Qin's greatest achievement in Chinese culture should be the unified regulation, in the last issue we introduced the existence of Qin's jade is not very much, I personally collected some of Qin's jasper maids, the specific practical use is not very clear, but this is also a system of unique jade in Qin, compared to some other management measures in Qin, the development of jade can be ignored, but the continuation of culture has an irreplaceable role.
If we want to say that qin's greatest influence on China's jade culture is still to start from the "jade seal", after all, since the Qin, the jade seal has become a symbol of whether a country leader is a formal "true dragon heavenly son", did not get the "jade seal", even if it won the world, it was also reduced to a "usurper and rebellion" of the world, and could not be convinced by everyone.
About the first emperor jade seal and the national jade seal article, I have written many times, here will not repeat, interested in looking at the previously written text, yesterday also briefly repeated the reason, today we focus on the introduction is not the jade seal, but the unified regulation of the Qin dynasty, which is the foundation laid by the Han Dynasty, but also the starting point of the Condensation of Chinese culture, so from this point of view to interpret the Qin Shi Mingyue, you can truly understand the formation system of the Central Plains culture of the Han Dynasty.
The unification of the Qin state is based on the annexation and war of the other six countries, but because the warring states of the seven heroes of the union for more than 250 years, the so-called countries, that is, the provinces we now look at the regional culture, customs are different, affected by the environment and the original tribal cultural customs, there are great differences between countries in the use of writing, currency, weights and measures, etc. The Qin Emperor found this problem after the unification of the six countries, in order to strengthen the rule and management, maintain the unified authority of the central government. The Shi Huang Plan began to implement specific measures to unify the written language, currency, and weights and measures.
We know that since the production of Chinese characters, from the early hieroglyphic symbols to the oracle bone, the golden stone script, and then to the final script, after a long period of development and evolution, to the Spring and Autumn Warring States period, with the local economic and social turmoil and rapid changes, the shape and pronunciation of local characters in various regions have begun to develop differently, and many characters have appeared the phenomenon of "speech is different, character is different". This can be understood by looking at the scripts of Various European countries now; at the end of the Warring States period, even the same script appeared, and different countries and regions often wrote differently.
One of the most typical character examples is the many glyphs of "horse", which has 3 ways of writing in the State of Qi, and there are two other ways of writing in the State of Chu and the State of Yan, also in Korea, the State of Zhao, and the State of Wei, and there are two different ways to write this horse character.
The diversification of writing was the representative of the local culture of the princely states at that time, and there was a reason for its existence alone, but after unification, the diversity of writing was not only detrimental to the development of culture and exchanges between people everywhere, but also caused great difficulties to the various instructions, documents, archives, reading and dissemination of the Qin Dynasty.
The source of this situation should benefit from the result of "a hundred flowers blooming and a hundred schools of thought contending", which has indeed played a great role in the economic development and cultural revitalization of various princes, but after the unification of the Great One into the Qin, the drawbacks of exchange and management have gradually emerged.
Qin Shi Huang is the most wronged king in history, his merits are still not counted, but his name has never been able to get rid of, he did not kill a civilian official in his life, but was accused by posterity of being the initiator of the "book burning pit Confucianism", in 221 BC, he accepted Li Si's suggestion, issued an edict of "book with text", stipulating that in the future the language of all countries should be managed, with the Qin State Xiao seal as a unified book style, and the records of those who are different from the small seal are all abolished, so as to burn a large number of local books and historical records, which is also the most controversial measure of his rule.
However, from the perspective of the management means at that time, in order to promote the small seal characters in other six countries, the first emperor specially ordered Li Si, Zhao Gao, and Hu Wujing to use the small seal books to copy the "Lack of Jie", "Ye Calendar" and "Erudite" 3 articles, passing them to various countries as a model of writing, which can also be described as a well-intentioned move.
And the so-called pit Confucianism also has different versions, mainly because the jianghu warlocks at that time made a living from alchemy, and sought the elixir of immortality for the first emperor, but the elixir was difficult to find, and the emperor's life could not be violated, so there were grumbling words, combining immortality with the governing nature of benevolence and benevolence, it seemed that it was difficult to find a note for the elixir of immortality, but it also completely annoyed the first emperor, and finally arrested the city, and buried the 466 jianghu warlocks captured alive, leaving this ancient infamy.
But objectively speaking, it is precisely because of the unified writing of Qin Shi Huang that it is conducive to the harmonious development and cultural unity of our multi-ethnic country, and from a certain point of view, it is far beyond the threat of force of the Qin state, from the beginning of the Qin, the structure of Chinese characters is basically fixed, and only after two thousand years, our children can praise the literary essence left by the old ancestors two thousand years ago, and we can proudly narrate to the world that the five thousand years of culture have not been interrupted.
In addition to the text, the Spring and Autumn Warring States period is a period of rapid development of China's commodity economy, the economic development of the princely states is different, the coinage is often different, we can now see the empty first cloth, knife coins and other different editions, although the currency version is quite different, but the copper currency has become the main variety in the circulation field at that time, the national strength of the princely states is different, there are differences in the management system, resulting in the minted copper coins in the shape, size, weight and unit of calculation but there are great differences.
However, due to the non-unification of the currency system, it will seriously hinder the circulation of commodities in various places and the revenue and expenditure of the unified state's finances.
Therefore, after the unification of the Seven Kingdoms of Qin, the First Emperor ordered the beginning of the unification of the national currency, mainly taking three measures, the first step is to confiscate the right to mint coins to the state, strictly prohibit local and private coinage, for those who mint coins privately, not only confiscate the coins they mint, but also arrest and severely punish those who mint coins privately; the second step, clearly stipulate the types of currency minted. The legal tender of the Qin Dynasty was divided into gold and copper coins with the help of the Guan Zhongzhu jade theory of the Warring States period, and the pearl jade was excluded from the category of currency transactions, and gold was designated as the upper coin, and the copper coin belonged to the lower coin.
The copper coin also changed the knife and shovel shape system of various countries, unified into a circular square hole coin, which was cast with the words "half two", each coin weighed twelve baht, and the third step was to abolish the cloth coins, knife coins, copper shells and other currencies used in the original six countries, and it was not allowed to use turtle shells, pearls, silver tin and so on as currency.
Qin Shi Huang unified the country, the earliest from the beginning of the currency, to eliminate the chaotic situation of the currency system between the various princely states and regions, to end the chaotic state of money, the Qin Dynasty began to formulate the circular square hole money, but also became the basic form of the currency of China's feudal society, which was used by the generations of later dynasties for more than two thousand years.
Finally, before the unification of the Qin Dynasty, the weights and measures of the various princely states were also very chaotic, and the units of measurement were not uniform.
In terms of length alone, there are several kinds of copper rulers that have been handed down from generation to generation, such as archaeological excavations to learn that the length of the copper rulers excavated in the Chu state of Changsha is 22.7 cm and 22.3 cm respectively; the length of the Chu copper ruler excavated in the Warring States Tomb in Shou County, Anhui Province is 22.5 cm; and the copper ruler excavated in Luoyang Jincun is 22.1 cm long.
At the same time, the length of 1 foot was as much as 0.6 cm apart. In terms of the measurement system, the differences between the various princely states are even greater, for example, since the Tian clan, the State of Qi has implemented the units of sheng, bean, deng, and seed, that is, "five liters are beans, each of which is five, with dengyu kettle and ten kettles as the seed.".
The unit of measurement of the State of Wei was in units of Benefit, Dou, and Huo, which was also different from other princely states.
As for the balances, there is more confusion, and the use of units and names varies greatly from place to place.
For example, at that time, the State of Chu was an economic power, and their weighing instrument was the balance weight, in baht, two, and jin; while the measurement unit of the Zhao State was mainly based on ysyoke and yoke; in the Eastern Zhou and Western Zhou dynasties, the records were based on Fu and Sheng.
Weights and measures were an important means of measuring economic transactions, and they were also indispensable for barter trade and commodity exchange between princely states at that time, and they were also an important standard basis for the state to collect taxes.
After Qin annexed the Six Kingdoms, Qin Shi Huang ordered that the weights and measures of the Qin State be used as the standard to gradually unify the weights and measures of the other six kingdoms. This physical object is also a physical proof of archaeological discoveries, and the specific measure is to engrave the full text of the edict of unified weights and measures on the newly made weights and measures standards. On the one hand, this can not only provide more standard instruments, but also publicize the merits of Qin Shi Huang on the other hand.
After the unification, the degree system of the Qin Dynasty began to take the inches, rulers, zhangs, and leads as the units, and took the ten as the carry system; the measurement system was based on the units of gong, he, liter, bucket, and barrel (斛), which was also decimal; the balance system was based on baht, two, jin, jun, and stone as the units, and the carry was 24 baht for 1 two, 16 two for one pound, 30 pounds for 1 jun, and 4 jun for 1 stone.
Writing, currency, weights and measures, including the later unification of the same track, not only broke the chaotic use system between the princes, many also became the primary benchmark for the continuation of the millennium feudal rule, this unification, not only in the size and territory of the land, more embodied in the basic elements practical with the people's livelihood, occupies an important position in the history of China's development, has become an important foundation for maintaining the unity of China's feudal state, and is also an important gene for the continuation and inheritance of Chinese culture.