In China's more than 2,000 years of feudal history, it has experienced countless dynastic changes and regime changes. And with the fall of each dynasty, there will be the rise of another dynasty. In history, some of the new dynasties that overthrew the old dynastic regime were either conspiring to rebel and seize power after generations of accumulated power by the former dynasties, or some were peasant class uprisings that overthrew the old dynasties and established a new regime.
In the history of our country, there have been successful cases of peasant uprisings, and there have been several grassroots emperors, but this is only a very small number, and the real peasant uprisings are still less defeated and more victorious. The earliest peasant uprising in China was Qin Sheng Wuguang in the late Qin Dynasty, so why didn't there be a peasant uprising in China before the Qin Dynasty? This is because there is a "third party" between the state and the people.
Why is there a peasant uprising
What is the concept of a peasant uprising? The peasant revolt mainly refers to the peasants' resistance to the existing system. The occurrence of peasant uprisings is conditional, and not all peasants will have this "ambition" to revolt. The peasants who usually revolt we boil down to the peasants who have "lost their land". Of course, this is only a generalization, and in general refers to the peasants who have been cornered in various ways for various reasons.
The peasant revolts all occurred in the feudal dynasty, which was the embodiment of the fundamental contradiction between the dictatorial imperial power and the common class, and this was also the main contradiction of feudal society. Because of the class division of feudal society, the life of the peasants was very difficult, they had very little land, or even no land at all, and their lives were oppressed by the upper echelons. It is precisely because of this imbalance that the lives of the people at the bottom are sometimes lost, and peasant uprisings will arise.
But the causes of the peasant revolt were not limited to the land question, but sometimes there were other causes. For example, the imperial court levied tyranny, the government monopolized the economy, the government restricted the migration of the people or forced the people to migrate, the corruption of officials, and so on. These reasons can ultimately be summed up in four words - officials force the people to rebel. In addition to these, the causes of peasant uprisings may also be natural and man-made disasters, etc., but these are relatively rare cases.
The Two "Objects" of the Peasant Revolt
The cause of the peasant uprising, on the whole, was "the officials forcing the people to rebel." When the people have lost the basic guarantee of their lives because of the various "operations" of the government and it is difficult to survive, they naturally have an "anti" mentality. The two "targets" of the peasant uprising, namely "officials" and "people", that is, the imperial court and the people. This is a war between the imperial court and the people, and the cause of the war is also the contradiction between the court and the people's rights, and between the contradictions between these two sides, there can be no "third party".
The nature of the peasant revolt and the rebellion of the powerful ministers is completely different, the rebellion of the powerful people is to pursue power, and the peasant revolt is to survive, because survival is forced to rise up. Moreover, the failure rate of peasant uprisings is very high, and even if they are successful, the low-level peasants involved are usually dead. The peasant uprising is therefore something that the situation compels and "has to" be done.
Because of the nature of the peasant uprising, if there is a peasant uprising, it must be that the contradiction between the imperial court and the peasants is irreconcilable and can only erupt. Between the imperial court and the peasants, if any "third party" appears, it may lead to "room for turning" in contradictions, thus preventing the outbreak of uprisings. The reason why there was no peasant uprising before the Qin Dynasty was because there was a "third party" between the imperial court and the people.
The "third party" between the imperial court and the people
So who is the "third party" between the court and the people? In fact, this does not refer specifically to which side of the power or which person, but any factor that makes the court and the people not have a fierce contradiction. For example, during the Xia And Shang Zhou Dynasties, this "third party" refers to the clan system.
What kind of social form is the clan system? That is, everyone is divided in a clan way, people of the same clan live together, and form a small unit, distributing labor, but resources such as food are also reasonably distributed. Even if the same clan is "a family", everyone is more or less related to each other, resources are shared, there are few cases where the people are cornered and cannot survive, and naturally there will be no peasants who oppose the imperial court because of oppression.
In the Warring States period, there was the rudiment of "centralized power" later, and people had classes and lived under the rule of the monarch. But at this time, there was still a "third party" between the state and the people, and this "third party" could be considered to be other countries. Because the warring states rose up together, and the population at that time was not large, but there were more, so people's "way of life" was many. If a country is more brutal, people can easily "migrate" to other countries to live.
epilogue:
The essence of the peasant revolt is that the peasants, under the oppression of the imperial court, have to rebel against the current regime and the current system for the sake of their right to subsistence, which is the only choice under duress. The people at the bottom of feudal society are very difficult, and it is a blessing that we were born in the current era of equality for all and economic prosperity.
References: "Two-Level World Theory", "Peasant Revolt since the End of Qin"