Should we read Mencius or The Book of Rites first? Why?

Read the book of rites first. Mencius is mainly political, and it was never published separately before the Southern Song Dynasty. It is generally believed that it was written by Confucius' grandson Zi Si (483-402 BC). The Confucian family in historical records called Zi Si the golden mean. From Han Yu and Li Ao in the Tang Dynasty to Cheng Er in the Northern Song Dynasty, he praised and publicized the golden mean in various ways, and even thought that the golden mean was a way to teach the mind through Confucius. Later, Zhu inherited Cheng Er's learning in the Southern Song Dynasty and took it out of the Book of Rites, and compared it with The Analects of Confucius and Mencius. The basic viewpoints of The Doctrine of the Mean and Mencius are basically the same. However, the existing The Doctrine of the Mean was revised by Confucian scholars in Qin Dynasty, which was written roughly shortly after Qin unified the whole country. So every article is different from "University". Instead of taking the words beginning with justice as the topic, it is a summary of the theme of the article. Mencius, the longest of the four books, was written by Mencius and his disciples Zhang Wan and Gongsun Chou in the middle of the Warring States Period. It is the record of Mencius, his disciples and re-disciples. The earliest inscription in Zhao Qi's "Mencius" reads: "This book was also written by Mencius, so it is called Mencius". There are seven volumes of 14, with a total of 35,000 words and 286 chapters, which is the largest and heaviest of the four books. This book records the politics, education, philosophy, ethical thoughts and political activities of Mencius and his disciples. His theoretical starting point is the theory of good nature and advocates the rule of virtue. Source: Children in China