Chapter 173

In the mouths of the Confucians, it became "burning books and burying scholars alive"!

I merely slaughtered the few dozen households around the meteorite in the East Commandery!

In the mouths of the Confucians, it became "slaughtering the entire East Commandery"!

Damn it!

When Seeing Ying Zheng saw these things, he was so angry his beard nearly curled up.

He truly wished he could slaughter all these creatures!

But the pen is in their hands; if you dare kill recklessly, they dare write recklessly!

If you dare kill one recklessly, they dare write a whole pile recklessly!

If you slaughter them all, then there will be no official history.

Without official history, it will all rely on unofficial histories being fabricated.

How wild unofficial histories can be, Seeing Ying Zheng has seen.

When he was a hostage in Zhao Guo, he once saw a miscellaneous book; he didn't know which bastard wrote it, but it actually wrote Pang Juan as the Rabbit God, deeply loving Sun Bin for a long time, and to obtain Sun Bin, used every possible means!

"Damn it!"

When Seeing Ying Zheng saw this book, he was so angry he directly threw it into the furnace to burn!

Later, he saw even more various miscellaneous books.

The "burning of books" in the burning of books was partly these things.

They wrote all sorts of things about him; some praised him, and some blackened and cursed him!

Those who praised him said he was the Son of Heaven!

Unifying the six states was the Mandate of Heaven!

Those who blackened him said he once ate feces and drank fluids in Zhao Guo!

In a rage, he didn't care whether they praised or cursed, and burned them all.

Those Confucian creatures, to curse him, wrote this matter into the official history, calling it "burning books and burying scholars alive"!

Seeing Ying Zheng was angry, but truly had no way!

He couldn't just slaughter the historians, could he!

That truly wouldn't work!

With official history, people would only treat unofficial history as unofficial history, read it, laugh it off, and then nothing would happen!

If there is no official history, then unofficial history will become official history.

The consequences of this would be too terrifying!

So, in history, no one ever dared to recklessly kill a historian!

Those who dared to recklessly kill a historian, not a single one had a good end!

The most representative example should be the matter of "Cui Zhu killed his lord," right!

The foolish Lord Zhuang of Qi slept with the wife of the minister Cui Zhu!

In a rage, Cui Zhu directly killed Lord Zhuang of Qi!

But the crime of regicide was too great; he feared this matter would be known by later generations, leaving him with eternal infamy.

Then, he ordered the historian Tai Shi Bo, saying: "Lord Zhuang of Qi was a foolish ruler; now, the foolish ruler is dead. You write that he died of illness. If you write it thus, I will certainly treat you well! Otherwise, I will not be polite to you!"

But upon hearing these words, Tai Shi Bo sneered disdainfully and directly wrote on the bamboo slips: "Cui Zhu killed his lord!"

Cui Zhu flew into a rage, drew his sword, and killed Tai Shi Bo!

And because the position of historian was a family inheritance, after killing Tai Shi Bo, Cui Zhu called his younger brother Tai Shi Zhong and said: "Your brother was disobedient and has already been killed by me. If you are not obedient, I will kill you too! Write that Lord Zhuang of Qi died of illness!"

Looking at the corpse of his elder brother Tai Shi Bo, his younger brother angrily walked to the desk and wrote: "Cui Zhu killed his lord!"

"You..."

Cui Zhu flew into a rage and slaughtered Tai Shi Zhong too!

Afterwards, he found the third brother of Tai Shi Bo, Tai Shi Shu, and pointed at the corpses of his two elder brothers to threaten him!

Tai Shi Shu wasted no words and still wrote five large characters on the bamboo slips: Cui Zhu killed his lord!

Cui Zhu was simply numb with anger, and at the same time, his liver trembled from the killing; didn't these people fear death?

Unconvinced, he killed Tai Shi Shu, then called Tai Shi Ji, and similarly ordered him to write that Lord Zhuang of Qi died of illness!

The result was that Tai Shi Ji still wrote that sentence: Cui Zhu killed his lord!

Not only that, he also wrote in which year, which month, which day, and for what reason Cui Zhu killed Lord Zhuang of Qi!

This completely numbed Cui Zhu; however, before Cui Zhu could even ask that question, "Are you not afraid of death?"

Tai Shi Ji simply spread his hands:

"Kill me! As long as you do not slaughter all the historians of the world, this matter will not cease to be recorded in history books!"

Cui Zhu was completely desperate; helplessly, he could only admit defeat!

Recalling that period of history, and seeing Prince Prince Fusu's such exaggerated curses, Seeing Ying Zheng at this moment was truly furious!

These people are truly hateful!

But seeing Prince Prince Fusu curse Facing Ying Su and Li Yuanba as cruel, he could not help but feel angry again!

What's wrong?

Let alone killing six hundred thousand!

Even if nearly seven hundred thousand people were truly killed, so what?

They were Xiongnu people, not Qin people, and certainly not from when I destroyed the six states!

So what's wrong with that?

When I previously massacred the villagers near the meteorite in the East Commandery, Prince Prince Fusu cursed me, so let him curse!

After all, after the slaughter was over, he himself had felt regret—those people couldn't all have been rebels.

There were surely innocent people among them!

On this matter, Prince Prince Fusu hadn't been wrong to scold him!

But... the unfilial son Facing Ying Su killed seven hundred thousand Xiongnu people—where was the fault?

Every one of those killed was an enemy from beyond the border!

Being able to kill seven hundred thousand Xiongnu people is a feat of merit already more than sufficient to shine through the annals of history, to be carved on steles and recorded in biographies!

Yet you—actually scolded him?

Thought he killed too many?

And there are people who complain about killing too many enemies?

Seeing Ying Zheng was furious—at this moment, he actually stood up for Facing Ying Su!

And what Prince Prince Fusu railed against—was it only this one point?

There was also the matter of slaughtering four hundred thousand troops of Seeing Xiang Yu, which Prince Prince Fusu had also scolded!

"Suppressing a rebellion is suppressing a rebellion—was it necessary to kill four hundred thousand people down to only fifty thousand who surrendered?"

"Why couldn't you just persuade them to surrender directly?"

"Huh?"

"Why not just persuade them to surrender directly?"

This line of text appearing in the letter utterly stunned Seeing Ying Zheng!

Damn it—when the Xiongnu people were attacking the Great Wall, why didn't you, Prince Prince Fusu, rely on that silver tongue of yours to persuade them to surrender?

When two hundred thousand troops were slaughtered by the Xiongnu down to only a hundred-some thousand, then routed and fled into Taiyuan City, why didn't you go persuade the Xiongnu to surrender?

Seeing Ying Zheng was livid.

However, was what made Seeing Ying Zheng angry limited to just this?

There was also the matter of making the nobility pay taxes!

Prince Prince Fusu was extremely displeased about this!

In the letter he stated plainly that those nobles were all aristocratic clans with histories of several hundred or even a thousand years—no matter their present state, their ancestors had all rendered meritorious service to Great Qin or to other states!

By virtue of this merit, they could be entirely exempt from paying taxes!

Sixth Brother Facing Ying Su acting like this is simply turning heaven and earth upside down!

"This..."

After reading all this, Seeing Ying Zheng was so angry his brows knit fiercely!

Earlier when he said Facing Ying Su killed people indiscriminately, one could still say Prince Prince Fusu was benevolent and couldn't bear to see wanton killing!

But what he said afterward was simply pedantic and ossified.