"Compendium of Materia Medica" first recorded how to drink coffee? Did Zheng He's treasure ships on his voyages to the West already use steam engines? At first glance, these claims may sound absurd, but on some short video platforms, they are packaged as "new historical discoveries" that can overturn textbooks.
These so-called "new discoveries" and "ironclad evidence" presented in videos often fail to withstand scrutiny even with the most basic literature retrieval and historical common sense. How was the absurd "pseudo-historical theory" concocted? What kind of gray interest chain is hidden behind this to select audiences and sell courses and products?
On the short video platform, there are all kinds of pseudo-historical videos under the banner of "subverting cognition": some people claim that the ancient Egyptian pyramids were made of modern concrete, some people claim with certainty that Volume 18234 of the Ming Dynasty's "Yongle Dadian" records the use of "steam turbines" on Zheng He's treasure ships, and some bloggers claim that the earliest book recording coffee in human history is the "Compendium of Materia Medica".
Pseudo-historical bloggers claim that it is easy to search online for the statement in the "Compendium of Materia Medica" that coffee should be mixed with milk or add sugar. He also said that after the "Compendium of Materia Medica" was spread to Europe, Europe began to plant coffee on a large scale; with coffee, the habit of boiling hot water passed from China.
In the face of endless false history rumors on the Internet, popular science writer Hesenberg recently produced multiple short videos of "Elbow Attack on False History" to refute the rumors one by one. He found that many seemingly sound "ironclad evidences from ancient books" could be revealed with just a basic full-text search.
Hesenborg: This rumor can be easily clarified. Searching for the keyword "coffee" in the entire "Compendium of Materia Medica" yielded no results. Not only in the Ming Dynasty, but also in the Qing Dynasty, the word "coffee" for coffee could not be found in the "Kangxi Dictionary". Coffee really entered China in the middle and late Qing Dynasty.
In addition to fabricating ancient books out of thin air, another type of pseudo-historical theory is to "make a fuss" out of basic common sense in middle school textbooks.
Pseudo-history blogger: The place name annotations in the 2026 People’s Education Edition history textbook have changed. Lesson 12 reads: Today’s Beijing was called Nanjing in history, and Kaifeng in today’s Henan Province was called Tokyo in history. The Qin Dynasty that often appears in ancient history is directly labeled as the Roman Empire in this textbook. This means that the historical territory has been deliberately changed and reduced.
Such ridiculous textbook interpretations, secretly changing concepts, taking quotes out of context, and using textbooks as a cover may not only confuse students but also mislead the majority of netizens.
Hesenbao: One of the illustrations on one page is about the Song and Liao Dynasties. At that time, most of the land of the Liao Kingdom was in the north. Today's Beijing was designated as "Nanjing Xijin Prefecture" at that time; Kaifeng and Bianliang were called "Tokyo" during the Northern Song Dynasty; Rome was called "Da Qin", which is recorded in the "Book of the Later Han". These are common sense issues, but some pseudo-history bloggers regard them as hiding a huge conspiracy. Such a video full of errors and omissions, with right and wrong reversed, can have more than a thousand likes on the video account.
Yuan Lanfeng, deputy director of the Department of Science and Technology Communication at the University of Science and Technology of China, has been refuting pseudo-historical theories on the Internet for a long time. He also clearly feels that this trend has experienced dramatic expansion and radicalization in the past ten years.
Yuan Lanfeng: In 2015, the common saying was that ancient Chinese science and technology were very advanced. At that time, there was no such thing as attributing all foreign achievements to China. Nowadays, once there is content that does not meet the expectations of such people, they usually have two approaches: one is to say that it is false and fake history, and the other is to blame a certain person for the reason. This type of content only outputs emotions and has no regard for authenticity.
How can a piece of historical material with questionable origin be packaged into a video that seems to have solid evidence? Pseudo-historical theories can invent "history" one after another. Who is fueling the fire? How should we identify these historical rumors?
Li Shu, dean of the School of Information and Communication at Communication University of China, noticed that this kind of content is often packaged according to similar steps - bypassing thinking and giving answers directly.
Li Shu: This kind of content is first based on a real fragment. For example, a real archaeological scene is shown at the beginning, and it is often followed by wrong conclusions that have no substantial relationship with it. Then, sound and editing are used to bypass thinking, and with unequivocal subtitles such as "Science has confirmed", the form is formed. A complete logical closed loop; coupled with fast pictures and full narration, it does not give the audience any space to stop and think and ask for evidence; and finally uses unfalsifiable statements to seal off the escape route. Any documents or cultural relics that conflict with its conclusion will be excused with the sentence "forgery by later generations".
Do the producers themselves really believe the statements that go against common sense? Hesenborg found that many bloggers who advocate pseudo-historical theory are actually "pretending to be confused" - some people quoted Aristotle's academic views normally in the books they published in the early years, but in front of the camera they shouted "Aristotle doesn't exist at all" to cater to their emotions. In this traffic business, exaggerated pseudo-historical remarks are often just a "sieve" used to filter audiences and achieve high conversion and monetization.
Hesenberg: The vast majority of pseudo-history bloggers themselves do not believe in pseudo-history theory. Some people directly bring goods, hang so-called books or daily necessities in the store, and turn it into a business; others gather these people first and then sell classes to them. They use extremely anti-intellectual content to “purify” their audience.
Hesenberg told reporters that at first he just accidentally came across a certain pseudo-historical video. In order to fully refute the absurd logic in it, he had to watch the entire video patiently. Unexpectedly, it was this action of "finishing the video" that caused him to fall into the recommendation vortex of the platform algorithm.
Hesenberg: Once I finish watching it, the viewing time will make the algorithm mistakenly think that I like this kind of content, and then it will keep pushing it. After reading a pseudo-historical blogger, I was then recommended by seven or eight, and finally dozens of others, endlessly.
Gan Lihao, a professor of communication at East China Normal University, believes that such pseudo-historical content was only circulated in a specific small circle in the early years. However, in the algorithmic era, novel pseudo-historical theories have been further amplified due to their own traffic.
Gan Lihao: The algorithm recommendation mechanism does not care whether the content is authentic. The platform only cares about the number of completions, comments, likes, forwarding and stay time of the video. If the video attracts people's attention and has a high number of reposts, the producer will get a lot of traffic, and this traffic will be profitable.
Li Shu believes that the harm caused by the spread of pseudo-history goes far beyond the misunderstanding of a few specific historical common sense, and may even affect the establishment of historical materialism among the young generation.
Li Shu: The harm of this kind of content does not lie in the specific period of history that is wrong, but in cultivating a cognitive habit that can be believed without evidence, which weakens society's ability to think logically as a whole. It endangers cultural security and creates conflicts in circles, and some of its extreme cognitions have distinct characteristics of historical nihilism. Especially for teenagers whose historical understanding is forming, it is very easy to mislead them and affect the establishment of historical materialism of the younger generation.
For platforms, disputes should not be regarded as traffic, but should be moved forward to identify and review.
Li Shu: The platform must manage the entrance well and not treat disputes as traffic. There is a very real problem in the supervision of fake historical content: there are no parties involved in historical content. Unlike reputation infringement, where there are specific victims who can complain, it is difficult for the platform to handle the reports based on the reports. Therefore, the platform cannot wait for reports before taking action; it must move the review threshold forward. For content that lacks reliable historical data support and is centered on concealing the truth, we must consciously and proactively reduce the weight of recommendations instead of waiting for it to spread widely before deleting or limiting its flow.
Reporters丨Ren Mengyan, Ma Jingyu, Wang Dianjia, Wang Li
