Familiarity may not be true.
There are many things that you are regularly exposed to and that you feel familiar to you. But once you compare it to the truth, you will find that you don't really understand. There is a lot of knowledge that is known but not really known under the lights, including liberal arts, science, and engineering. I plan to do a popular science series, popular science some black knowledge under the lights.
As a digression, as a college teacher I say a common light under the black, in my experience, no parent knows their child, although almost all parents think it is very familiar with their children.
We all know that ancient Chinese society was a feudal autocratic state, but do you know what is "feudal autocracy"? I search with various search engines, including CNKI, which may be that my search level is limited, and I really haven't found anyone who can clearly explain this seemingly uncomplicated problem.
What is "feudal despotism"? Not to mention laymen, even scholars who specialize in history, and even popular university students who enjoy high prestige, are mistaken. I have heard several well-known Universities in China say the wrong thing in professional lectures, and the specific names will not be said, and I guess they will be very embarrassed to see this video. Sorry, I have absolutely no intention of offending!
It's no wonder these college students get this term wrong. Because the term itself is strange. Feudalism refers to the monarch giving land to clans and meritorious servants and allowing them to establish a state on this land. The Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period in China is a typical feudal system, with a son of heaven and countless kings who have control over the place below.
An authoritarian system refers to a state system in which the supreme ruler holds state power alone and exercises arbitrary rule. China's Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties were all such political systems, there was an emperor, the local lack of kings with actual power, and the localities mainly practiced the county system.
Some scholars speculate that the emergence of the term "feudal autocracy" is caused by translation errors by modern Chinese scholars. Because feudalism and despotism, like black and white, are a pair of antonyms. Despotism cannot be feudal, and feudalism cannot be despotic, so when "feudal despotism" describes the country with adjectives as the final word, it is as incomprehensible as if you said that the color of a thing is black and white.
So what is feudal despotism? Why is ancient Chinese society a feudal and authoritarian state?
The use of "feudal despotism" to describe ancient Chinese society is very expressive. These four words very accurately express the characteristics of ancient Chinese society. "Feudal" here refers to the feudal system in China's overall social structure, and "autocracy" here refers to the bureaucratic system and mode of operation as autocracy. Although feudal autocracy is a pair of antonyms, the combination of a pair of antonyms that seem inconceivable can very accurately express the characteristics of ancient Chinese society.
In a nutshell, ancient Chinese society was a large feudal society bred by the economic foundation of small peasants. In this large feudal society, because of many factors, an authoritarian bureaucracy with Chinese characteristics was born.
Chinese is full of misunderstandings about the history of Europe, and even many scholars of humanities and social sciences have a great misunderstanding of Europe. In terms of economic basis, compared with ancient Europe and China, the social nature of the great feudalism is basically the same. The peasants in China are roughly the same as those in Europe.
Chinese easily understand the kings of Europe as the emperors of China. The basic unit of Chinese rule was the landlord, and Europe was the king. The kings, princes, and princesses in ancient European folk tales against China are the landlords, landlords' wives, and landlords' daughters. Ancient Europe lacked the same role as Chinese emperors. The emperors of ancient Europe were far less able to control the country than in China, and the emperors of Europe were equivalent to the great and powerful landlords of China, and the occasional emperors in Europe, such as Catherine the Great, were analogous to the Emperors of China.
Because the periods are very different, it can be roughly summed up in the following formula: the emperor of China is equal to the emperor of Europe; the powerful landlord of China is equal to the emperor of Europe; the landlord of China is equal to the king of Europe; and the peasant of China is equal to the peasant of Europe.
Many Chinese scholars understand the kings of Europe according to the Chinese emperors, causing many scholars to have a major misunderstanding of ancient European society. For example, many jurists are most willing to give the example, "I have a broken house, the wind can come in, the rain can come in, the king can't come in." These jurists are mistaken in arguing that "all people are equal before the law" or "the spirit of the rule of law."
Because this sentence translates to Chinese not "I have a broken house, the wind can come in, the rain can come in, but the emperor can't come in", but "I have a broken house, the wind can come in, the rain can come in, but the landlord can't come in." "Nonsense, of course, the ancient Chinese landlords could not enter the peasants' houses casually.
Chinese society is a feudal system. The basic social units of China were made up of countless large and small feudal landlords. Every place and even the central government is controlled by the landlords. Landlords at all levels are the link between imperial power and peasantry, and there is a saying in ancient China called "imperial power does not go to the countryside." The emperor's state power did not control the peasants at all, but was administered by landlords at all levels, large and small. The emperor could manage officials, he could manage individual landlords, but in Chinese society as a whole, the emperor did not want to or be able to manage Chinese society, and the actual manager was still the landlord.
Whether it is Chinese society or European society, as long as it is a small-scale peasant economy, the highest ruler must indirectly rule over the entire people, because in a small-scale peasant society, if the supreme ruler directly rules the basic people, then the cost of rule will be unimaginably high, so the supreme ruler can only give the ruling power to the landlords at all levels for management. In European history, due to many factors, there was a lack of a strong bureaucracy, so there were few people like the Chinese emperor. Only under some yin and yang errors, there are occasionally a few emperors.
It was normal for ancient Chinese emperors to outsource rule over the peasantry to landlords, and in individual periods strong emperors could also emerge, or strong state policies could be formulated, and the whole empire could be said as one might think. But this emperor must first strike at the big landlords and the mighty. The emperor first eliminated the middlemen of the power of the big landlords and the powerful, and the powerful emperor could control the whole country, but this situation was not the mainstream.
The real controllers of local political economy and even social order are actually landlords at all levels. Chinese film and television dramas often have such a bridge, that is, men and women stealing love, and being judged by local landlords on the basis of ethnicity in the ancestral hall. The result of the punishment is often to soak the pig cage, that is, to put the men and women who steal in the bamboo cage and throw them into the water to drown. This apparent crime of intentional homicide was perfectly legal and valid in ancient times. Murderers are not held criminally responsible.
To add, don't say that in ancient Chinese society, that is, during the period of the National Government, the law also clearly stipulates that the recognition of "township covenants" to a certain extent is recognized. The station chief in "Latent" said: "The chairman of the committee cannot take care of the affairs of the landlords and peasants. This sentence is not empty words. At that time, China was a small-scale peasant economy, and although the Nationalist government had the system and prototype of a modern state, it could not be avoided, and the power of the central government was ineffective against the grass-roots peasants.
The so-called autocracy, which you should be very familiar with, is the emperor's golden words. Officials were required to obey the emperor's demands. The emperor could decide on the promotion and dismissal of officials, and the emperor could even kill officials. The authoritarian system in ancient China is very familiar to everyone and will not be described in detail here.
This great feudal system in China and abroad is related to the economic basis of the time, because it was a small peasant economy at that time, no matter how the people in power planned, because the cost of domination and the low technology of rule, it must be this landlord as a power broker to control the whole country.
Everyone understands the feudal system of ancient society, you can see Mr. Lu Xun's "A Q Zheng Biography", although it was the last year of the Qing Dynasty to the beginning of the Republic of China, the whole book still truly maintained the relationship between peasants and landlords under china's feudal system. Laoye Zhao was a large local landlord, and all the peasants in the local area were actually controlled by Laoye Zhao, and the Zhao family was equivalent to the actual ruler of the entire region.
For Ah Q, although Lu Xun has a critical attitude, the real situation is because of their cognitive ability, and they simply do not have the ability to change their situation.
The book "The True Biography of Ah Q" can be seen from the perspective of human nature and from the perspective of Chinese history. Zhao Laoye's son Keju won the meritorious name, but the general peasants were illiterate and could not be literate. Therefore, the so-called fair examination is actually completely unfair in the initial stage. The imperial examination is a ladder for the landlord class to rise, not a ladder for the peasants.
Another very interesting detail in "The True Biography of Ah Q" is when the revolutionary party came. Zhao Laoye's family, county magistrates, and other cadres have turned into the rulers of the new regime.
Of course, from the perspective of human nature, "The True Biography of A Q" is very worth reading, but the relevant content is too much to introduce, and I will not repeat it.
Finally, I look at the effect, and if you are interested, I dissect a family to illustrate what China under feudalism was like. Maybe the real situation in ancient times will surprise everyone, because it is very different from film and television works. Ming people don't say secret words, you have read it, you can not like, do not pay attention, but trouble point a recommendation.
I am a college teacher, and I am willing to share it with you on topics such as education. Images from the Internet, infringement notice. This article is original and any form of infringement is prohibited.