text: Beginning 213 BC, at the instigation of Li Si and to avoid scholars' comparisons of his reign with the past, Qin Shi Huang ordered most existing books to be burned, with the exception of those on astrology, agriculture, medicine, divination, and the history of the State of Qin. This would also serve to further the ongoing reformation of the writing system by removing examples of obsolete scripts. Owning the Book of Songs or the Classic of History was to be punished especially severely. According to the later Records of the Grand Historian, the following year Qin Shi Huang had some 460 scholars buried alive for possessing the forbidden books. The emperor's oldest son Fusu criticised him for this act. The emperor's own library did retain copies of the forbidden books, but most of these were destroyed when Xiang Yu burned the palaces of Xianyang in 206 BC.
  Recent research suggests that this "burying Confucian scholars alive" is a Confucian martyrs' legend. More probably, the emperor ordered the execution (坑 kēng) of a group of alchemists who had deceived him. In the subsequent Han dynasty, the Confucian scholars, who had served the Qin loyally, used this incident to distance themselves from the failed regime. Kong Anguo (孔安國 ), a descendant of Confucius, described the alchemists (方士 fāngshì) as Confucianists (儒 rú) and entwined the martyrs' legend with his story of discovering the lost Confucian books behind a demolished wall in his ancestral house.