen Sheng and the uprising, the Confucian scholars generally resisted, and Confucius, a descendant of Confucius, immediately took part in the peasant uprising with sacrificial vessels, which illustrated this point. Burning books and burying Confucianism exposed the tyranny of the Qin government, the growing social contradictions at that time, and the alienation of morality within the ruling class. Qin Shihuang wanted to take severe measures to consolidate his rule, but in the end he failed to achieve the expected goal. Forcibly unifying thoughts with state power will only block thoughts, undermine the development of academic culture and arouse the general resistance of the people. The result of burning books and burying Confucianism accelerated the demise of the Qin Dynasty.