Ban Gu wrote the Book of the Later Han Dynasty.
Sima Qian wrote Historical Records, which was completed in the last years of Emperor Wu of Han Dynasty. Ban Gu wrote Han Shu, but the book has not been finished yet. The author died in prison because of his past relationship with Dou Xian, which happened in the fourth year of Yongyuan. One belongs to the Western Han Dynasty and the other belongs to the Eastern Han Dynasty, around 90 BC and AD respectively. In our opinion today, these two books were published together. In fact, the distance between them is 180 years, which is equal to the Jiaqing period of the Qing Dynasty before our departure.
Historical Records and Hanshu are private works, and the other manuscript has been read by the emperor, with the color of national history. Sima Qian claimed to be "a famous family" and "a famous mountain in Tibet", which was different from Ban Gu's purpose in writing books. Besides, Historical Records is a general history, and Hanshu is a dynastic history. The two writers have different personalities and hobbies, which also makes them very different in material selection and writing. However, in 90 BC and 90 AD, the environment of writers and thinkers in China changed greatly. One of the most important keys is that Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty used Dong Zhongshu's suggestion to reject a hundred schools of thought and respect Confucianism alone. In fact, in the Han Dynasty, at the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, there were legalist thoughts and Taoist spirits in governing the country. Dong Zhongshu's own works also involve yin and yang and five elements, involving disasters. In a word, the whole thought of Han Dynasty is a selective synthesis, which has long been explained by Chinese and foreign scholars. What we want to emphasize here is that Dong Zhongshu respected Confucius not for the sake of respecting Confucius, but for the purpose of establishing a formal unified empire. Dong Zhongshu respected Confucius not for the sake of respecting Confucius, but for the purpose of establishing a formal unified empire, which was proved by his own words. He once said to Emperor Wu of Han Dynasty:
Spring and Autumn Annals is a great unity, a constant test of heaven and earth, and a friendship between ancient and modern times. Today, teachers are different, people are different, a hundred schools of thought contend, and each has its own point. It is the unity above, the change of the legal system, and the ignorance below. I foolishly thought that all people who were not in the six arts of Confucius were going their own way and not making progress. The theory of evil monarch will stop, and then the discipline will be clear and the people will know what to do.
This passage denies the independence of academics and frankly [frankly] admits that advocating academics is to support the current regime. According to this purpose, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty appointed doctors of the Five Classics, set up school officials, and implemented the policy of meritocracy. Since then, China's huge civil service group has its own orthodox administrative logic. Sima Qian and Dong Zhongshu were contemporary, and his study was not affected by this policy. The "regular" Confucianism in Ban Gu's youth has a foundation of more than one hundred years. In addition, Liu Xiu, the father of entrepreneurship in the late Han Dynasty, was also a college student. The second emperor, Ming Di Liu Zhuang, claimed to be a scholar. I used to teach history in Biyong (Auditorium). Three emperors Liu Wei personally formulated the similarities and differences of the Five Classics in White Tiger View, and Ban Gu was also listed. Writing a book under the leadership of this regime is difficult to get rid of the constraints set by the state.
Sima Qian, like Ban Gu, claimed to be a disciple of Duke Zhou and Confucius. However, as soon as we open the Historical Records today and look at three or five places casually, we can realize that the author has a romantic and individualistic style, which is refreshing, informal and not pedantic. What he said "he has little talent and no reputation for folk songs" should be a true portrayal. His belief that "a scholar should be a confidant and a woman should be tolerant of herself" can also be said to be attributed to Confucian morality, but this position is different from the so-called Confucianism, which is limited by orthodoxy.
In Historical Records, Jing Ke and Gao Jianli attacked the building by drinking and crying, and there was no one around, which was close to what Dong Zhongshu called "evil king". Moreover, Xiang Yu is the sworn enemy of Emperor Gaozu Liu Bang, and the chronicle of Xiang Yu in Historical Records is earlier than that of Emperor Gaozu (later generations will inevitably call it Xiang Chu and puppet Chu, but this chronicle can only be reduced to a record). In this paper, Xiang Yu is written as a grumpy but lovely character, and his hero is dead, which makes people pity. In contrast, Liu Bang is like a hypocrite. Sima Qian described the abuse of Mrs. Qi, so much so that her own son Emperor accused her of "such inhuman behavior". When Ban Gu wrote Hanshu, a passage about Liu Bang was also roughly based on Sima Qian's materials. However, his "Gao Houji" covers up evil and promotes good, and says nothing about Mrs. Qi, only in the "Biography of consorts" at the end of the book.
In addition to biographies of assassins, Historical Records also includes biographies of funny people, Japanese and Kampuchea, which can be described as involving nine sects and three religions and showing the whole society. Although there are biographies of Dong Fangshuo in Ban Gu's books, there are no more indecent or obscene cultural materials.
Sima Qian gave full play to his personal interests through Biography of Huo Zhi. "The king of thousands of people, the king of thousands of families and the king of hundreds of families are still poor, but what about the people who form a family!" He also said: "the rich have feelings, and those who want everything without learning are also." In his view, poverty is a shame. "If you are poor and old, and your wife is weak, 18 years old can't eat, and food and clothing are not enough to help yourself. If you are so shameless, that's good! " More than 2,000 years later, many educated people in China may dare to think so, but I'm afraid not many people can say so.
Because of this, Sima Qian was accused by Ban Gu. There is a biography of Sima Qian in Hanshu, criticizing him for "not knowing the right and wrong of saints, first discussing the avenue with Isabelle and then with the Six Classics, and then ordering the ranger to retreat from Chu Shi to become an adulterer, saying that Huo Zhi was snobbish and ashamed of being poor." (Reviewer's Note: This criticism of Sima Qian first came from Ban Biao, and Ban Gu inherited his father. See Biography of Ban Biao in the Later Han Dynasty for details. )
These places are not very good (? ) Ban Gu's orthodox thought shows us that his works are the product of "rejecting Confucianism" in history, and they are Volume 20 of Hanshu. The ancient people listed in this table are 193 1 person, including the legendary figures such as You Chaojia of Nu Wa, the famous disciple of Confucius in the Analects of Confucius, and the monarch in the Spring and Autumn Annals. As for Qin's death. The historian's "showing good and evil" is divided into three classes and nine rules from top to bottom. Among them, there are 14 "top saints", three emperors and five emperors; Duke Zhou and Confucius are both behind the temple. There are no saints outside Zhong Ni, although Mencius only belongs to the "upper middle class" with Yan Yuan and Guan Zhong. Lao Zi, Shang Yang, Shen Zi, Mo Zhai and Han Fei all belong to the "upper middle class", and Sun Bin is the first class. Assassin Jing Ke is the same product of China, Meng Changjun and Lv Buwei. There are not only Chiyou, Gonggong and Sanmiao, but also Congyou and da ji. Although Qin Shihuang burned books to bury Confucianism, Ban Gu only classified it as the lower middle class, because Hu Hai II was listed as the "lower middle class" and eunuch Zhao Gao was listed as the "lower middle class".
From my personal point of view, unless the author has been taught, the first thing he has cultivated is a concept of "regular classics" and "different ways" It is absolutely difficult to distinguish the characters of so many word lists only by paragraph by paragraph in ancient books, just like measuring the length of their materials.
Therefore, we can also infer that the rigidity of Confucianism in the secular concept is not necessarily the true character of Confucius and his disciples. In many ways, those rigid models were formulated by later generations, and their purpose was to keep the civil servant group compact. Finally, this is the luck of China scholars. Sima Qian, a great historian, had to write before Lan Tai ordered Ban Gu. Otherwise, there will be no historical records, and the history of China will begin with Hanshu at the end of the 23rd century. Our historical tradition will tend to the policy of "commenting on literature", and it will lack the authenticity and vividness of "a hundred schools of thought contend".