Recently, I have watched several series of Xiaosong's programs again, using my enthusiasm to put them together randomly, so as not to waste these good times.

Xiao Shuo and Xiao Song Qitan were mixed up here.

My memory may be biased, please forgive me.

Looking back in my mind, Xiaosong is really a good history teacher and geography teacher.

If you want to divide history into macro and micro, Chinese history and world history, then you can also divide the programs of several years into categories.

In terms of macro history, there is the "Concession and Revolution" series that tells the story of the inheritance and development of Chinese civilization; in terms of world history, there is the "Age of Discovery" that explains more fully how the integration of species and cultures from the new and old continents created today's West.

Micro history focuses on modern Chinese history.

From far to near, there are "Elegy of the Southern Ming Dynasty", "The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom", "Zhang Xun and His Beiyang" from the Beiyang period, "The Last Boss" from the Republic of China period, the Songhu Battle series during the Anti-Japanese War, the "Zhang Xueliang" series and "

"Taiwan" series, Zhang Zhizhong's daughter dialogue series, "Secrets of Awarding" after the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, etc., in general, there are breakthroughs in scale.

Nowadays, some programs have been officially removed from the shelves (there are still channels for those who want to watch), and some programs can see changes in language and attitude in the middle and later stages of the series, and they are obviously under the pressure of censorship.

Foreign history is mainly scattered in programs from various countries and regions. There are also separate series about World War I and World War II. However, they do not directly focus on the war itself. Instead, they tell the undercurrents before World War I and the unhealed trauma after World War II.

In the geographical part, the major developed countries and regions in the world are basically covered, and the third world countries in Africa and the Middle East are basically not covered.

Xiaosong Qitan also had the tendency to become a tourism promotion program.

In addition to history and geography, the rest of the main content includes Xiaosong’s personal and family experiences, and some of his insights and thoughts on the entertainment industry and music recording industry, such as the introduction of two Hollywood entertainment industry tycoons and Star Wars director Lucasfilm

industry groups, as well as Oscar awards season reviews, Cirque du Soleil, etc.

After that, stories like Monroe and the Freelancers, the role of Monopoly during World War II, and the espionage story of The Golden Heist...these are real "strange stories."

It mainly focuses on history, and I personally like this part the most.

So, let’s go a step further and ask, why do we study history? Or to put it more formally: What is the function of history?

Teacher Lu Shihao from National Taiwan University teaches courses such as "Qin Shihuang" and "Historical Records" on Coursera. Let's first see what he says.

Teacher Lu replied that learning history has at least three major uses: 1. To inspire wisdom; 2. To assess the situation; 3. To move people’s hearts.

Inspiring wisdom means that all history is like sand. You must learn to dig for gold from the sand. You must use history as your whetstone. When reading history, you can always read it as the protagonist. If it were you, what would you do? Assess the situation.

It means to understand the "time" you are in. There are rules to follow in the changes of time. Finding this law is the trend.

Learning to assess the situation means that you have to know what kind of environment you are in, what kind of wisdom to use, and what kind of preparations you should make in advance to know the future trend; touching people's hearts means to see the unchanging things in the changes.

The one thing that doesn’t change is human nature.

To change the world, start by changing people's hearts.

To do a great undertaking, it is impossible for one person to accomplish it. You must understand human nature, master it, and then move people's hearts so that they are willing to do things with you.

That said, history still has to be a mirror.

However, talk shows are not rigorous "history" after all, and Xiaosong's various views cannot be called professional academic research. Even most of the historical descriptions in the show are full of "joking" elements. This kind of joking, in "Elegy of the Southern Ming Dynasty"

》 reached its highest peak in the series.

Several episodes of the program were full of facial expressions and scenes of internal fighting in the palace. At the end of the episode, the program ended with the imaginary formation of an "all-star team of the Southern Ming Dynasty", pushing the joking atmosphere to a climax.

Xiaosong's mirror has reflected the facts in a strange and bizarre way.

However, one of the fascinating aspects of history is that a large number of details are lost as time goes by, and when future generations look at history, they need to use their own imagination and inference ability to reconcile with the incomplete information.

, giving birth to a new "history" of its own.

For some people, this process is accompanied by intellectual pleasure, which is "joking" in a general sense.

Back to the functional point of view, the exercise of imagination and inference in "joking" is more important and beneficial than just memorizing a few historical facts.

How to speak truthfully, how to consider comprehensively, how to connect scattered points to make them into a whole, these thoughts often constitute a person's bottom and core competitiveness.

Therefore, good "joking" can serve as a kind of demonstration, and this demonstration function can also be found in excellent novels.