Starting from Jia Yi's "Theory of Passing the Qin Dynasty" of the Han Dynasty, when discussing the reasons for the demise of the Qin Dynasty, most of the literati and politicians of later generations took the harshness of the Qin law and the lack of benevolent government as the reason, and when discussing whether the Qin law was harsh, it was inevitable to mention a person, this person was the martingale who changed the law for the Qin state, which was also the most important reason for the strength and prosperity of the Qin state, and there was no one.
The State of Qin began with Qin Xiaogong's reuse of the Shang Martingale Transformation Method, and through The King of Qin Huiwen, the King of Qin Wu, the King of Qin Zhaoxiang, the King of Qin Xiaowen, the King of Qin Zhuangxiang, and the King of Qin Shi Huang for six or seven generations, finally unified the chaotic world of disputes for hundreds of years in the hands of Qin Shi Huang and established a unified Qin Dynasty, and the basis for all this came from the Shang Martingale Transformation Law that made the Qin State stronger.
Qin Shi Huang unified the world
Sima Qian commented in the Chronicle of History that Shang Martingale was"
Talented mean people
This means that Shang Martin cruelly treated the people without grace, and the Warring States Policy also commented on Shang Martingale, which is what it says:
However, the deep widow is deeply unkind, and the ear of the strong obedience is especially strong.
The meaning of this is: but to be mean and to the people with little favor, but to make people obedient to him in a tough way. The implication is that Shang Martin used a tough method to make the people obedient, treated the people harshly without giving favors, this evaluation is similar to Sima Qian's evaluation, and the Warring States Policy also records that after Shang Martin was killed, the Qin people did not pity him.
So where is shang martingale's meanness and lack of grace embodied?
Qin Xiaogong reused the shang martingale and began to change the law
Liu Xiang of the Western Han Dynasty gave an example in the New Preface, which goes like this:
Seven hundred prisoners were imprisoned in one day, and the waters were exhausted.
The meaning of this is that Shang Martin punished the prisoners, and in one day he killed more than 700 people who broke the law by the Edge of the Weishui River, and the blood stained the Weishui Red. This looks really cruel, coupled with Qin Shi Huang's burning of books and pit Confucianism, cruel treatment of Confucian warlocks and harm to culture, the great construction of civil engineering to build the Great Wall, mausoleums, straight roads and abuse of people's power, the Qin Dynasty was also called tyrannical Qin by later dynasties.
If this is true, does it mean that the Qin Law is harsh? Since the Qin Law was so harsh, why could the people of the Qin State endure it? In the more than one hundred years from Qin Xiaogong to Qin Shi Huang, why did the people of the Qin State not come out to revolt and oppose the Qin State?
The uprising of Chen Sheng and Wu Guang was actually an uprising of the Six Kingdoms of the Kwantung against the Qin State
Some people say that after the death of Qin Shi Huang, did not the peasant revolt led by Chen Sheng and Wu Guang sweep the whole world and eventually overthrow the rule of the Qin Dynasty? That being said, this is only the surface, because
All the anti-Qin people in the world were the people of the original six eastern countries, and the people of the traditional sphere of influence of the Qin state (Guanzhong, Hanzhong, Ba, and Shu) did not rise up against the Qin state at all
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After the uprising of Chen Sheng and Wu Guang, Zhou Wen was sent to lead the rebel army to fight westward, and Zhou Wen led the army into Hangu Pass, but was soon defeated by a coalition of Zhang Handan's prisoners from Lishan and Guanzhong's disciples.
At least from the beginning of Qin Xiaogong's reuse of the Shang martingale transformation method, to the fall of the Qin Dynasty, the people in the traditional sphere of influence of the Qin state did not oppose the Qin state at all, on the contrary, they still supported it, and the profound reason behind it was the Shang martingale transformation method. Many people only see the surface of the martingale transformation method, but do not see the profound historical significance behind it.
Quotient martingale transformation method
The Shang martingale transformation method is the only thorough, profound and successful change method in the Warring States period, and the reason why it can be successful is that
The first reason for this is that the change of law supports the interests of the ordinary people of the Qin State, strikes at the interests of the hereditary nobles, and safeguards the interests of the monarch
The society before the Qin Dynasty, including Xia, Shang, Zhou (Spring and Autumn and Warring States), was aristocratic politics, and it was a hereditary system, it was birth that determined the fate of a person's life, not others, all the resources of society were concentrated in the hands of the nobility, the people had no upward passage, the entire social class was solidified, one was a commoner, ten thousand generations were the people, one was a nobleman, and the ten thousand generations were nobles, which was the class differentiation at that time.
The Shang martingale transformation method is to break this aristocratic hereditary system, break the class solidification, so that ordinary people can have a passage to rise to become nobles, although this channel is difficult, but there is still a possibility of realization, so that ordinary people can see the way to change their destiny, for example: military merit and knighthood system.
Military merit system
This is one of the contents of the Shang Martingale Transformation Law, which stipulates that qin soldiers, regardless of their status, can obtain a first-class knighthood as long as they kill the enemy's first rank on the battlefield, and the knighthood can be exempted from punishment when breaking the law, and they can also own land, slaves, and can also accumulate knighthoods to promote and rank among the aristocratic class.
In this way, the nobles and ordinary people are placed on the same starting line, not looking at the identity, only looking at the merits, whether it is nobles or commoners, as long as they behead the enemy, they have knighthoods, which has great enthusiasm and temptation for the people
After all, there are not many opportunities to turn over, and no one does not support it.
The reason why the Qin army is called the division of tigers and wolves is also this kind of incentive of the Shang martingale transformation method, the soldiers in the Warring States period are the people, the Qin army is the people of the Qin state, which greatly stimulates the enthusiasm of the people, human nature is so, everyone wants to get their own promotion channel, shang martingale uses the change method to bundle the interests of the people with the interests of the country, this practice is like the modern factory piece-based employees are much more motivated than the timekeeping system employees, is the same reason.
The content of the martingale transformation method
For another example, Shang Martin made everyone equal before the law, the Prince of Qin violated the law, and Shang Martin punished the Prince's teacher
The appeasement (tattooing on the face or forehead) punished the prince's teacher
Gongsun Jia
The prince of the Qin Dynasty violated the law, was sentenced by Shang Martin (cut off his nose), and even the nobles who broke the law were punished, and the ordinary people who violated the law would of course also be punished, which was equivalent to putting the nobles and the people on the same footing.
This practice of equality before the law is actually support for the people
If there is no law, when the people and the nobles have contradictions and disputes, the people are naturally in a weak position, belong to the bullied party, with the law is not the same, when the two sides have contradictions, only recognize the right and wrong, but do not recognize the identity, so invisibly raise the status of the people, so the people with low social status do not support the new law.
No matter which dynasty, the law will always protect the weak, because the strong do not need the law to protect
The strong (the nobility) have all kinds of privileges, political power, economic strength, are at the top of feudal society, and once there is no law, the weak (peasants) will be oppressed by the strong, which is obvious.
After the death of Qin Xiaogong, Shang Martin was framed, so he fled, he wanted to live in the hotel, the result was no voucher, the owner of the shop did not let him live, said that the law of the Shang Jun stipulates that there is no voucher to live in the hotel, it can be seen that in the minds of the people of the Qin State, the law has become the norm for maintaining society, easy not to violate, although the law is harsh, but it is not impossible for people to survive, when the people of the Qin State develop habits, they will deliberately abide by it, so the Qin State does not have a peasant uprising, it is the people of the Six Kingdoms who do not adapt to the Qin Law, during the Qin II period, the people who launched the peasant uprising were all the people of the Six Kingdoms. There are no Qin people.
The Qin army of the Tiger Wolf Division was composed of ordinary Qin people
For the nobles, they have land but do not personally cultivate land, rent land to farmers to cultivate, sit and collect rent, when the martingale changes the law, reward peasants to open up land, stipulate that new land or cultivate land to the state can also obtain knighthoods, which invisibly increases the enthusiasm of peasants to cultivate land, and is as important as the head of the enemy who fights wars and beheads the enemy.
Shang Martin also distributed the land of the state to the landless peasants and the displaced people from the six eastern countries, and the state provided the land, seeds and means of production, let these peasants rent and plant the state's land, and then gave the state the proportion of grain, which provided a guarantee for the peasants' livelihood, not only fed the peasants, but also gave the state grain income. How could he not support the State of Qin?
Shangmartin rewards farmers for farming
Going back to Liu Xiang's "New Preamble" that Shang Martin killed seven hundred people at one time at the edge of the WeiShui, it is estimated that whether this thing really exists or not, first of all, is it very cruel? Yes, this is indeed cruel, but you need to see that Shang Martin executed the offenders, Liu Xiang did not say that Shang Martin executed people who broke the law in one incident or people who accumulated many times to break the law, since it was the executed criminals, there is nothing wrong with this.
All the legal provisions in the Shang Martingale Transformation Law were promulgated in advance, and there was also the law of sitting together, one person violated the law, the whole family sat together, the Qin law was indeed harsh, but to look at the law from the perspective of that era, the law was two-sided, the chaotic world was originally to use heavy codes, and under the harsh laws, the Qin State could do without picking up the road, everyone obeyed the law, and the public order was good, could this be achieved in the six eastern countries? Of course not, there is no such foundation.
The people of the Qin army supported the Qin state
The State of Qin gradually became stronger under the Shang Martingale Transformation Law, and the people also saw the vital benefits and benefits brought by the Transformation Law to themselves.
When everyone in the Qin Kingdom is accustomed to changing the law, the people will naturally support the change of the law, and how can they oppose the Qin law and oppose the Qin State, which is why the old Qin people still support the Qin State from the beginning of Qin Xiaogong to the Qin Shi Huang, and even when the world was in chaos at the end of the Qin Dynasty and the Six Kingdoms peaked against Qin, the old Qin people still supported the Qin State
Not only the people of the Qin State supported the change of law, the king of the Qin State also supported the change of the law, although King Huiwen of Qin killed Shang Martin, he still maintained the various changes formulated by Shang Martin, because King Huiwen of Qin saw that the Change of Shang Martingale could make the Qin State strong, which was a real change, which also made the system of changing the law into the Qin State passed down, and finally unified the world in the hands of Qin Shi Huang.