China's feudal society of more than 5,000 years has given birth to many dynasties, with different lengths and lengths, but none of them exceed 300 years.
Take the 3 longest dynasties, which lasted as follows:
1. Tang Dynasty, 618-907, 289 years in total;
2. Ming Dynasty, 1368-1644, 276 years in total;
3. Qing Dynasty, 1636-1912, a total of 267 years.
Not to mention the short ones, some dynasties have just been established, and before they are stable, they perish.
On the whole, the collapse of each dynasty mainly has the following factors:
1. Coups d'état, such as the seizure of power by the Foreign Prince;
2. Peasant uprisings, such as Liu Bang, Zhu Yuanzhang, Li Zicheng, etc.;
3. Foreign invasions, such as mongols, Jurchens, etc., taking advantage of the situation and establishing new ethnic minority courts;
4. Local power, the centralization of power is not strong, leading to the rise of local forces to subvert the central government, such as the Li Tang Uprising.
The main reasons why each dynasty is no more than 300 years old are as follows:
The first is the establishment of "illegal". The establishment of each dynasty has generally experienced bloody storms, and it has not been replaced by legal means such as democratic elections, which has laid the "bane" and "seed" for its future annihilation (replacement) by others. Whether it is a disgraceful coup d'état, or the robbery of the nomadic peoples in the north, or a peasant uprising, they have all experienced brutal killings, "the winner is the king, and the loser is the coward." That is, the complete "destruction" of the original system and rules has also brought huge losses to society, but this is the inevitable development of history. Because through legal change or improvement, it is no longer possible to save the "terminally ill society", and a new "system" must be established by reshuffling the cards.
The second is institutional factors. Before the Qin Dynasty, the "sub-feudal system" was implemented, in which Tianzi divided the land among the princes and nobles, and each fief was fully responsible for the governance of the area under his responsibility. For example, Zhou Tianzi is not responsible for the whole world, and the various problems that occur in the A fiefdom are the problems of A feudal lords, and there are unjust debts and masters, which have nothing to do with Zhou Tianzi. Due to the transformation of qin and later dynasties into centralized power and the implementation of the "county system", it led to unjust debts and masters, and all became the emperor's affairs. In the past, the Western Zhou Dynasty may have only opposed the rebellion of A vassals/B vassals/C vassals/D vassals, but now it is all the "fault" of the emperor. Therefore, the risk of rebellion or revolt against the central government is greatly increased, which leads to the failure of each dynasty for two or three hundred years. Of course, the advantage of this system is that the state's mobilization ability is super strong, not only can use the strength of the whole country to build the Great Wall to resist foreign invasions, but also build large-scale water conservancy projects and dredge rivers to prevent disasters, but its drawbacks are that it is easy to work and hurt the people and money, and the production efficiency is low.
The third is social factors. At the beginning of the establishment of each dynasty, social resources, land, wealth, etc. will be evenly distributed, everyone will be equal, and the gap between rich and poor will not be large. With the development, some people are lazy and lazy, some people are diligent and thrifty, and wealth is further concentrated in the hands of a small number of people, and the problem of "land annexation" will occur. Some people lose their land and can only "work" for the landlord. The gap between the rich and the poor is widening, land is increasingly concentrated in the hands of the "gentry", the power of landlords is growing, and the elite is "tax evasion and tax evasion". The central government's ability to control and control declined, its ability to collect taxes was insufficient, and its spending continued unabated. Some peasants have no land in their hands, no land to plant, and they cannot tolerate harsh taxes and miscellaneous taxes, and they are reduced to "displaced people", and their numbers are gradually increasing. When the number of displaced people exceeded more than 20% of the population, society became extremely turbulent, adding fuel to the fire of the peasant uprising, and the dynasty fell into crisis. At this time, history calls for the emergence of a new dynasty to replace the old dynasty, and the new dynasty can redistribute land to the landless displaced people, the displaced people are reduced, and the people are once again living and working in peace. Of course, during this period, some feudal dynasties may have some new policies, through the equalization of the field system, the prefectural military system, etc., to give land to displaced people, so as to avoid the occurrence of tragedies, but this can only be delayed, can not fundamentally solve the problem, so rarely escape the "new - old - new ..." "establish - break - establish ..." This law.
The fourth is the factor of "ruling officials." At the beginning of each dynasty, the emperor and his ministers were very wise. Because they have gone through arduous pioneering, they have laid the foundation and understood the sufferings of the world, so they can carefully govern, correctly lead, and cherish. And with the development of each dynasty, it will turn from prosperity to decline. In the later period, most of the emperors were "emperors", and the dprk was also a traitorous courtier, and the group of corrupt officials was huge, constantly scavenging the people's fat, causing the people to be indignant. The number of officials in the imperial court, the army, and other institutions was huge, the institutions were bloated, and the people's taxes were too high and miserable.
Fifth, climatic factors. After the establishment of the new dynasty, most of them will adopt the method of "resting and recuperating" and vigorously develop production, so the population will continue to grow, and the consumption of resources such as grain will continue to increase. And China's vast land, every other cycle, about less than 300 years, there will be a huge flood or drought, the Yellow River will also "break the mouth", often lead to the serious consequences of the grain harvest, if the superimposed local government disaster relief is not effective, the people are hungry and cold. The peasants are also dead, and if they do not, they are also dead, so there will be a large-scale peasant uprising, and suppression alone will not solve the fundamental problem. Once a society is in turmoil on a large scale, it will reduce the population by a lot. After the overthrow of the old dynasty, the relationship between population and resources of the new dynasty will be "dynamically balanced", and limited resources can support a certain number of people.
From the above, the demise of the old dynasty not only eliminated a certain number of people, including faint and huge bureaucracies, landlords who amassed wealth (relatives of the emperor and the state), unemployed "displaced people", etc., but also realized the reallocation of land and wealth resources, and reduced taxes and expenditures.