The Qin burning of the books

In 213 BC Li Si, chancellor to the First Emperor of Qin, forbade the teaching of history and ordered the burning of the books; by Sima Qian's account in the Shiji, works on medicine, divination and agriculture were spared and copies were kept in the imperial library. The Shiji's further story that scholars were buried alive in 212 BC is doubted by several modern scholars.

The mechanism

CUSTODY OF THE WORD

How it was checked

• EvidenceT5 INDEPENDENT SECULAR; Status: ADDED 2026-09-19
• Letter eraTHE PROPHETS AND THE ROAD 776 BC to 4 BC
• SourcesRECORD — Britannica, 'Li Si'; Wikipedia, 'Burning of books and burying of scholars' (for the exemptions and the modern doubts: Nylan, Kern) · checked 19 September: Britannica (read in a browser; WebFetch is refused by the site), 'Li Si'; Wikipedia, 'Burning of books and burying of scholars' (exemptions; Nylan, Kern, Neininger, Li Kaiyuan)