page_title: Burning of books and burying of scholars
hierarchical_section_title: Burning of books and burying of scholars
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of the Qin Dynasty (in c. 210 BCE) — in China.&#160;::*The first unifying Imperial dynasty of China.&#160;::*The coloured territories show the approximate extent of Qin political control at the death of Emperor Qin Shi Huang in 210 BC. As part of his unification of China in 221 BCE, Qin Shi Huang divided his empire into thirty six commanderies, each subdivided into a number of counties. The significance of the administrative reforms was its introduction of a uniformly centralised system of imperial control. At the death of Qin Shi Huang in 210 BCE, more commanderies were added to the original thirty six, and these are also shown on the map. The system was followed by the Han Dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE), though with a certain degree of compromise. Thereafter, the system became the norm for later dynasties and eventually evolved into the present administrative structure of Mainland China (see: Category: Political divisions of China.) The location of the Yellow River and commandery seats follows Tan Qixiang (ed.), Zhongguo lishi ditu (中国历史地图集), 1982. Note that the Yellow River is considerably to the north of its present flow. ;Credits Created and copyright (2006) by Yeu Ninje. Released under the GNU FDL. Originally uploaded to English Wikipedia by en:User:Yeu Ninje. Ming civilisation (1580)
context_page_description: The Burning of books and burying of scholars refers to the supposed burning of texts in 213 BCE and live burial of 460 Confucian scholars in 212 BCE by the Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang of the Qin dynasty. This was alleged to have destroyed philosophical treatises of the Hundred Schools of Thought, with the goal of strengthening the official Qin governing philosophy of Legalism.
  Modern historians doubt the details of the story, which first appeared more than a century later in the Han Dynasty official Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian. As a court scholar, Sima had every reason to denigrate the previous emperor to flatter his own, and later Confucians did not question the story. As one recent historian put it, their message was, "If you take our life, Heaven will take the life of your dynasty." Scholars do agree that the First Emperor indeed gathered and destroyed many works that he regarded as incorrect or subversive, but he ordered two copies of each school to be preserved in imperial libraries. He did have scholars killed, but not by being buried alive, and the victims were not "Confucians," since that school had not yet been formed as such.
context_section_description: The Burning of books and burying of scholars (Chinese: 焚書坑儒; pinyin: fénshū kēngrú) refers to the supposed burning of texts in 213 BCE and live burial of 460 Confucian scholars in 212 BCE by the Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang of the Qin dynasty. This was alleged to have destroyed philosophical treatises of the Hundred Schools of Thought, with the goal of strengthening the official Qin governing philosophy of Legalism.
  Modern historians doubt the details of the story, which first appeared more than a century later in the Han Dynasty official Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian. As a court scholar, Sima had every reason to denigrate the previous emperor to flatter his own, and later Confucians did not question the story. As one recent historian put it, their message was, "If you take our life, Heaven will take the life of your dynasty." Scholars do agree that the First Emperor indeed gathered and destroyed many works that he regarded as incorrect or subversive, but he ordered two copies of each school to be preserved in imperial libraries (some were destroyed in the fighting following the fall of the dynasty). He did have scholars killed, but not by being buried alive, and the victims were not "Confucians," since that school had not yet been formed as such.
caption: Qin Empire in 210 BCE       Qin region
        Outlying regions
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