《General History of China》E16
Hundreds of schools of thought
The Hundred Schools of Scholars is a general term for various academic schools in the Spring and Autumn Period, Warring States Period, Qin and Han Dynasties. According to the records of Hanshu Yiwenzhi, there are 189 named schools with 4324 works.Later books such as Sui Shu·Jing Ji Zhi—Si Ku Quanshu General Catalog—recorded that there were hundreds of schools of thought, and there were actually thousands of them.However, there are only a few dozen of them that are widely spread, influential and most famous.In summary, only 12 schools were developed.
Among the hundreds of schools of thought, the most widely circulated ones are Legalists, Taoists, Mohists, Confucians, Yin-Yangists, famous scholars, miscellaneous scholars, farmers, novelists, strategists, military strategists, and doctors.The Han people created splendid culture and art in ancient times with distinctive characteristics.The Han people have a written history of more than 5,000 years and are extremely rich in cultural classics.During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the achievements of various ideological and academic schools reflected the ancient Greek civilization of the same period; the three major philosophical systems represented by Confucius, Laozi, and Mozi formed a prosperous situation in which a hundred schools of thought contended.After many twists and turns, Confucianism represented by Confucius and Mencius came to full power during the Song Dynasty; at the same time, it affected other ethnic minorities to varying degrees, and even affected countries adjacent to China.
