In the eyes of traditional philologists, there are many motives for the ancients to forge books. For example, some people have no confidence in their works and have to rely on the names of the ancients to create momentum; For example, in an academic debate, someone forged a book in the name of the ancients, or directly forged an ancient book, and then used this book as a weapon to attack the other party. The characteristics of fake books are mainly two points: First, the author's name is unreliable. For example, an ancient book is marked as written by someone, but from the content of the book, this person can't be the author. Second, the age of the book is unreliable. For example, an ancient book claims to have been written in a certain era, but the things recorded in the book only appeared in a later era, so the age of the book is naturally untrue. Traditional philologists also classify such ancient books as fake books. Scholars in Qing dynasty also summed up many methods to distinguish the authenticity of ancient books, such as whether the source of books is clear, whether the circulation process of books is clear, and whether the number of volumes recorded in book catalogues of different times is consistent. As a standard to distinguish the authenticity of ancient books. With these strict standards, many ancient books with "unknown origin" or "impure quality" cannot escape the eyes of scholars. Zhang Zhidong, a famous minister in the late Qing Dynasty, once said: "One point is true and false, and half of the ancient books go."
Unknown origin, impure quality
Confucius Family is one of the most famous and concerned "fake books" in the book history of China. In ancient times, among the four categories of ancient books, classics, history, Confucius and Ji, the books of Classic Department have always been the most valued by ancient scholars, because these classics are all related to Confucius: some are compiled by Confucius himself as teaching materials for students, some record the speeches and deeds of Confucius and his students, and some elaborate the thoughts and theories of Confucius or later Confucianism. The Family Story of Confucius records the words and stories of Confucius and his disciples. As we know, The Analects, which ranks among the thirteen classics, is a record of the words and deeds of Confucius and his disciples. Because of the similar content, in the History of Han, Yi Wen Zhi, The Story of Confucius is also classified as The Analects of Confucius. However, because the Family Instructions of Confucius was once lost in the Han Dynasty, when Wang Su, a master of Confucian classics at the end of the Han Dynasty, claimed to have obtained this ancient book from Confucius' descendant Confucius and annotated it, its origin began to be questioned by the world. In addition, most of the contents of Confucius' family stories are roughly the same as Confucius' deeds recorded in some ancient books in the pre-Qin and Han Dynasties. In line with the two conditions of "unknown life experience" and "impure quality", in the Song Dynasty, the biography of Confucius was clearly labeled as a fake book, and its position in the catalogue of Historical Records dropped from "the classics department" to "the sub-department".