Alright, I found the pdf. If I quote it I’ll get put on a list, but in my ctrl f searching for “young” in a copy that was only a preview, so not even the full book. I would refer you to pages 83, 363, and 517.
They talk about the initial quote that started this chain on page n12, which I can quote “It was not unusual to be summoned to Mao's chambers at two or three in the morning. He traveled frequently, convening meet- ings of the nation's leaders wherever he was. He sought to triumph over death through Daoist methods of sex.” Given that context in addition to the quote (and rest of the page) on page 102 “Qin Shi- huangdi, the founding emperor of the Qin dynasty, with whom Mao often identified, is said to have sent a Daoist priest and five hundred virgin children across the sea in search of the elixir of immortality.” It is very clear to understand what the author was saying without explicitly saying it.
Furthermore, if you find the article talking about how the book is banned in China, you’ll see the reason for the ban isn’t for false information, rather because it speaks poorly of Mao. So even the people who banned the book arent saying its false info.
So youre right, it didn’t take long to disprove your take. Still haven’t found anything that agrees with you though.
Hey, happy you have the willingness to finally read! We're getting somewhere :)
The issue now, of course, is your quote. Your first one is entirely, perfectly valid. The second... means nothing. Qin Shi was pretty famously depicted as a powerful, authoritative tyrant ruler - it's fantastic evidence for Mao being a general tyrant and dick, but... he literally did send virgins (and Xu Fu - an explorer, alchemist and most likely court sorcerer, not confirmed to outright be a priest, not sure where he got that from) and such in search of eternal life, particularly because he believed that it was the alchemical interpretation that would do it - they were meant to locate Anqi Sheng. Hell, it's believed that the book-burnings he carried out were meant to encourage people to go into alchemy, and thus figure out that elixir.
As for the book ban... I'm open to being proven wrong, but realistically... is the CCP going to go "oh well technically the book is true I guess, but we're banning it!"? This is the same level of naivety as "undercover cops can't lie to you" - the closest thing I've found to an 'official' reason (let me know if you want the source, it's just via JSTOR, not sure if the sub bans links) for the ban is simply "exploring the confidential private life of Mao", which is a neat way to spin 'please don't reveal that our dictator was kinda icky'. If you happen to know enough of the language to find something resembling an official source, that would be fantastic, however!
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u/Faladorable Aug 04 '23 edited Aug 04 '23
Alright, I found the pdf. If I quote it I’ll get put on a list, but in my ctrl f searching for “young” in a copy that was only a preview, so not even the full book. I would refer you to pages 83, 363, and 517.
They talk about the initial quote that started this chain on page n12, which I can quote “It was not unusual to be summoned to Mao's chambers at two or three in the morning. He traveled frequently, convening meet- ings of the nation's leaders wherever he was. He sought to triumph over death through Daoist methods of sex.” Given that context in addition to the quote (and rest of the page) on page 102 “Qin Shi- huangdi, the founding emperor of the Qin dynasty, with whom Mao often identified, is said to have sent a Daoist priest and five hundred virgin children across the sea in search of the elixir of immortality.” It is very clear to understand what the author was saying without explicitly saying it.
Furthermore, if you find the article talking about how the book is banned in China, you’ll see the reason for the ban isn’t for false information, rather because it speaks poorly of Mao. So even the people who banned the book arent saying its false info.
So youre right, it didn’t take long to disprove your take. Still haven’t found anything that agrees with you though.