Chen Yu, a Wei man, said that Kong Yu said, “Qin will destroy the book of the former king, and the son is the owner of the book. How dangerous it is!” Zi Yu said, “I am a useless learning, and those who know me are only friends. Qin is not my friend, how dangerous I am! I will hide it for its request; if I ask for it, there is no danger.”
“Zizhi Tongjian” Volume VII
In 213 BC, the Qin Dynasty ordered the burning of hundreds of books, of which Confucian books were the focus. Li Si said in his book, “some dare to talk about poetry and abandon books.” Anyone who dares to talk about Confucian classics such as “poetry” and “books” will be exposed in the street.
This is a major crisis for the Confucius family, the spokesman of Confucianism. Chen Yu, a member of the anti Qin resistance organization and a member of the state of Wei, said to Kong Zhe, a descendant of Confucius, “Kong Lao, Qin is now going to destroy all the books of the former king, and your books bear the brunt, hanging.” Facing the concerns of his friends, Kong Yu was very calm and said, “what I do is useless knowledge. It is my friends who know me. The Qin Dynasty is not my friend at all. What is the danger for me? My job is to hide these cultural classics and wait for people who need them to appear. At that time, there will be nothing to worry about.”
Kong Xi had a clear grasp of the safe distance between himself and the Qin Dynasty, and the standard of grasp was “useless” and “non friends”. Kongzhi disguised his knowledge as “useless”. Qin couldn’t use it if he wanted to, and it was harmless for people and animals if he didn’t use it. Qinshihuang didn’t want to quarrel with those “useless” things. Therefore, although the imperial court was burning Confucian books, Kong Xi was able to hide them in the clip wall of his home, which showed that the search of the Qin Dynasty was not rigorous and attentive enough, because he felt that it was “useless”.
However, the Qin Dynasty felt that Kong Yu was “useless” because he did not understand and did not understand, that is, the so-called “non friends”. Kongzhi didn’t get up and was understood by the Qin Dynasty. He was not willing to be lonely, but just wanted to preserve it. The more he was understood, the more dangerous it might be. In fact, the so-called “entrapment scholars” are mostly magicians and alchemists like Lu Sheng and Hou Sheng who like to make friends with the first emperor of Qin.
Because he grasped these two points, he was able to swim within a safe distance in the era of great changes in the history and culture of the Qin Dynasty. However, Kong zhe was not a generation who was greedy for life and afraid of death. On the one hand, he ordered his disciple shusuntong to actively enter the world. Once he waited for Chen Sheng and Wu Guang to come out, he also bravely threw himself into the torrent of the peasant uprising, and finally practiced his historical mission with blood and life.