Throughout history, in China and abroad, newly established dynasties had always been eager to revise the histories of their predecessors, with very obvious intentions.
Among scholars, a saying was also popular: never read a history of a former dynasty compiled by the dynasty that succeeded it.
Some of its contents were simply too far removed from the truth.
Take Qin Shi Huang, whom the Han dynasty and the former nobility of the seven states had collectively smeared as cruel and inhumane. Or Xiang Yu, who had been portrayed as a mindless brute.
When Shawn exchanged letters with Grindelwald, who was posing as an ordinary wizard, they had discussed these issues in considerable depth.
Judging whether someone was good or bad based on fragments of information was hardly objective.
In 1945, after Grindelwald had been "defeated" by Dumbledore, the International Confederation of Wizards had passed its "final verdict" on him.
After restricting access to much of the relevant material, the Confederation had given him only a passing mention in a few history books.
Grindelwald was a power-hungry man whose ambition bordered on ruthless cruelty. He had launched the utterly immoral First Wizarding War and committed countless crimes.
The account was simple, with neither context nor explanation.
But the Confederation had been forced to do this, because the doctrine of wizard supremacy Grindelwald preached was far too seductive.
Wizards under sixty could hardly imagine those turbulent years of several decades ago.
Now, however, some of the elderly wizards in the conference hall had read the partially declassified material on Grindelwald in their hands.
Besides lamenting how age had caught up with them, they were shocked and suspicious.
They were shocked that Grindelwald's wizarding world war had carried this additional purpose.
And they were suspicious that the Confederation intended to rehabilitate him.
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