A live-streamed Chinese language lesson under the sky—the ancients were taken aback.

Three teachers (tentative)

[Shen Moyan] discusses modern and contemporary articles, with a more serious and formal style.

【Unable to Speak Out】is responsible for discussing history-related topics, and is more lively and unconventional. They will use articles to introduce the topic, such as using "The Rhapsody on the Epang Palace" to introduce the Qin Dynasty.

【Speak Without Hesitation】is responsible for discussing ancient literature, focusing more on literary appreciation.

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Ying Zheng was reviewing memorials, and bamboo slips piled up on his desk.

Suddenly, the sky brightened.

His cinnabar brush paused for a moment. Ever since that Mr. Shen finished telling the story of Kong Yiji, the sky had been quiet for a whole month.

It's lit up again now.

This time, instead of a classroom, there was no blackboard or chalk, but a room filled with odds and ends he couldn't name, with a young woman sitting in the center.

She was dressed casually, with short, shoulder-length hair, and spoke as if chatting with an acquaintance, displaying a casualness that Ying Zheng had never seen on the faces of his ministers.

"Hello everyone, I'm Yu Yan Bu Zhi."

Ying Zheng frowned, seemingly wanting to say something but unable to. A strange name.

He put down his vermilion brush and leaned back on his throne.

Li Si and Zhao Gao stood on opposite sides, neither daring to utter a sound.

"Today we are going to talk about a timeless masterpiece, Du Mu's 'Ode to the Epang Palace'."

Ying Zheng's finger stopped on the armrest of the throne. The Epang Palace, this woman from later generations is going to talk about the Epang Palace, is it his Epang Palace? Finally, we've come to talk about the Qin Dynasty.

The various measures taken by the later dynasties mentioned earlier, such as the Song, Ming, and Qing, only left him baffled.

Perhaps this is what they call the generation gap.

"Everyone knows that Du Mu was a famous poet during the Tang Dynasty, but he was not only a writer, but also a politician and historian, and was well-versed in history books."

"At the age of twenty-three, Du Mu had not yet passed the imperial examination. At this time, he was studying, traveling, and preparing for the examination. He was concerned about the affairs of the country as a young scholar and wrote this famous poem that has been passed down through the ages."

What exactly did Du Mu see in the historical records?

"The Rhapsody on the Epang Palace is not just about the Epang Palace; it also describes a historical drama that has been repeated for over a thousand years. Everyone is acting according to this drama, but no one has truly understood it."

"At the same time, we will use the 'Rhapsody on the Epang Palace' as a starting point to tell a series of videos about how the Qin Dynasty was destroyed."

"Remember to follow the uploader for more updates."

When Ying Zheng heard the phrase "a historical script that has been repeated for over a thousand years," he tapped the armrest lightly with his finger.

For over a thousand years, his Qin Dynasty was the first, and then the subsequent dynasties fell one by one according to the same script.

What later generations want to talk about is not just his palace, but the laws governing the rise and fall of the entire dynasty.

Ying Zheng was the leader who destroyed the other six states and unified the world. He certainly knew that a dynasty could not last for thousands of generations. So how long did his Qin Dynasty exist?

"When the six kings were defeated, the world was unified, Mount Shu was leveled, and the Epang Palace was built."

These twelve characters are considered one of the most brilliant openings in the history of Chinese literature. In just a few words, they demonstrate Du Mu's extraordinary talent as a literary master of the late Tang Dynasty.

Twelve characters, four of which are three-character phrases—doesn't it sound like the sound of war drums?

The thumping was rapid and forceful.

The translation is: "Six kings, all gone; the world unified; the mountains of Sichuan were cleared bare; the Epang Palace was built."

"And think about this cause and effect. Du Mu wasn't praising Qin Shi Huang's great talent and strategy. He was saying that your achievements were built on a mountain that had been cleared bare."

"Du Mu did not directly mention the extravagance of the Qin Dynasty, but this series of interconnected cause-and-effect chains has silently proclaimed his view of history: the unification and power of the Qin Empire were not used to benefit the world, but were quickly transformed into endless conquest and depletion of the people's strength and nature."

This is the critical power of literature that "captures the essence without writing a single word."

The barrage of comments is scrolling.

[Shushan: I haven't offended any of you]

[A century of history can be summarized in twelve characters; it would take me three thousand words to write a weekly report.]

Cultured people have a different way of cursing.

……

Ying Zheng's lips curled up and then fell back down.

When he first heard "All under Heaven is One," he was thinking that this person from later generations had finally spoken a fair word. Then the words "Shushan Wu" came crashing down on him.

Achievements and tyranny—twelve words crammed into the same sentence.

He was pondering whether the Epang Palace, which was still in the planning stage, would require so many resources to build in the later stages.

At the same time, Ying Ji was also watching the sky.

He is old.

During his fifty-six-year reign, he crippled the states of Han and Wei, and Zhao and Chu, pushing the Qin territory hundreds of miles eastward.

But he did not live to see the day of unification.

When he died, the six states were still barely surviving, and the Zhou royal family's Nine Tripods had not yet been moved to Xianyang.

He was playing chess with Fan Ju tonight.

As dawn broke, he was holding a white chess piece, intending to place it in the corner of the chessboard.

Then he heard a young woman's voice, in a relaxed tone he had never heard before, recite the words: "The six kings are finished, and the world is united."

Ying Ji stopped.

The white piece remained suspended above the board for a long time without being placed.

"The six kingdoms were destroyed, and the world was unified." He repeated, then turned to Fan Ju. "Minister Fan, she said the six kingdoms were destroyed, and the world was unified. Were the six kingdoms destroyed? Completely destroyed? Was the world unified? Who unified it?"

Fan Ju stared at the sky, his voice trembling slightly: "She just said... Du Mu wrote about the Epang Palace, which was built by the First Emperor, who was..."

"Qin Shi Huang! Excellent! My descendant."

Ying Ji's beard trembled. His descendant, a child he had never seen, had fulfilled the long-cherished wish of generations of Qin people. His father, King Huiwen of Qin, destroyed Ba and Shu; his brother, King Wu of Qin, took Yiyang; and he, Ying Ji, crippled the six states.

He suddenly felt his eyes getting hot, but the corners of his mouth were turned up.

"Excellent! Excellent! My descendants have unified the world! Bai Qi, do you hear this? Fan Ju, do you hear this? The six kings are defeated, and the four seas are united! The centuries-old foundation laid by the Qin people has finally been achieved!"

He put down the chess pieces, got up and quickly walked to the palace entrance, looking up at the sky.

Inside Weiyang Palace, Liu Che held a wine cup while watching others' commotion.

The crucial point about the dynasty's demise after only two generations hasn't been mentioned yet. He wondered how the First Emperor would react. Thinking this, he suddenly chuckled.

He crossed his legs, shifted to a more comfortable position, and prepared to fully enjoy the video.

Then the more I listened, the more something seemed off; it was a remonstrance piece criticizing extravagance.

He thought of his Shanglin Garden.

Within a radius of three hundred li, there were seventy detached palaces, and he had collected many treasures, including rare birds and animals, exotic flowers and rare herbs.

The wine suddenly lost its flavor.

Will future generations also criticize me?