Sima Qian wrote in A Family of Confucius: "Confucius taught poetry, calligraphy, ceremony and music, and his disciples covered 3,000 Yan, and two of them were proficient in six arts." Ye Wenzhong thinks that Sima Qian added the word "beggar gang" to indicate the possibility, but he is not sure about Confucius' statement of "three thousand disciples" in Lv Chunqiu. However, Sima Qian's introduction to Confucius' disciples is mainly not in Confucius' Family, but in the Biography of Zhong Ni's Disciples. The first sentence at the beginning is "Confucius said that there were seven traders", and then the article briefly introduced these 77 people, of whom 35 had names, figures and ages, 27 had words and deeds, and the other 42 had names and figures, and made a list, but there was no age, and it was not introduced in some books at that time (I think Confucian books on the deeds of Confucius disciples may be in Qin Shihuang). According to the history books, Obviously, there will be more disciples who have no names or can't be verified, or who are not proficient in six arts or only proficient in one or two arts.
We should realize that: firstly, Confucius' "three thousand disciples" should refer to the sum of the disciples collected by Confucius in his life. For Confucius to travel around the world, every country should have a considerable number of disciples, which belong to the form of short-term study classes. Some of them may only follow the school for a few days, while others may follow it for several months. Second, Confucius' "three thousand disciples" should not only follow all Confucius' courses, but also include those who may only learn a little knowledge. According to this logic, I think Confucius' statement of "three thousand disciples" is still credible. Even if there are no 3,000 disciples, the number of his disciples is relatively large.