Those who shall dare to discuss among themselves the
Shi-King and the Shu-King shall be put to death and their corpses
exposed in a public place; those who shall make use of antiquity
to belittle modern times shall be put to death with their
relations.... Thirty days after the publication of this edict,
those who have not burned their books shall be branded and sent
to forced labour. The books which shall not be proscribed are
those of medicine and pharmacy, of divination ..., of agriculture
and of arboriculture. As for those who desire to study the laws
and ordinances, let them take the officials as masters. (Cordier,
op. cit. i. p. 203.)
It will be seen that the First Emperor was something of a Bolshevik. The
Chinese literati, naturally, have blackened his memory. On the other
hand, modern Chinese reformers, who have experienced the opposition of
old-fashioned scholars, have a certain sympathy with his attempt to
destroy the innate conservatism of his subjects. Thus Li Ung Bing[6]
says:--
No radical change can take place in China without encountering
the opposition of the literati. This was no less the case then
than it is now. To abolish feudalism by one stroke was a radical
change indeed. Whether the change was for the better or the
worse, the men of letters took no time to inquire; whatever was
good enough for their fathers was good enough for them and their
children.
Pages:
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32