Comment on Knowledge is... power?
uphillbothways@kbin.social 1 year ago
When I was a teenager, an older friend told me how he learned in college history how the first Emperor of China wrote the language, made all these scientific discoveries, etc, etc. And I, knowing fuck all about Chinese history, was like 'you mean he killed all the historians and advisors, then burned all the libraries, so he could take credit, right?' My friend is like 'uhhh.....'
Yeah, so turns out that's pretty much how more recent readings of it say it went down.
DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe 1 year ago
If by that you mean “He was about as real as King Arthur,” sure.
Chickenstalker@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Qin Shi Huang was as real as Julius Caesar.
DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe 1 year ago
He’s also not the person OP referenced.
HawlSera@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Wasn’t he based on some truth or something?
DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe 1 year ago
They’re both cultural stories that were probably based on several actual historical figures at some point that were combined and mythologized over centuries.
Take Arthur. You could maybe find the origin of the character in some Celtic leader fighting the Romans, then as people retell stories he gets merged with a different guy, and then when the Anglo-Saxons invade new stories get added and repurposed etc etc and now the French hear about and decide it needs a love triangle where the English king gets cucked by a French Chad Knight, boom, now you’ve got a medieval courtly love story from someone once talking about the time Athor’lescs’op once stole some Roman sheep.
The Yellow Emperor is the same thing. There probably was a Chinese warlord who paid for some irrigation ditches and wasn’t too big of an asshole to the peasants, and another one later who built some libraries, so they’re “based on a historical figure” but mostly the stories are just cultural myths that make good entertainment and maybe work as a morality play.