Chinese people believe “winner takes all, loser has nothing,” and “history is written by the victors” is widely accepted by Chinese people. Admittedly, official history is believed to work for politics. A contrast is often made between official history, which is written by winners, and unofficial history, which is written by losers. For instance, in Chinese history, every emperor was basically wise and strong since the Song Dynasty’s history, every emperor was described as a symbol of justice, and their enemies were always brutal and evil. Obviously, this official history was faked by victors. In an official history about Song Dynasty, Hui Qin, a minister of Song, is depicted as a quisling. He killed some heroes like Fei Yue, made treaty with Song’s enemy, and enacted a tax law which made people poorer. He was a totally devil in official history. However, in some unofficial history, Hui Qin was not devil anymore, he was a pacifist. He advocated peace life, he thought war could kill thousands of lives and made people homeless, thus, he argued with “hero” Fei Yue who wanted to be famous through wars, and Fei didn’t accept his idea, but the emperor did. Then the emperor killed Fei in order to make a peaceful life for residents in Song Dynasty.
In official history, winners usually deleted some information which was not good for their reputation, but still retained lots of truth. Unofficial history, however, cannot be evidence for academic research, but can support some facts. Therefore, we should have an objective perspective when we read history.
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