Amidst the gentle fragrance of tea, Li Jing picked up his teacup and took a sip before saying, "I used to know that taking history as a mirror can show the rise and fall of dynasties, but I never knew that historical texts could not only record the past, but also write the future."
Hu Wenlang smiled. "If a school's scholarship cannot guide people's future lives and only looks back at the past, then that school is bound to be decadent and incapable of being passed down. The Historian School actually does very well in this regard. Hidden beneath dynasties, the vast majority of the time their 'upholding of justice' is correct, because they represent the interests of the dynasty itself. And as long as a dynasty does not fall into absolute corruption, it represents the will of the people. Of course, the influence of individual historians' emotional preferences is inevitable."
"And the 'Encoffining Judgment' uses national fortune and ink as its brush and paper, relying on the residual saintly power of the Academy's Confucian Sages to see both the past and the future. This is using one's own heart to replace the heart of Heaven. That is why for so many years, the Historian School has maintained such a close relationship with the Confucianists, acting almost like twin infants."
Chapter 566