The rebuttal: "Every time you kill a dog, you will be a scholar." The original intention is to satirize a scholar who is familiar with Confucian classics and will cultivate his morality and rule the country, but he is not as good as a butcher with little knowledge in morality. This sentence has the background of allusions of the times, so it is not universal to judge the moral decay of scholars by deviating from the facts and generalizing the whole.

source: Ming? Cao Xuequan couplets

Allusions:

According to legend, in the Ming Dynasty, some royal clan members were arrogant and liked to keep fighting dogs for court gambling and entertainment. Domestic slaves also relied on themselves as slaves of the royal family to be arrogant and not only oppress the people. Both the people and the government dare to be angry and dare not speak. One day, the minions of the imperial family were so idle that they let out fighting dogs and let them bite passers-by at will. A scholar couldn't run as fast as he could and threw himself on the ground. At this time, a pig killer rushed out of the roadside, chopped off the dog's head and saved the scholar.

The minions of the imperial family tied up the pig killer and sent him to the government with the dead dog, asking the government to sentence him to death and pay the dog for his life. Cao Xuequan, not afraid of royalty, acquitted the butcher and compensated the scholar for medical expenses. The owner of the vicious dog bullied the scholar, changed his confession and said that the dog was a good friend to play with him, and sued the butcher for killing the dog. Cao Xuequan Yard angrily denounced the scholar as a friend, which was unnatural, and prepared to beat the scholar's staff 3 times. The scholar was scared to tell the truth.

Extended information:

Background of the work:

This proverb was originally a couplet written by Cao Xuequan in the Ming Dynasty. When he tried a case, he felt it because he saw the cold and warm human nature and the cold world. Later, this story was circulated among the people forever, and the reason behind it was thought-provoking.

Appreciation and enlightenment of works:

From an objective point of view, this sentence is somewhat extreme, and all the scholars are heart breaker, and it doesn't necessarily mean that people without knowledge and culture take righteousness first.

But from another point of view, it is precisely because they have never read a book that they often consider problems simply and sincerely. Those chivalrous men who shout when they meet an injustice are all people of temperament and never think too much. And those who read more books will inevitably think twice before acting, so they won't draw out their swords to help each other on impulse.