use the past to attack the present

use the past to attack the present

Chinese idiom, Pinyin is y ǐ g ǔ f ē ij ī n, meaning to attack the current politics with historical stories. It comes from the historical records of the first emperor of Qin Dynasty.

The origin of Idioms

In the Western Han Dynasty, Sima Qian's historical records of the first emperor of Qin Dynasty: "those who dare to speak poems and books will abandon the market; those who have changed the past from the present will abandon the family." There is a stipulation in the order of burning books that the ancient is not the present.

Idioms and allusions

In 213 BC, the first emperor of Qin set up a banquet in Xianyang palace to celebrate his birthday. Sixty doctors came to pay homage to his birthday. After the banquet, Yuan Xiang Li Si said: "the system of the five emperors is not repeated from generation to generation, and the systems of Xia, Shang and Zhou are not inherited from generation to generation, but they are all well governed by their own systems. It's not that they are deliberately different from each other, but because times have changed and things have changed. Now the world has decided that the decree comes from your majesty alone, that the people should devote themselves to agricultural and industrial production, and that the scholars should study the decree. Nowadays, scholars do not learn from the present but follow the past. They slander the government with the ancient method. This is disturbing the people. Therefore, I ask your majesty to let the officials burn all the books that are not in the state of Qin. In addition to what the doctor's office has mastered, there are collections of poems, books and works of various schools in the world, all of which are sent to local officials to burn them together. Anyone who dares to talk about poetry and books together shall be sentenced to death. If you use ancient people to deny and attack today's reality, you will be killed. If an official knows but does not report, he shall be punished with the same crime. Those who do not burn books within 30 days after the order are to be sentenced to severe punishment. What we don't ban are books like medicine, divination and planting. If anyone wants to study the law, he can learn from the officials. " Qin Shihuang agreed with Li Si's suggestion and issued an imperial edict saying "yes".

Analysis of Idioms

Synonyms: satirizing the present with the past

Idiom usage

It refers to criticizing today with historical stories