once upon a time, there was a peasant who saw the evils of the king who proclaimed himself to be the first chinese emperor: qin shi huang di. mr qin infamously burned many books of philosophy including confucius, forced people to work on the great wall of china, and had this great idea about seeking immortality through taoists and mercury in Definitely Not Japan.
this peasant would lead a successful revolt: his name was liu bang, but his badass emperor name is gaozu. gaozu did some important stuff, which you can check out at kongming.net.
but the story that's captured my imagination is how he saw confucian scholars. since he ended the tyrannical qin dynasty and allowed free expression again, confucianism went into vogue once more.
however, gaozu's humble origins made him skeptical, even hostile toward these scholars. can't trust those highfalutin thinkers. sima guang records in his history book that he hates them so much that he'll
STEAL THE SCHOLARS' HATS TO PISS IN THEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
that's right: the best story i can think of with emperors is piss. well, i suppose it's better than that time an emperor asked a goat to pick a concubine for him. piss is funnier than goats.
anyway, this is extremely based. people don't make emperors like they used to anymore. thank you for reading this post, i hope this knowledge helps you in some way in informing you about this ancient civilization.
