Qin Shi Huang burned books pit Confucianism, Xiang Yu burned Xianyang, who destroyed ancient society and history books the most?
In fact, it is not big, if you must compare, it should be that Xiang Yu burned Xianyang City to destroy more.
Qin Shi Huang's book burning originated from the controversy between the county system and the sub-feudal system, which occurred in the 34th year of Qin Shi Huang, that is, in 213 BC, this year was already the 8th year after Qin Shi Huang unified the world, at a banquet, Dr. Chun Yuyue proposed to Qin Shi Huang to restore the sub-feudal system, and the then chancellor Li Si refuted Chun Yuyue, and at the same time suggested that Qin Shi Huang burn the "Poems", "Books" and the original Six Kingdoms History Books, prohibiting the use of ancient systems to satirize or slander the modern system, thus starting Qin Shi Huang's burning of ancient books.
Qin Shi Huang has been unifying the world for 8 years, the original Six Kingdoms of the East have been destroyed for more than 8 years, and there are still a large number of people in the Qin Dynasty who suggest that Qin Shi Huang restore the sub-feudal system, which shows that the sub-feudal system has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, after all, it has existed for thousands of years, but Qin Shi Huang's vision is relatively far-sighted, insisting on agreeing with Li Si's suggestion, maintaining the county system, and at the same time began to burn "poems", "books" and the history books of the Six Kingdoms.
Why did Qin Shi Huang burn books?
You have to consider the problem from the perspective of Qin Shi Huang, they have unified the world for 8 years, why do so many people want to return to the era of the sub-feudal system? The fundamental reason lies in interests, Chun Yuyue is obviously not fighting alone, and behind him must stand a large number of people who agree to restore the sub-feudal system, these people are both the former nobles of the Six Kingdoms and the internal officials of the Qin Dynasty.
These people oppose the county system, the fundamental reason for proposing the sub-feudal system is interests, the county system is centralized power, the chiefs of the counties and counties must be appointed by the central government of the Qin State, not hereditary, there is no eternal nobility, and such a political structure offends a large number of old nobles of the original six kingdoms, these old nobles were originally hereditary nobles in the six kingdoms, do not need to do anything, just look at the birth can be a nobleman forever, now have nothing, if Qin Shi Huang can restore the sub-feudal system, These old nobles will be able to continue their official positions in the feudal countries they have been given, and they will have the opportunity to inherit again, and this is the problem.
Since there were a large number of Confucians among these people, there were also the old nobles of the Six Kingdoms, and most of the officials of the Qin Dynasty, because they could not inherit official positions and rights, so these people united and jointly put pressure on Qin Shi Huang, who obviously felt the pressure of this force, in order to maintain the stability of the new regime and the idea of unifying the world, Qin Shi Huang decided to burn the book.
Because these Confucians who proposed to restore the sub-feudal system were all based on the classics recorded in the ancient books to refute the county system that Qin Shi Huang was now implementing, the county system was after all a new thing, and the chance of being accepted was small, so these cited ancient books became the object of Qin Shi Huang and Li Si's burning.
If in a nascent regime that has just been established for eight years, there are constantly people who propose to restore the ancient system and put it on any wise emperor, they will use various means to eliminate it, Qin Shi Huang's means is to burn books, burn books such as the Book of Poetry and The Book of Shang, which tell the ancient kings to govern the world, which is a complete challenge to the system implemented by Qin Shi Huang now, so Qin Shi Huang wants to burn books.
Although Qin Shi Huang burned books, he only burned some folk books that contradicted the Qin state system, for the government's collections, Qin Shi Huang did not burn, and At the same time Qin Shi Huang did not persecute Confucianism, you must know that Chun Yuyue himself is a Confucian, a Confucian student can serve as a doctor in the Qin Dynasty, which itself shows that Qin Shi Huang did not reject Confucianism, he rejected books that opposed his current system.
In addition, it can also be seen from Fu Su's advice to Qin Shi Huang that Qin Shi Huang did not persecute Confucianism or burn Confucian classic books, and Fu Su once advised Qin Shi Huang:
The world has been decided, the distant qianshou has not been gathered, all beings have recited the Fa Confucius, and now all the people in the world are re-taking the law, and the subjects are afraid of the world's uneasiness.
Meaning: The world has just been pacified, the people in the distance have not yet been settled, Confucians have studied and emulated Confucius, and now the emperor you punish them with severe punishment, I am worried that the world will be in turmoil.
In particular, Fu Su's sentence "All beings recite the Fa Confucius", Confucian students are learning and imitating Confucius, you must know that Fu Su's exhortation is that during the period of confucianism, Qin Shi Huang wanted to execute 460 warlocks and Confucians who slandered him, which shows that qin shi huang did not persecute Confucianism after burning the book.
Moreover, Qin Shi Huang burned books, the Six Classics did not become extinct because of this, a large number of ancient books are still handed down, and there is not much impact on ancient social and historical and cultural books, and the burning of books for tools has not been burned, such as medical books, divination books, etc. have been handed down.
As for the pit Confucianism, it has no impact, the pit Confucianism is just Qin Shi Huang killed more than 460 warlocks and Confucians who slandered him, maybe there are Confucian students, but most of them are warlocks who are alchemy for Qin Shi Huang, alchemy this thing is originally deceitful, these warlocks deceived Qin Shi Huang to be able to refine the elixir of immortality, and the final result could not be refined, not how to get out, so Qin Shi Huang killed these people, at that time, it did not have any impact, just to help Su Benevolence, only to advise Qin Shi Huang.
In contrast, Xiang Yu's actions were completely subjective, unconscious, and vindictive in the destruction of ancient society and history books.
After Xiang Yu entered Xianyang City, he burned and looted, doing everything, burning all the palaces in Xianyang City, only because Xiang Yu hated the Qin Dynasty, a large number of items in the Qin Dynasty palace were burned, of course, including the official collection, although Xiao He moved away some of them before, but it was obviously impossible to move, the collection of the central government of the Qin Dynasty must be very large, Xiao He was only interested in it, such as maps, household registration, laws and other books, for ideological books and various ancient tools, not necessarily all moved away, Therefore, Xiang Yu's book burning behavior is very hateful.
In addition to burning books, this fire obviously burned the wealth, history and culture, human geography, science and technology accumulated by the Qin Dynasty for hundreds of years, Xiang Yu has no sense of establishing political power at all, to know that these things can help Xiang Yu establish political power, can be used, but unfortunately all burned, so Xiang Yu's destructiveness is greater than Qin Shi Huang's book burning pit Confucianism.
But when it comes to the burning of books in history, there are two more book burnings than the burning of books by Qin Shi Huang and the burning of Xianyang by Xiang Yu, one is the burning of books by The Liang Yuan Emperor Xiao Xuan during the Southern and Northern Dynasties, before the Liang Yuan Emperor committed suicide after his defeat, it is said that 140,000 ancient books were burned, most of them ideological books; the other large-scale book burning was the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, the Qianlong Emperor in order to revise the "Four Libraries of the Whole Book", all the books collected from the people that were inconsistent with the Qing Dynasty's ideology were burned, it is said that as many as 710,000 ancient books, This is the most costly and devastating book burning in China's history.