The Chinese Classics (Prolegomena) | Page 8

with the exception of those
officers belonging to the Board of Great Scholars, all throughout the empire who presume
to keep copies of the Shih-ching, or of the Shu-ching, or of the books of the Hundred
Schools, be required to go with them to the officers in charge of the several districts, and
burn them [1]; that all who may dare to speak
1 ±x¸Ú¦u±LÂø¿N¤§.
together about the Shih and the Shu be put to death, and their bodies exposed in the
market-place; that those who make mention of the past, so as to blame the present, be put
to death along with their relatives; that officers who shall know of the violation of those
rules and not inform against the offenders, be held equally guilty with them; and that
whoever shall not have burned their Books within thirty days after the issuing of the
ordinance, be branded and sent to labor on the wall for four years. The only Books which
should be spared are those on medicine, divination, and husbandry. Whoever wants to
learn the laws may go to the magistrates and learn of them."
'The imperial decision was -- "Approved."'
The destruction of the scholars is related more briefly. In the year after the burning of the
Books, the resentment of the emperor was excited by the remarks and the flight of two
scholars who had been favourites with him, and he determined to institute a strict inquiry

about all of their class in Hsien-yang, to find out whether they had been making ominous
speeches about him, and disturbing the minds of the people. The investigation was
committed to the Censors [1], and it being discovered that upwards of 460 scholars had
violated the prohibitions, they were all buried alive in pits [2], for a warning to the empire,
while degradation and banishment were employed more strictly than before against all
who fell under suspicion. The emperor's eldest son, Fu-su, remonstrated with him, saying
that such measures against those who repeated the words of Confucius and sought to
imitate him, would alienate all the people from their infant dynasty, but his interference
offended him father so much that he was sent off from court, to be with the general who
was superintending the building of the great wall.
8. No attempts have been made by Chinese critics and historians to discredit the record of
these events, though some have questioned the extent of the injury inflicted by them on
the monuments of their ancient literature [3]. It is important to observe that the edict
against the Books did not extend to the Yi- ching, which was
1 ±s¥v±x®×°Ý½Ñ¥Í, ½Ñ¥Í¶Ç¬Û§i¤Þ.
2 ¦Û°£¥Ç¸TªÌ, ¥|¦Ê¤»¾l¤H, ¬Ò¨Â¤§«w¶§. The meaning of this passage as a whole is
sufficiently plain, but I am unable to make out the force of the phrase ¦Û°£.
3 See the remarks of Chamg Chia-tsi (§¨»Ú¾G¤ó), of the Sung dynasty, on the subject,
in the ¤åÄm³q¦Ò, Bk. clxxiv. p. 5.
exempted as being a work on divination, nor did it extend to the other classics which
were in charge of the Board of Great Scholars. There ought to have been no difficulty in
finding copies when the Han dynasty superseded that of the Ch'in, and probably there
would have been none but for the sack of the capital in B.C.
206 by Hsiang Yu, the formidable opponent of the founder of the House of Han. Then,
we are told, the fires blazed for three months among the palaces and public buildings, and
must have proved as destructive to the copies of the Great Scholars as the edict of the
tyrant had been to the copies among the people.
It is to be noted also that the life of Shih Hwang Ti lasted only three years after the
promulgation of his edict. He died in B.C. 210, and the reign of his second son who
succeeded him lasted only other three years. A brief period of disorder and struggling for
the supreme authority between different chiefs ensured; but the reign of the founder of
the Han dynasty dates from B.C. 202. Thus, eleven years were all which intervened
between the order for the burning of the Books and rise of that family, which signaled
itself by the care which it bestowed for their recovery; and from the edict of the tyrant of
Ch'in against private individuals having copies in their keeping, to its express abrogation
by the emperor Hsiao Hui, there were only twenty-two years. We may believe, indeed,
that vigorous efforts to carry the edict into effect would not be continued longer than the
life of its author,-- that is, not for more than about three years. The calamity inflicted
upon the ancient Books of China by the House of Ch'in could not have approached to
anything like a