Song Zhenzong Zhao Heng once wrote the "Chapter of Inspiration", saying: There is a golden house in the book, and there is a Yan Ruyu in the book. Although this statement has the meaning of excessive pursuit of glory and wealth, it has become a golden jade good word advocating reading, and the Song Dynasty has a large number of scientific and technological inventions in China's history, such as textile machines, clay movable type printing, cannon projectiles and so on.
Jiao Yu of the Ming Dynasty mentioned in the "Fire Dragon Classic" the "Flying Cloud Thunderbolt Cannon" in the early Song Dynasty, but in the feudal dynasty, in order to strengthen the imperial power, successive dynasties also suppressed the subjects ideologically, and the "literal prison" was a prison for persecuting intellectuals. This also makes some excellent books like brilliant meteors across the sky, and eventually disappear into the long river of history.
The Chinese historian Gu Jie once said: "In the three hundred years of the Qing Dynasty, the literature did not exist, and there are still people who can be examined in the disaster of the literal prison." A: Yes, but its harshness is no worse than that of the early Qing Dynasty. "During the Qing Dynasty, the prison of writing was the most serious, and during the Qianlong period, it reached more than 130 times, although the "Four Libraries of The Whole Book" was compiled, but the Qianlong Emperor believed that it was enough for the Han people to leave three thousand volumes of books, and the rest of the books ushered in the fate of being burned and banned, reaching more than 150,000.
However, China has 2 books that should not be banned, so the Qing Dynasty has declined, and European countries and Japan have become strong by relying on it.
One is the famous Ming Dynasty scientist Song Yingxing's "Tiangong Kaiwu" first published in the Chongzhen Decade (1637), which consists of 18 articles in three volumes and 123 interludes, including machinery, bricks, weapons, gunpowder, textiles and other production technologies, and is the world's first comprehensive work on agricultural and handicraft production, which foreign scholars call "China's industrial encyclopedia of the 17th century".
Many people will compare history, talking about the Qing Dynasty's closed country, some people will say about the Ming Dynasty's sea ban, but the Development of the Ming Dynasty to the late period, China and the world are still connected, the late Ming Dynasty came to China, foreign Chinese, books, new education and so on.
It is also said in the "Tiangong Kaiwu": "Where the method of welding iron, the Western countries have strange medicines." Chinese small welding with white copper end, large welding is trying to swing the hammer and strong combination, over the years can not be firm. Therefore, the cannon has forgers in the west, and China only smelts and casts. ”
The second edition was released during the Shunzhi Emperor in the early Qing Dynasty, when "Tiangong Kaiwu" was still circulating throughout China and exported abroad, which had a huge impact on Western countries, and was introduced to Japan in the 17th century.
However, when the Qianlong Emperor of the Qing Dynasty set up the Siku Pavilion to repair the "Siku Quanshu", he found that there were anti-Qing words such as "Beiyu" and "Northeast Yi" in the "Tiangong Kaiwu", so the book was banned.
The second is "Chart of the Sea Country", the author of the book is the late Qing Dynasty thinker Wei Yuan, first explain the background of the times, in the late Qing Dynasty, the Western powers opened the door of the country with foreign guns and cannons, and the Opium War I woke up many people in our country, Wei Yuan is one of them, he abandoned his pen from Rong, to the Dinghai front to consult the war, and made a certain understanding of the development of Western countries, which suddenly became clear: the sky has changed early outside the Qing Dynasty.
In 1842, Wei Yuan wrote the "Atlas of the Sea Country", which consisted of 50 volumes, and the purpose of writing this book was also stated in the preface: "Why is the book written?" A: It is done for the sake of attacking Yiyi, it is done for Yiyi, and it is done for the master's long skills to control Yiyi. By 1852, Wei Yuan had expanded the Atlas of the Sea Kingdoms into a hundred volumes, systematically introducing the geography, history, political conditions, and many advanced science and technology of Western countries.
However, Wei Yuan's painstaking efforts did not gain the attention of the Qing court, and the diehards were blindly xenophobic and arrogant, just like the attitude of the Qianlong Emperor when he met the British emissaries, and did not pay attention to the development of Western science and technology, and the "Chart of the Sea Kingdom" was also listed as a banned book.
After the book was introduced to Japan, it played a certain role in the Meiji Restoration in Japan, and the modern Japanese scholar Yasushi Inoue said after studying modern history: "At the end of the shogunate, Japanese scholars and cultural people and so on,...... For example, Yokoi Konan's ideas became revolutionary and inclined to foundingism, and the opportunity was to read China's "Chart of the Sea Country". ”