That afternoon, Cheng Yu was teaching Fusu to study in the inner study room when Dongdong's knock on the door suddenly sounded.

"Is there a problem?"

Cheng Xi stopped explaining and asked casually.

"Master Hou, the person has been delivered."

Zhong Qian stood outside the door, bowing slightly.

"I understand, I will wait until the class is over before going."

"Here."

Wearing a brocade robe with a black background and red stripes, a child's bun, and a handsome face, little Fusu is sitting in front of a bookcase.

Hearing this, he raised his head and said in a childish voice: "If uncle has something to do, please go and deal with it first. My nephew is here to read."

"Haha, there's nothing wrong with going later."

Cheng Xi touched Fu Su's head and continued to explain the Confucian classics and meanings among the hundreds of scholars. Fu Su listened carefully with a straight face.

As for the classics and meanings of various schools of thought, Cheng Yu was certainly not proficient in it, but there was no problem at all being a teacher to a young child.

The meanings of the scriptures in this era are all vague and careless, and there are many directions for understanding. If you are not careful, you will misinterpret the meaning of the sages.

Cheng Xi's teachings naturally included his own private scriptures and meanings. Let Fusu take the lead first, so that he would not be so easily influenced by other Confucian disciples in the future.

The main reason for the subtle meaning of words is that the ancient writing medium was too precious and the information had to be condensed.

Perhaps there is also the reason why the powerful class wants to monopolize knowledge and deliberately does not provide translation.

Even with the advent of papermaking and printing, it will still take a long time to change this situation, but it must be changed.

Unifying the world is not only the unification of territory, but also the unification of culture.

The doctrines of various schools of thought must be translated according to the will of the State of Qin, and there will no longer be any small talk or big talk.

Small words and great righteousness can easily be misinterpreted by unscrupulous descendants of later generations according to the interests of their own class or the interests of contemporary rulers.

Only one vernacular explanation was given, and all other explanations were destroyed.

Although this cannot completely eliminate misinterpretation, the difficulty of misinterpretation has undoubtedly reached its highest level.

When the entire society is on the offensive against the interpretation of a certain sentence, how difficult is it to misinterpret it?

Moreover, if it is translated into vernacular and punctuated, you can basically understand the meaning as long as you are literate.

The requirements for teachers are greatly reduced, and students are not easily misled.

It can be foreseen that all schools of thought will face disaster in the future.

It is fine for the hundreds of scholars who have a unified understanding of the classics and meanings of their own school, but it is difficult for the hundreds of scholars who have more than one sect.

Among the hundreds of scholars, Confucianism has the largest number.

However, the State of Qin only recognized one interpretation of the classics. It is foreseeable that various Confucian factions will inevitably fight for orthodoxy...

Because other interpretations of the classics would be regarded as heresy and all would be burned.

However, Confucianism's arms could not hold back Qin's thigh, so they could only strive to become the orthodox interpretation.

Book burning incidents in history still happen.

In addition, the so-called burning of books and the entrapment of Confucianism are actually two things. Burning books is burning books, and entrapping Confucianism is entrapping Confucianism.

However, these two events were both radical cultural measures taken by Qin Shihuang to maintain the rule of the Qin Dynasty, so later generations often referred to these two events together.

Burning books and harassing Confucians is often regarded by later generations as one of the evidences of Qin Shihuang's cruelty, but in fact there was a reason.

Burning books was something he had to do, and humiliating Confucians made Qin Shihuang angry.

During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, hundreds of schools of thought emerged one after another, and various ideas and cultures appeared like a spurt, presenting a situation where a hundred schools of thought contended.

For future generations, the contention of a hundred schools of thought will obviously bring more benefits.

It is precisely because of this special background that many ideas such as Confucianism, Mohism, Legalism, and Taoism began to appear.

These ideas are undoubtedly the treasures of ancient Chinese culture and one of the roots of our civilization.

But at that time, there may be great disputes between different ideas, and they may even be hostile to each other and wish to kill each other.

As a result, the cultural differences between countries will become larger and larger, and their independence will become stronger and stronger.

Coupled with the inconvenience of transportation at that time, the language, writing and culture of different places were different.

By the Warring States Period, several powerful vassal states almost had their own writing systems.

The relationship between these words is a bit like the relationship between English, French and Spanish today. They are all from the same language family, but they are very different from each other.

The deep gaps between characters, languages, and cultures have also caused deep gaps between the seven kingdoms, especially between the Qin Kingdom in the west and the Six Kingdoms of Shandong.

The six kingdoms of Shandong looked down upon Qin for a long time, and almost regarded Qin as a barbarian.

After Qin Shihuang unified the world, he also realized how much negative impact cultural differences would have on national unification.

Therefore, after Qin Shihuang unified the six countries, he immediately began to unify writing, weights, measures, and currency, hoping to gradually eliminate this difference.

But in the process, Qin Shihuang soon discovered that he had simplified the problem.

All differences in words, weights, measures, currencies, etc. are actually cultural differences in the final analysis.

The most direct manifestation of cultural differences is the difference in thinking.

Differences in thinking cannot be resolved by simple violence.

The Qin army could destroy the armies of the six Shandong kingdoms, but it could not use force to destroy all kinds of different ideas, and it could not use force to unify different ideas.

Qin Shihuang was like a master with an invincible iron fist, but could not find a physical enemy.

It was not until 213 BC, eight years after Qin Shi Huang unified the world, that Qin Shi Huang found this enemy because of a special banquet.

This year, Qin Shihuang held a banquet in Xianyang.

At this banquet, the servants of the Qin Dynasty

Zhou Qingchen praised Qin Shihuang's great achievements. This is actually normal. After all, it is not unusual for a leader to hold a celebration banquet and as a subordinate to stand up and flatter him.

But while Zhou Qingchen was praising him, Dr. Chun Yuyue stood up and criticized Zhou Qingchen for being too flattering.

And using Zhou Qingchen's words, he began to use the topic to criticize the county system implemented by Qin Shihuang.

Chunyu Yue proposed that the Qin Dynasty should follow the example of the previous Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties and continue to implement the enfeoffment system.

The so-called doctorate is not what we call a doctorate today, but an ancient official position.

In the Qin Dynasty, officials who were in charge of classics and knowledgeable about history were called doctors.

Chunyu Yue's opposition was just the beginning. Next, the debate surrounding the enfeoffment system and the county system began to ferment rapidly.

Almost the entire top brass of the Qin Dynasty was involved in this.

As the supreme ruler, Qin Shihuang was naturally aware of the seriousness of this problem for the first time.

The system of prefectures and counties is the cornerstone of the Qin State's maintenance of unity. If the quarrel continues, won't it shake the cornerstone of the Qin State's rule?

Once the enfeoffment system is re-implemented, the Qin Dynasty will definitely repeat the mistakes of the Zhou Dynasty.

Therefore, in the eyes of Qin Shihuang, this argument was meaningless. He had long been determined to implement the county system.

However, the emergence of this controversy made Qin Shihuang aware of another problem.

Why didn't a well-educated man like Chunyu Yue understand his thoughts?

In other words, why do these people know the benefits of the county system but still firmly oppose it?

Soon, Qin Shihuang found his answer.

The answer is that there is something wrong with the books these people read.

These well-educated people studied many books from the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period.

These books from the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods naturally advocated the enfeoffment system.

People who read these books will naturally firmly believe that enfeoffment is the truth.

The more books you read, the stronger this idea becomes!

Therefore, this is not a simple battle of interests, but an ideological war.

After finding this answer, Qin Shihuang naturally knew who his real enemy was!

In Qin Shihuang's view, it was basically impossible to change the beliefs of these learned people through debate or other methods.

Even if it could be done, the cost would be too high, so high that even Qin Shihuang could not bear it.

The simplest way is to directly burn those books that advocate enfeoffment, so that these ideas will lose their seeds.

Then ban everyone from discussing these ideas, so that this kind of ideas lose the soil for their existence.

In this way, with the passage of time, this kind of thinking will naturally become less of a problem.

Therefore, Qin Shihuang first ordered to burn books.

However, the books burned by Qin Shihuang were all those advocating enfeoffment.
To be continued...