100 Historical Stories That Unlock Teenage Wisdom

Chapter 27 5 Compilation of "Siku Quanshu"

Chapter 35 Compilation of Sikuquanshu
——Respecting the law is a kind of responsibility. We always destroy what nature has left us in accordance with our limited thoughts for a while, and only wake up when nature retaliates against us, but it is too late to regret.

Emperor Qianlong, the grandson of Emperor Kangxi, attached great importance to cultural governance.On the one hand, he continued to open the subject of erudition, recruiting scholars and writing various books; on the other hand, he promoted literary inquisitions to suppress literati who were suspected of opposing the Qing Dynasty.

In 1773 AD, Emperor Qianlong officially ordered the opening of the Siku Quanshu Library.In this way, a large number of intellectuals can be further won over, showing that the emperor attaches great importance to culture; second, take this opportunity to review all the private collections.It can be said to kill two birds with one stone.Some royal princes and bachelors were sent as the main persons in charge, and most of those royal relatives and relatives played a supervisory role under their names.The real editors were some well-known scholars at that time, such as Dai Zhen, Yao Nai, Ji Yun and others.This series of books is the famous "Siku Quanshu".

In ancient my country, books were often divided into four categories: Jing, Shi, Zi, and Ji: Jingbu, including classics of Confucianism, such as "The Book of Songs", "The Analects of Confucius", "Mencius", etc., and books that study the phonology of words; Department, including various books on history, geography, biography, etc.; sub-parts, including theories and scientific works of ancient philosophers, such as agriculture, medicine, astronomy, calendar, algorithm, art, etc.; collection department, including the general collection of literature and Album etc.According to the four categories of concentrated storage, it is called "Siku".

To compile a huge series of books, you must first collect the books.Emperor Qianlong issued an order to ask provincial officials to collect and purchase various books and hand them over, and set out a reward method, requiring individuals to contribute books. The more contributions, the greater the reward.After two consecutive orders, books from all over the country were sent to Beijing in an endless stream. It took only two years to reach more than 2 kinds. In addition to the large number of books in the palace, the number is very impressive.

After the books were collected, Emperor Qianlong ordered the compilation officials of the Siku Quanshu Library to carefully inspect the books, and destroy all those with "violating" words.After investigation, it was found that in the memorials of ministers in the late Ming Dynasty, the previous generations of the Qing royal family were mentioned, and they were not respected so much. For example, their previous generations had accepted the official positions and titles of the Ming Dynasty. , So he ordered that all such books be burned.As for the works of anti-Qing literati such as Lu Liuliang and Huang Daozhou, let alone.After further investigation, in the writings of the people of the Song Dynasty, there are also many contents against the Jin Dynasty. This kind of content is easily reminiscent of the Manchus who opposed the descendants of the Jin people. They should also be destroyed, or some of them should be destroyed.There is another way, that is to delete, modify and smear out any time such words and sentences are found. In this way, although the book is preserved, it has been changed beyond recognition.For this matter, Emperor Qianlong can be said to have racked his brains.According to incomplete statistics, as many as [-] books were banned and burned while compiling the "Siku Quanshu".

But regardless of Emperor Qianlong's motives, this huge "Siku Quanshu" was finally compiled and preserved.The scholars who compiled the "Siku Quanshu" edited, collated, and copied a large number of books. It took ten years to complete it in 1782 AD. A total of 330 books were collected, [-] Seven volumes.At that time, seven copies of the whole book were copied and stored in the Imperial Palace, Yuanmingyuan, Rehe Palace, Fengtian, Hangzhou, Zhenjiang, and Yangzhou respectively.This is a major and precious contribution to the study of the rich cultural heritage of ancient my country by future generations.As for the banning and destroying of a batch of books, of course it has caused losses to our culture, but this kind of banning cannot be complete.At that time, many people, risking imprisonment and beheading, hid many valuable books.By the end of the Qing Dynasty, many books that were banned at that time appeared one after another.

Wisdom Interpretation:

Books are the crystallization of the wisdom of the ancestors and an important tool for restoring history.When the Qing Dynasty compiled the "Siku Quanshu", it actually destroyed and tampered with ancient books wantonly, covering up anything "unfavorable" to the rule, and causing harm to future generations.In fact, it is more than just books. There are too many cultural traditions in China, and they are often arbitrarily labeled, criticized, and discarded because of a moment of enthusiasm.Tradition includes our way of life, our way of thinking, our world view, and our psychological identity as Chinese. How can we discard it casually?Respect is a kind of responsibility. To nature, we also use the phrase "man will conquer nature" to destroy it wantonly, and now we turn around to govern it.If I knew today, why bother?

(End of this chapter)