There is such a sentence in the "Thousand Character Text" called "Qi Po Mu, the most refined use of the army", this "Qi Po Mu" refers to the Qin State's Bai Qi, Wang Qi, Zhao Guo's Lian Po Li Mu, these four are also respected by later generations as the four famous generals of the Warring States. According to statistics, the deaths caused by the war during the Warring States period were probably more than 2 million people, and the ghosts who died in the hands of these four famous generals believe that there are more than 1 million. However, they were not denigrated by posterity, and he only killed more than 400 people, but he was scolded to this day. Why?
White
Do not sell Guanzi, he refers to Qin Shi Huang, of course, Qin Shi Huang's merits do not need to be repeated, because the history textbooks or the Internet are very high evaluation of him, and he is most criticized by posterity is the book burning pit Confucianism, in fact, seriously check the historical data, he pit killed only more than 460 people, this number is not even enough for the four famous generals of the Warring States. However, the people of the world are all scolding the fierceness of Yingzheng because qin shi huang burned books and pit Confucianism, and the four famous generals of the warring states in addition to being scolded as a slaughterer in white, the others are more praise, if compared with the name of killing people and taking on the name, Qin Shi Huang is also too bad, why is this?
First, whether in ancient times or in modern times, everyone is very appreciative and admired by famous generals, they never take the initiative to kill people, only according to the needs of the motherland to go to the battlefield, and for the people of the country, they kill the invaders, killing these people is to protect their own people, so they will not be condemned by the people, but will be loved.
For example, Bai Qi, although people in later generations scolded him for being cruel, the descendants of the old Qin people would regard him as a hero, and later Bai Qi was given death, and many people wept for him. The reason why Baiqi has a bad reputation is because the descendants of six of the seven kingdoms are victims, and of course they want to vent their dissatisfaction and slander Baiqi.
Qin Shi Huang
And Qin Shi Huang pit killed his own people, and it is very special, because whether it is book burning or pit Confucianism, they are all aimed at intellectuals, and many of these intellectuals have friends who are also writers and historians, and a pen of others is more powerful than the ordinary people's ten thousand mouths, because the writing can be handed down, and the ordinary people at that time could not live today. Therefore, now people will naturally scold Qin Shi Huang for being cruel according to those words. In addition, the Han Empire that overthrew the Qin Dynasty would not say good things about Qin Shi Huang, their power was obtained from the hands of Qin II, if the Qin Dynasty was very good, could they stabilize the world? There are also reasons for this.
Second, to measure the quality of a general is to win a hundred battles, and in ancient times, there were too few and too few soldiers who surrendered without fighting, and they all achieved victory by destroying the flesh of the other side, why did Bai Qi wield a butcher's knife after the Battle of Changping, because Zhao soldiers were easy to rebel, and when they needed to fight after being released back to zhao, they were soon a source of soldiers, so they had to be killed. In the same way, other famous generals of the Warring States have many similar operations, but these are understandable, there is a saying that once the achievements will be exhausted, people just regret these lives, but there is no intention of scolding such a general.
Qin Shi Huang is different, he is the head of state, his duty should be to love the people, casual killing is not right, no matter how much he kills, this is always the ruler is not kind, inconsiderate, especially his own people, so the two are morally unequal.
Finally, everyone did not know much about the details of Qin Shi Huang's book burning pit, on the one hand, the number of people killed was not as many as everyone imagined, on the other hand, the books burned were all considered unsuitable at that time, and those practical books such as farming medicine were not burned. And the cost of language is the lowest, especially after thousands of years, Qin Shi Huang can not climb out of the coffin to chase everyone's soul, so everyone will have no scruples, according to the superficial meaning to comment on Qin Shi Huang.
It is precisely for the above reasons that the four famous generals of the Warring States have killed so many people and are still praised by later generations, while Qin Shi Huang only killed more than 400 people and was scolded, which is actually unfair to Yingzheng.