Since ancient times, people's evaluation of Qin Shihuang Ying Zheng has always been polarized.
as many people call him cruel and tyrannical, so many people praise him as an emperor through the ages.
so, as the founding leader of new China, how did Mao Zedong evaluate Qin Shihuang?
what did chairman Mao think of Qin Shihuang's "burning books to bury Confucianism"?
the answer may not be quite what you think.
Mao Zedong once gave Qin Shihuang high praise for many times.
On one occasion, when Chairman Mao met a foreign guest, he bluntly said, "Qin Shihuang was much greater than Confucius ... China's feudal monarch in the past did not surpass him."
In a conversation in 1973, Chairman Mao also quoted Li Bai's poem, "The Emperor of Qin swept the Liuhe River, and he was eager to see it." To express appreciation for Qin Shihuang's achievements in "unifying China".
Chairman Mao thinks that Qin Shihuang was the first person who unified China. He not only unified China politically, but also unified the written language and various systems. Qin Shihuang's achievements were groundbreaking.
The county system established in the Qin Dynasty continues to this day. The names of the provinces and cities we are talking about now are different from those in the Qin Dynasty, but they are essentially the same.
during the more than 2, years from the unification of the whole country by Qin Shihuang to the demise of the Qing Dynasty, there were four divisions in China: Three Kingdoms, Eastern Jin Dynasty, Southern and Northern Dynasties, Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, which did not last long.
generally speaking, after the Qin dynasty, "unification" was the normal state of our country's history, which was unmatched by other countries in the world, and China was the only country among the ancient civilizations in the world that survived in the form of a big country.
All these can be said to be the credit of Qin Shihuang.
therefore, chairman Mao spoke highly of Qin Shihuang.
to say that the most hateful thing Qin Shihuang did must be "burning books to bury Confucianism".
It was this incident that made Qin Shihuang accused of being a tyrant for thousands of years.
So, what is the real situation of burning books and burying Confucianism? What does Chairman Mao think of this matter?
Book burning incident:
During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, scholars liked to discuss state affairs under the guise of various classics such as Poems and Books. After Qin Shihuang unified the whole country, scholars from six countries still maintained this habit.
They often used the words of the sages as the basis to incite people's discontent and obstruct the Qin government from implementing government decrees.
Qin Shihuang was very dissatisfied with this.
In the thirty-fourth year of Qin Shihuang's accession to the throne, a banquet was held in the palace, attended by more than 7 doctors.
At the banquet, Minister Zhou Qingchen delivered a congratulatory speech, praising Qin Shihuang's behavior of not sealing vassals and establishing counties.
Chun Yuyue, a native of Qi, is against it. He believes that the county system is not long-lasting, and should follow the example of ancient times and still adopt the enfeoffment system.
At this time, Li Si, the prime minister, also expressed his views. He thought that the times had changed. A pedant like Chun Yuyue didn't understand the current situation, but only knew how to learn from the past and opposed the implementation of government decrees.
Li Si suggested to Qin Shihuang that all the history books except Qin State should be burned, and the Poems and Books should be burned, so as to kill those who discussed these books and discussed the affairs of the state.
In a word, all kinds of books should be burned except medicine, divination and planting.
Qin Shihuang adopted Lisi's suggestion and launched a vigorous book burning campaign throughout the country.
Confucianist incident:
Since ancient times, emperors have fantasized about immortality, and Qin Shihuang is no exception.
At first, an alchemist named Xu Fu in the State of Qi said that there were three sacred mountains in the sea, and he was willing to take virgins to get the fairy medicine for Qin Shihuang, and Qin Shihuang agreed. However, chui fook is gone forever.
Later, Ying Zheng sent Lu Sheng, the alchemist of Yan State, and others to the sea to pray for immortality. Not long after, Lu Sheng came back and brought back a fairy book, which read, "Those who died in Qin were Hu Ye." Therefore, Qin Shihuang sent Meng Tian to fight the conference semifinals.
Then, Lu Sheng advised Qin Shihuang to keep his residence secret, saying that if he didn't hide it well, the immortal wouldn't give medicine. Qin Shihuang did the same.
However, no matter how hard he tried, Qin Shihuang never got the so-called "immortal medicine".
Lu Sheng and others, after making some sarcastic remarks together, sneaked away.
Now, Qin Shihuang's anger can no longer be suppressed.
He asked himself how generous he was to Xu Fu and Lu Sheng, but he didn't expect that these people not only didn't bring the elixir, but also slandered themselves behind their backs.
While Qin Shihuang sent people to arrest Lu Sheng and others, he made great efforts to check up the Confucian scholars who stayed in Xianyang to see if anyone was still talking nonsense about the affairs of state.
In this investigation, nearly 5 Confucian scholars who violated the ban were found. Qin Shihuang buried all these Confucian scholars alive with a piece of imperial edict.
Fu Su, the eldest son of Qin Shihuang, came to remonstrate, saying that this might lead to panic among the people. Qin Shihuang wouldn't listen, and even drove Fu Su out of the capital and asked him to be a supervisor in the Meng Tian army.
is it really unforgivable for Qin Shihuang to bury Confucianism?
Chairman Mao has a very unique view on this matter.
In 1958, when talking about the Yellow River water conservancy construction, Chairman Mao talked about Qin Shihuang's burying Confucianism. He thought that Qin Shihuang was a good emperor, saying that he had only buried 46 people, but he didn't kill all the scholars in the world, and just like the difficulties we are facing now, Qin Shihuang was also facing various problems at that time.
A scholar named Wu Jingxu, a famous scholar in the Qing Dynasty, once quoted Zheng Qiao, a historian of the Southern Song Dynasty, as saying that "Qin Shihuang only killed a small number of Confucian scholars, and was not as cruel as people said". When Chairman Mao read Poems of Past Dynasties, he circled all the places similar to this view, which also showed that he recognized this statement.
Chairman Mao also wrote a poem about "burning pits", in which several words were written as follows: Advise the monarch to curse Qin Shihuang less, and the cause of burning pits should be discussed. Zulong's soul is still dead in Qin dynasty, and Confucius' scientific name is high and solid.
regarding the change of social system, the Confucian school's view is to return to the feudal system of the Western Zhou Dynasty, which is completely opposite to Qin Shihuang's position. In Chairman Mao's view, Confucianism is looking backwards, engaging in historical retrogression, while Legalists advocate looking forward and paying more attention to realistic development. Throughout the history of China, all those who have made great achievements are legalists.
Therefore, Chairman Mao agrees with Qin Shihuang more than Confucius.
All through the ages, any reform will definitely arouse strong opposition from the old school.
Qin Shihuang burned books to bury Confucianism, which caused great damage to culture, but for the Qin regime at that time, it played a role in clearing the obstacles to reform and unifying thoughts.
Although Chairman Mao highly admired Qin Shihuang, he did not give him a full affirmation.
In the late period of the Cultural Revolution, Qin Shihuang was highly praised, and Chairman Mao once made it clear that the attitude towards Qin Shihuang must be divided into two parts. From the perspective of promoting the historical process, Qin Shihuang did play a great positive role, but after completing the great cause of reunification, Qin Shihuang was addicted to seeking immortality and pleasure, and brutally persecuted the working people, so that Chen Sheng, Wu Guang and others rose up and rebelled, and their resistance was completely just.
On the whole, Chairman Mao's evaluation of Qin Shihuang is very objective and to the point, neither completely negating nor blindly flattering. Compared with some other historians, Chairman Mao's attitude towards historical figures is obviously much fairer.
and these still play a strong guiding role in our study of historical phenomena and deeds of people.