picture
Late dynastic painting of the burning of books and live-burial of Confucian scholars who tried to conceal them. Politically correct writers today doubt that a hero as great as the First Emperor ever did the live-burial part (although he did that to family enemies in chapter 7 and scholarly rumor mongers in chapter 30), but the folk phrase "burning books and burying scholars" (fén shū kēn rú 焚书坑儒) still links burning and burying and refers to the malicious destruction of civilization.