What books did Qin not burn? And how the cycle of violence ensued?
lo yeeOn
Li Ssu proposed that all histories in the imperial archives except
those written by the Qin historians be burned; that the Classic of
Poetry, the Classic of History, and works by scholars of different
schools be handed in to the local authorities for burning; that
anyone discussing these two particular books be executed; that those
using ancient examples to satirize contemporary politics be put to
death, along with their families; that authorities who failed to
report cases that came to their attention were equally guilty; and
that those who had not burned the listed books within 30 days of the
decree were to be banished to the north as convicts working on
building the Great Wall. The only books to be spared in the
destruction were books on medicine, agriculture and prophecy.
After being deceived by two alchemists while seeking prolonged life,
Qin Shi Huang ordered more than 460 alchemists in the capital to be
buried alive in the second year of the proscription,
It was smart for the founding emperor of Qin to not burn those three
categories. But he was expecting to reap without spending the effort
to sow. Dumb move.
He hoped to live long but placed his trust in ignorance and blamed
others for his own unrealistic expectations.
He was a brutal ruler and employed brutal aides to carry out his
wishes. What happened to him, his sons, and his aides?
1) After his unexpected death while traveling, his trusted aides Li Si
and Zhao Gao conspired to have his oldest son and his own designated
successor killed to make way for his younger and incompetent brother
to ascend the throne as a puppet emperor they could manipulate, the
former was a lawyer and the second was a eunuch.
2) The son who succeeded him (against his will) became Emperor Qin Er
Shi, which literally means the second generation emperor of the Qin
Dynasty. He was a fool, trusted Zhao Gao, his father's eunuch who the
de facto ruler during Er Shi's reign, and had many of his own soldiers
killed for his own uninformed decisions and bad judgments.
Eventually, when the dynasty's collapse was imminent, Gao preempted Er
Shi's punishment by having his own loyal soldiers held the emperor
hostage and forcing him to commit suicide.
3) A temporary place-holder emperor by the name of Ziying succeeded Er
Shi. He had Gao executed and surrendered his dynasty to Liu Bang, the
founding warrior emperor of the enduring Han dynasty. The Qin dynasty
was under siege by revolts and insurgencies as soon as the founding
emperor died. So, the transition was inevitable. And Ziying's
surrender to Liu Bang was only a tactical move to avoid the capture by
another rebel group headed by Xiang Yu who was known to show no mercy
toward his prisoners of war. But Liu Bang handed the last emperor of
Qin over to Xiang Yu anyway for some military strategic advantage and
was killed. His reign was a matter of a couple of months and spelled
the end of the Qin dynasty.
This Xiang Yu guy was in fact such a ruthless killers that legend had
him kill some 200,000 surrendered troops from the Qin dynasty.
(There was no Geneva Convention then and the Chinese were barberians
also.)
4) Li Si was eventually ordered killed by his partner-in-crime, the
eunuch Zhao Gao, by a cruel method he himself had devised against his
enemies.
5) Zhao Gao was killed by the last Qin emperor Ziying. He belonged to
an aristocratic family of the warring nation Chu originally. When
Qin's founding emperor first attacked Chu, defeated the nation, and
killed Chu's mother, he captured Zhao and his brother made both into
eunuchs in service of his royal household. Gao's callousness toward
others could have been influenced by the cruelty he had seen inflicted
on the people he knew and was close to. The cycle of violence did not
stop with him since Zhao Gao was not the only one Ziying killed.
Ziying also killed Gao's entire family and all of his brothers,
leaving no descendeant from this once nobility from the warring nation
of Chu.
We've heard contemporary reports about how war-torn nations are more
corrupt than their peaceful counterparts. It has been found that the
nations we have bombed to ruin and occupied became the most corrupt
nations: Iraq and Afghanistan.
Judging by what happened in China years ago I just reported here, such
a phenomenon is quite understandable. The incomprehensible deaths and
killing of people who you know can make you numb, insensitive to those
of others. And you can justify your ghastly deed to others because
others have done just that to your loved ones and for no good reasons.
This is something that Americans as well as Chinese and all people of
our time should come to grip with fast before all these wars will kill
us all.
When the third and last emperor of Qin surrendered to Liu Bang and
made way for him to eventually become the founding emperor of the Han
Dynasty, it was barely three years after the founding emperor had died
and less than twenty years from the time Qin was founded.
So, perhaps the Biblical Cain's crime of murdering his brother Abel
was bad. But if God's message was one which aligns with an eye for an
eye, then the cycle of violence would be just like that we've just
seen in that part of the Chinese history, and just like the Romans.
Blood would never stop flowing.
So, God's message through Jesus, mankind's savior, is:
"Those who raise the sword shall die by the sword."
It's not a statement of absolute statistics; but rather a warning of a
cycle of violence no one would be able to control.
lo yeeOn
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