What does nine streams mean?

There were nine academic schools in ancient China: Confucianism, Taoism, Yin and Yang, Legalists, Famous Scholars, Mohists, Military Strategists, Miscellaneous Notes and Peasants.

Sima Qian's father, Sima Tan, first divided the hundred schools into six schools: Taoism, Yin and Yang, Confucianism, Mohism, Ming and Fa. Later, on the basis of the division of Sima Tan, Liu Xin added ten schools of "vertical and horizontal, miscellaneous, agricultural and novel".

Ban Gu attacked Liu Xin in History of Han, and thought: "There are ten philosophers, but only nine are impressed." There are ten philosophers, but only nine can be seen. Later, people came to "novelists" and called the remaining nine "nine streams".

Dissemination of information Confucianism has far-reaching influence.

Confucianism is one of the most influential schools in ancient China since Dong Zhongshu "ousted a hundred schools of thought and respected Confucianism alone". Confucianism, as the embodiment of China's inherent value system, is not an academic or school in the usual sense.

Generally speaking, especially in the pre-Qin period, although Confucianism was the most influential school, it was only one of the hundred schools and had no affiliation with other hundred schools.

Confucianism has a profound influence on China culture. In the feudal society for thousands of years, China people only taught the Four Books and Five Classics from generation to generation.

In China's genes, ideas such as responsibility (taking the world as one's duty), loyalty and filial piety (benevolence, courtesy, wisdom and faith), forgiveness (don't do to others what you don't want others), and ethics (self-cultivation, keeping the family in order, governing the country and calming the world) are all the results of the combination of Confucianism and autocratic rule.

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Baidu Encyclopedia-Confucianism