Mencius (about 372 BC-289 BC) was born in Zou (now southeast of Zou County, Shandong Province) in the middle of the Warring States Period, not far from Qufu, the hometown of Confucius. He is a famous thinker, politician, educator, the successor of Confucius' theory and an important representative of Confucianism. According to legend, Mencius is a descendant of Lu nobles. He lost his father when he was a child, and his family was poor. He was a student of Zisi. After finishing his studies, he lobbied the governors as scholars in an attempt to promote his own political views, and successively went to Liang (Wei), Qi, Song, Teng and Lu. At that time, several great powers devoted themselves to Qiang Bing, a rich country, and strived to achieve reunification by force. He inherited Confucius' thought of benevolence and developed it into the thought of benevolent government, which was called "elegance and sage". [ 1]? Mencius was born about one hundred years before the death of Confucius (479 BC). Stories about his life are rarely handed down. Biography of Hanshu Poetry contains the story of his mother's "broken weaving" and Biography of Lienv contains the story of his mother's "three moves" and "going to Qi", which shows that he benefited from his mother's education. According to Zhao Qi's Biography of Lienv and Mencius' copybook, Mencius was taught by Confucius' grandson Zisi. But in terms of age, it seems incredible. ? Mencius "Historical Records" 289. It is possible that the Biography of Mencius Xun Qing said that he was "an educated and thoughtful man". Mencius' theory was influenced by Confucius' thought, whether by Zi Si or by Zi Si's disciples. Therefore, Xunzi listed Zisi and Mencius as one school, that is, the Meng Si School of Confucianism in later generations. Like Confucius, Mencius once led students to travel to Wei, Qi, Song, Lu, Teng, Xue and other countries, and once served as a guest minister. Because his political views were not as important as those of Confucius, he returned to his hometown to call his disciples to give lectures, and wrote a book with Zhang Wan and other students, saying, "Preface a poem book, understand Zhong Ni's meaning, and write seven pieces of Mencius." ("Historical Records". Biography of Mencius and Xun Qing) Today, we saw seven chapters of Mencius, and each chapter is divided into two chapters, about 35,000 words, totaling 260 chapters. However, there are eleven Mencius recorded in Hanshu Yiwenzhi, four more than the existing Mencius. When Zhao Qi annotated Mencius, he identified eleven articles, considered seven as true, and the other four were false except seven. After the Eastern Han Dynasty, these items were lost one after another. In Mencius, Zhao Qi compared Mencius to The Analects of Confucius, and thought that Mencius was a work imitating saints. Therefore, although the history of literature and art in the Han Dynasty only regards Mencius as a sub-book, it has actually been regarded as a "biography" book to assist the "classics" in the eyes of the Han people. Emperor Wen of the Han Dynasty named The Analects of Confucius, The Book of Filial Piety, Mencius and Er Ya as "Biographers". At the end of the Five Dynasties, Meng Changjun, the master of the post-Shu Dynasty, ordered people to carve stones on eleven classics such as Mencius, which may be the beginning of Mencius' being included in the Classics. Later, Song Taizong reprinted the Eleven Classics. By the time of filial piety in the Southern Song Dynasty, four books compiled by Zhu were included in Mencius, which officially raised Mencius to a very high position. After the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, it became the content of the imperial examination, and it was also a must-read book for scholars.