Rumours as a source of evil has always bedevilled mankind. As early as the 18 th-century China , 14 Dec 1728 to be precise, General Yue Zhongqi concluding his report on an interrogation of a prisoner to Emperor Yongzheng reflected on the way rumours spread in general :
One person said something ,someone else misheard it and repeated it, someone heard the new version for the first time and believed it to be true.
A good recent example , Yue observed, was the rumours swirling around that the current emperor was a heavy drinker, … an initial statement by a senior official …that the emperor now found wine bad for his health, had been transformed by the rumour mill into the fact that the emperor drink immoderately.
-extract from `Treason by the book’ by Jonathan Spence 2001 Penguin edition page 79. An interesting read on the astonishing true story of a plot to overthrow the Manchurian Emperor in 1728. A lot of fascinating insight into the mind of a Confucian ruler.
Interesting! To say de least….