Pan Yue, deputy director of the United Front Work Department of the CPC Central Committee, published "Comparison of the Root Nature of Chinese and Western Civilizations"
Source: Prosperous Reading
WeChat platform editor: Zhou Yue
◎Introduction
"The diversity of different civilizations, systems and paths, as well as exchanges and mutual learning, can provide a powerful impetus for the progress of human society." Faced with unprecedented changes in a century, China and the West are once again at the crossroads of understanding each other. Comrade Pan Yue intercepted the three historical periods in the history of the development of Chinese and Western civilizations, namely "Warring States and Greece," "Qin and Han and Rome," and "Wuhu Entering China and barbarian invasion," and analyzed and compared the roots of Chinese and Western civilizations from the perspective of civilization, political system, and nationality, sketched the historical context, started with the genes of the bottom culture, and deciphered the logic of civilization. Many experts and scholars have written articles to comment on it, and the 28 wonderful reviews in the book can further expand the vision of the comparison of Chinese and Western civilizations, and is also the starting point of civilization dialogue. At the level of coexistence and dialogue between tradition and modernity and civilization, this book excavates the respective "ancient values" of China and the West in order to achieve the grand goal of "opening up a short path for the mutual integration and mutual learning of all ancient civilizations"; it is of great significance to the exchange and dialogue between Chinese and Western civilizations to study the differences between the Western paths from the root of civilization, enhance cultural self-confidence with historical self-confidence, and strengthen theoretical, institutional and road self-confidence with cultural self-confidence.
◎Author Profile
Pan Yue, Ph.D. in History. He once served as deputy director of the Economic System Reform Office of the State Council, vice minister of environmental protection, secretary of the party group and first vice president of the Central Socialist College. He is currently the deputy director of the United Front Work Department of the CPC Central Committee and the director of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council.
◎Editor's recommendation
★ "The white-headed green shirt picked up the old pen, and the red heart was still worried about the peace. After twenty years, the literati Pan Yue has produced new works, outlining the historical context, starting from the bottom of the cultural gene, deciphering the logic of civilization, and expressing the feelings of the family and the country.
★ Papandreou, Martin Jacques and other dignitaries and scholars recommended how Pan Yue used classical civilization dialogue to illuminate the future of the community of human destiny.
★The 27 experts and scholars spoke freely, talked about the roots of China and the West, commented on the gains and losses of comparison, and opened a dialogue of civilizations.
★More than 70 exquisite pictures reproduce the relics of civilization and witness cultural exchanges
★ The design is solemn, the typesetting is comfortable, the printing is exquisite, and the paper is exquisite.
◎ Celebrity recommendation
As Pan Yue said, "Only a civilization that knows how to reflect, continuously tolerate, harmoniously coexist, and learn from each other can be truly sustainable and sustainable" - this is the common wisdom of Chinese civilization and Greek civilization, and it is also the wisdom urgently needed in the world today. In the face of global challenges, we need to unite, learn from each other and focus on shared values more than ever. Pan Yue's writings have made an important contribution to the dialogue between Eastern and Western civilizations, and can lead us to a world where ideas are exchanged, just like being in the city square where the ancient Greeks gathered, helping us to reach consensus through communication, enrich each other through debate, and work together to create a future.
— Former Prime Minister of Greece, Giorgio Papandreou
Pan Yue's works are written for our time. In the book, he presents the very different historical trajectories of Central Europe over the past two thousand years, as well as the historical roots that have given rise to the very different social forms that exist today. We need not regret this, but rejoice, because it proves how rich human history, human experience, is. The recognition of history and the resulting respect for differences enable a new type of Chinese-Western creative dialogue based on mutual respect and understanding. I highly recommend this book. The fundamental problem in the West is its lack of understanding of China, or even how to understand it, and the ideas in this book are extremely instructive.
Martin Jacques, Senior Research Fellow in Political Science and International Relations, University of Cambridge, UK
◎ Book catalog
Imprint
Part I: Warring States and Greece
Chapter 1 Warring States
Section 1: A Hundred Schools of Thought Contend
Section 2: The GreatEst Achievements
Section 3: Eclecticism
Section 4: Re-acquaintance with Xunzi
Chapter II Greece
Verse 1: The Cry of Isocrates
Section 2: Aristotle's Response
Section 3: The Entanglement of Freedom and Division
Section 4: The Pursuit of Order and Unity
Section 5: The Return path of closure and openness
Section 6: Differences between Possession and Governance
Conclusion
Section 1: The Master's Rehabilitation
Section 2: The Restoration of Civilization
Attached: Comment 1
Commentary on Warring States and Greece: Thriving in Diversity ([plus] Belltanin)/
Discovering and Modernizing Confucian Tradition (Yao Yang)
From the European Renaissance to the Human Renaissance: The Responsibility of Chinese Civilization (Wang Yimast)
Know Yourself (Yang Gongle)
Xun Zi and Li Si's Understanding of the "Historical Moment" (Gan Chunsong)
Revaluation of Xun Xue (Yao Zhongqiu)
"Win-win cooperation" or "zero-sum game" (Shi Asia)
What is the root nature of Chinese and Western civilizations? (Kong Xinfeng)
Classic Texts of Dialogue between Chinese and Western Civilizations (Han Chunhui)
Part II: The Qin and Han Dynasties and Rome
Chapter One: Two Great Civilizations
Section 1: The Governance of the Grassroots in the Qin and Han Dynasties
Section 2: The Rule of the Roman State
Chapter II: The Roman Republic
Section 1: Land and Civil War
Section 2 In the name of freedom
Chapter Three: The Western Han Dynasty
Section 1 Great Unification: Unity and Pluralism
Section 2: The Historical Official System: The Hearts of the People in the World
Chapter Four: The East-West Trade Route
Section 1: The Burden of Benevolent Government
Section 2: The Homeland of Confucian Merchants
Section 3 Differentiation of The Way of Commerce
Chapter Five: The Roman Empire
Section 1: The Upper and Lower Levels
Section 2: Political Power and Military Power
Chapter VI: Christianity
Section 1: "City of God" and "City on Earth"
Section 2: "The Evil of the State" and "The Good of the State"
Attached: Comment 2
The Historical Mechanism of the Rise and Fall of Rome (Yan Shaoxiang)
In the Great Changes of the Past Century, "Drama" Pin "Poetry" (Wang Xuebin)
How should we view "Eastern absolutism"? (Guo Zilin)
Understanding the Operation of Imperial Power (Fan Peng)
Curiosity and Shuttle Between the Twin Peaks of Civilization (Tian Feilong)
Reading "Qin Han and Rome" has a feeling (Xu Weimin)
The Core Political Values of the Qin and Han Dynasties and Rome (Liao Xiaoyi)
Understanding Order from the Height of Civilization (Dry Spring Pine)
Part III: The Entry of the Five Hus into China and the Invasion of European Barbarians
Chapter One: Five Hu Enters China
Section 1: The Battle of Moving South
Section 2: The Road to Sinicization
Section 3: Rebuilding Reunification
Section 4 Sinicization and Romanization
Chapter Two: Barbarian Invasion
Section 1: One clan and one land kingdom
Section 2: Integration that does not work
Section 3 Rome abandons Rome
Section 4: China Chooses China
Section V: Frankish Alienation
Section 6: Feudal Politics and Civilian Politics
Section 7: Dividing the World and Mixing The World
Chapter Three: Comparison between East and West
Section 1: Autonomy and Counties
Section 2: China and Inner Asia
Section 3: The Distinction Between Yixia and China is no different
Section 1 Return of the Mother
Section 2: The Perspective of Others
Section 3: Own Story
Attached: Comment 3
The Logic of Large Political Communities (Pan Wei)
Improper Cultural Pluralism (Peng Xiaoyu)
Commentary on "The Entry of The Five Hus into China and the Invasion of European Barbarians" (Yang Lihua)
Commentary on "The Entry of China's Five Hus into China and the Invasion of European Barbarians" (Li Dalong)
Tracing the Historical Trajectory of the Chinese Nation's "Unification of the World" (Wu Chuke)
History will not end, it will continue to evolve (Guan Kai)
The Logic of Civilization exploring the Path of China and the West (Fang Sumei)
All ethnic groups have jointly created the great Chinese nation (Su Faxiang)
Similarity and Potential: A Major Theoretical Reflection in the Comparative Perspective of the History of Ancient Nation-States in China and the West (Peng Wulin)
On the Value of "China's Five Hu Entry into China and the Invasion of European Barbarians" (Yan Qing)
What does "being Chinese" mean? ([ Add] Bei Tanning, Wang Pei)
◎ Excerpt 1 from the text
The difference between possession and governance
Like Isocrates' death, the development of the situation after Aristotle's death also went to the opposite side of his ideals.
Alexander's empire was divided within itself, and the three successor kingdoms fought each other and constantly split and became independent. This is not because Alexander died early, but when he did not die, in addition to promoting the intermarriage of a part of the Eurasian elite, there was no internal political integration of the vast empire he had conquered, let alone the construction of grass-roots political power.
The Macedonian Empire expanded by creating Greek-style autonomous cities wherever it went. This "autonomy" was for the Greek colonists who remained in the city and did not include the conquered indigenous societies. In each newly conquered Asian city, Alexander sent his "royal friend" to the city as governor, only in charge of military and taxation, and the city's civil administration was governed by an "autonomous committee" composed of Greek immigrants. In order to get taxes in advance and reduce administrative costs, macedonian governors even transferred tax collection rights to merchants at auction.
In China's Warring States period, the grass-roots political system was organized in a completely different way. The excavation of Qin Jian shows that every time the Qin state expanded, it had to establish a grass-roots political organization from the county to the township. His county and township officials were responsible for collecting taxes, organizing reclamation, counting household registrations, recording property, and then sending this information to the Qin capital Xianyang for compilation and preservation. Qin officials also did not stay in one place for a long time, but rotated every few years. This is a county-based organization with a pole in place. Abandoning civil affairs, as long as taxes and money, sending troops to suppress disobedience, can obtain the greatest wealth at the smallest administrative cost for a while, but also abandon the long-term integration plan of local society. Under such a system, when the central government is strong, it is okay, and once the central power weakens, centrifugal forces are generated, and cities are out of control. The disintegration of Alexander's empire was inevitable.
Alexander cannot be blamed for this. For even his mentor Aristotle never conceived of a theory of large-scale political bodies. His concept of "absolute kingship" is only a deduction from the perspective of a city-state. In that era, there were not no mega-political bodies to study, such as Egypt and Persia. But Aristotle considered them all "unpolitical", unequivocal, and that only Greek city-state politics could be called "politics". Although Alexander's empire became a political reality under his spiritual guidance, he still did not devise a system of super-large-scale political bodies that were more "advanced" than Egypt and Persia.
Later generations argue that although the unified Greek state as a political entity disappeared, Greece, as a cultural spirit, survived on the Roman body and became the matrix of the European spirit. It doesn't matter if the country dies, it is enough for the culture to last forever.
Listen to what the Greek people of that time had to say. During the fall of the Greek state, a large number of high-ranking Greek intellectuals were sent as hostages to the Roman aristocratic family as teachers. Among them was the famous historian Polybius. In his famous book "History", he asked: "Why is it that Greece is constantly disintegrating, but Rome has always been strong?" What he wanted in his heart at that time was probably not a Greece with only spirit, but a Greece where the entity coexisted with the spirit.
◎ Excerpt 2
The resurgence of civilization
In this day and age, the biggest contradiction is whether "freedom is first" or "order is first." This is precisely the core essence of Greek civilization and Chinese civilization.
The Greeks' love of freedom changed the "Greeks" from the name of the race to a synonym for "wisdom." To say who is "Greek" is to say that he is a wise man, no matter where he comes from. Chinese love of order has made Chinese civilization the only civilization with the same roots and the same language and has continued in the form of a state to this day.
Many times, the advantages of civilization are also its shortcomings. Taking science and technology as an example, Chinese civilization has not been able to produce modern science in history. Institutionally, when the pursuit of order reaches the extreme, it will hinder the formation of efficiencist values and lose the motivation to innovate technology. In terms of values, extreme pragmatism and empiricism ignore the logical reasoning of the objective world, resulting in the isolation of theory, experiment and technology, and hindering the emergence of modern science in China. Although the scientific and technological achievements of the Greek civilization were influenced by the mathematical, astronomical, and engineering knowledge accumulated by the ancient civilizations of Asia and Africa, after all, it was Greece, not the ancient civilizations of Asia and Africa, and the achievements of these civilizations were intensively transformed, laying the foundation for the science of Europe in later generations. This is where the Chinese civilization should learn from the Greek civilization.
China is not the only unified civilization. But in all great unified civilizations, the primary value basis lies in long-term peace. Which is more worth pursuing, the stability brought about by long-term peace, or the innovation brought about by chaos and freedom? This covers endless debates in the fields of philosophy, political science, ethics, etc., and can be said to be a struggle between the values of different civilizations, and there will never be a conclusion. Even within Greco-Roman civilization, there were different answers to many questions. Ancient historians say that Rome was far inferior to Greece in producing wisdom. All philosophy and science were produced in Greece, and Rome produced only a few poets and craftsmen. But without Rome's political structure, there would be no cosmopolitan spread of Greek culture and Christianity. For example, political scientists say that only a direct democracy like athens that determines governance by drawing lots is truly democracy. But without Rome's mixed government, the spirit of Athens would forever be confined to a small city-state of tens of thousands of people, and would not have developed into a world civilization.
Different answers are exactly different paths. Preserving these differences in itself happens to leave the possibility for the future sublimation of civilization. The coexistence of pluralism and contradiction will leave more seeds for the gene pool of human civilization.
Therefore, the difference between the priority of freedom and the priority of order should not become an obstacle to the exchange of Chinese and Western civilizations, but should become the basis for mutual learning between Chinese and Western civilizations. On the one hand, technological development has entered the eve of explosive innovation, which makes us deeply aware of the creativity brought by freedom; on the other hand, the frequent outbreak of non-traditional security crises makes us re-recognize the preciousness of order. For freedom, it is necessary to explore how to strengthen order to prevent disintegration; for order, it is necessary to explore how to strengthen freedom in order to stimulate innovation. The question is not whether to choose between freedom and order, but at which point freedom is strengthened and order is strengthened.
In the past, it took hundreds of years to test an idea, and generations of trial and error. Today, under the technological revolution, the ins and outs can be seen in a few years. Only a civilization that understands introspection and reflection, continuous tolerance, harmonious coexistence, mutual learning and mutual integration can be a truly sustainable civilization. For this reason, China and the West should really sit down and have a good talk.
◎ Excerpt 3 from the text
The rule of the Qin and Han grassroots
In 2002, archaeologists dug up a small Qin Dynasty town in the town of Liye in Longshan, Xiangxi, in the Wuling Mountains. In an abandoned well, tens of thousands of administrative documents were found. This is the second major discovery after the Terracotta Warriors and Horses of Qin Shi Huang, allowing people to see the grass-roots regime of the Qin Dynasty up close.
The ancient city of Liye is a Qianling County established after the Qin conquest of Chu. The excavated city was small, the size of a university playground. The population of the county is only three or four thousand. The Qin Dynasty actually set up a complete one-county and three-township organization here, with as many as 103 officials in the staff. These Qin officials organized the people to reclaim wasteland, but after all, there were few high mountains and deep valleys, and the annual tax revenue of a county was only equivalent to the annual rations of 6.5 households. From an economic point of view, it is not worth it to have so many officials for such a piece of land.
But what the Qin officials wanted was not taxation. Archaeologists cleared out a bamboo stick and recorded a plant found in the local mountains that was not a rich plant "branch wolf" (commonly known as "jujube"), but the Qin officials still carefully described its traits, location, and fruit production, and entered it into the official archives ("One acre of lower guang, half an acre of grid, two feet high." Go to the township seven miles. Four years is untrue"). This reflects a sense of mission that spares no effort to discover the products of mountains and rivers. Step by step, the Qin officials developed the land, compiled the people, and drew maps from the county to the higher administrative organ "county". The "county" then merged the maps of the subordinate counties into the "map of public opinion" and reported them to the imperial court for archiving and reading. In addition to promoting production, the Qin officials also had to deal with complicated civil and judicial affairs. The Qin Law is very complete, not only has laws, but also jurisprudence, and an appeal system. Petty officials must work strictly according to the law. For example, each document must be copied to multiple departments at the same time for inspection; such as light sentences and heavy sentences, all belong to the crime of "not straight", and when the laws contradict each other, they must also be reported to the arbitration layer by layer. Two thousand years ago, it was only possible to make grassroots administration so refined.
County and township officials also often rotate their posts. In the casualty roster of Liye Qinjian, it is recorded that many minor officials died of exhaustion and illness in office. 103 staff, long-term shortage of 49 people. Qin drove the people to be very bitter, and the officials also drove the same suffering. However, only this kind of "harsh government" that works hard to achieve the same track, books and texts, the improvement of mountains and rivers, and the construction of road networks in just 14 years. The cost of this infrastructure, which benefits the next few dozen generations, is borne by this generation. The people's sacrifices were so fierce and their hearts ached, that even the achievements of the unification of the world could not be smoothed out. Historical evaluation has never only been a truth, but also a feeling. When Qin perished, no one in the world loved it.
After Xiang Yu destroyed Qin, he hoped to restore the sub-feudal system. He did not want to manage such a large world, but only wanted to return to the familiar water and soil as a feudal prince. However, Liu Bang, who defeated Xiang Yu, refused to return to the sub-feudal division, but instead followed the great unification of the Qin system. The biggest difference between him and Xiang Yu was that Xiang Yu was a nobleman, he was a small official, and he had served as a pavilion chief in Pei County. Most of his backbone groups were also small officials, Xiao He was the chief official, and Cao San was the head of the cell. They know best how the lower and upper echelons of the empire are united; they are most familiar with the workings of the county system; they are most aware of the needs of the common people; they are most aware of the mysteries of maintaining great unity. Therefore, when he invaded Xianyang, Xiao He did not want gold and silver treasures, but only snatched the laws, maps, and household records collected by the Qin court. It was on these sources that the Han Dynasty rebuilt the centralized county system.
Grassroots political power is out of the world. This is the reason why the Qin and Han Dynasties were able to build the world's earliest modern state.
◎ Excerpt 4
"Eastern despotism" and unity and pluralism
Lu Simian said: "The world of Qin and Han is also the great key to the transformation of ancient and modern times. In this change, the praise is praised as "the progress from feudalism to the counties", and the destroyers are slandered as "the beginning of oriental absolutism".
The concept of "Eastern absolutism," originally defined by Aristotle, meant that the monarch had unlimited power over the people as a master over a slave, with unlimited power at will, without any law. But at that time, the East in the eyes of Greece and Rome was limited to Egypt and Persia; the East in the eyes of medieval Europe was limited to India and Mongolia, and there was almost no understanding of China, the "east of the East". Although as early as Aristotle's definition of "despotism" more than 20 years ago (350 BC), China's Martingale Transformation Law had already realized the county system of "compiling households and people" and "unifying with the law".
Europe first learned about China through the information brought back by missionaries to China in the Ming and Qing dynasties, forming a short-lived "China fever". At the ball at versailles, the king wore Chinese costumes; the people on the banks of the Seine competed for shadow puppetry; the ladies raised goldfish and ordered women to ride on palanquins. This provoked a debate between the two schools of masters. One faction is the "Chonghua faction" headed by Voltaire. He wanted to "reform the system of Tohua", calling his study "Confucius Temple" and giving himself the pseudonym "Grand Abbot of the Confucius Temple"; Leibniz believed that China's "Imperial Examination" was similar to Plato's "philosophical king ruling the country"; Quesnay believed that "China's system is based on wise and definite laws, and the emperor must also be careful to abide by it". The other faction was the "Depreciatory Faction" led by Montesquieu, who portrayed China as a typical example of Eastern despotism in order to accuse Sang Ofe of opposing the "absolute kingship" of the French king. Similarly, in monarchical rule, Westerners can call it "monarchy", while Chinese can only be called "despotism". Because European monarchies had aristocratic and ecclesiastical constraints, while China did not. He did not understand that the Chinese monarch was constrained by the large-scale civil bureaucracy ("imperial power and scholars share the world"), and he did not understand the system design of the division of power, the practice of sealing and refuting, the supervision of historical officials, and the consultation of officials. The civilian system and grassroots political power are fundamentally different from the governance systems of China and Western countries. Montesquieu also criticized China and the Tatar Empire in the same category of "Eastern despotism." Even the tyranny of monarchies in the West, he said, was far superior to that of "Eastern despotism." Later, Hegel invented the historical concept of history from the beginning of the East to the end of the West, the East is naturally backward, stagnant, enslaved; the West is naturally progress, freedom, civilization. None of these "masters" who commented on China, except for hearsay from missionaries, had never been to China, none of them could understand Chinese, none of them had studied Chinese history with Chinese, and they had not even distinguished how many "oriental civilizations" there were. They have a half-understanding of China's political system, and many Chinese themselves seriously.
In addition to the "oriental autocracy" context, there are many misjudgments of China by the masters. Take Max Weber, for example. He said that China is a "family property bureaucracy," that bureaucrats are all monarchs and vassals, that China has not established a unified fiscal system, that the study of scholars and officials is an investment in "official positions," and that he expects to become "tax collectors, and that all the money after paying the quota for the regular tax goes to private individuals. This is inconsistent with basic historical facts. From the Han Dynasty onwards, finance was divided into state finance (Dasi Nong) and imperial finance (Shaofu), the emperor never paid for Qilu with private money, and bureaucrats were not the emperor's vassals. Since the Qin Dynasty, taxation has been done by grass-roots tax collectors at the county and township levels, and "tax collectors" have never existed in the era of the Great Unification Dynasty. Weber describes the scene in which he is entirely in relation to the Roman emperor and his subjects, to the army, and to the tax collectors. Chinese historians have nowhere to say about such miscalculations, because the West has rarely listened carefully to China. Centuries of modernization have been centered on the West, and China has always been on the verge of being transformed and educated. The focus of the West on China today is only because the fact of China's successful industrialization has made them look back.
We cannot know ourselves after Western-centrism. In modern China, many reformers have also struggled between "freedom" and "despotism." For example, Liang Qichao, after the failure of the Pengshu Reform Law, he successively wrote "Proposed discussion of the autocratic system" and "Theory of the Evolution of China's Authoritarian Politics", on the one hand, he said that "those who are autocratic politicians, the public enemies of my generation are also", and called on the people to "destroy and powder it"; on the other hand, he also admitted that China's imperial examination system and the county system have a positive side of the emperor and the commoners joining hands to seize the power from the door valve family and the princes and feudal towns, which is completely different from the feudal history of the European nobility. Later, when he visited the United States, when he heard President Theodore Roosevelt speak of "the Chinese are dying of old age, and the European powers should exert their power on the East Asian continent, and the United States can expand its territory at the same time", he stayed up all night and "tired of days, and could not go three times" (Journey to the New World, 1903). Liang Qichao then wrote another article entitled "Enlightened Autocracy" (1906), saying that the three schools of Confucianism, Law, and Mo in ancient China were all "enlightened absolutism", and that Confucianism and Ink valued the people, similar to Wolff and Hobbes; and the Law family emphasized the country, similar to Bodan and Machiavelli. Liang Qichao's contradictions and changes reflect the painful mentality of many Chinese intellectuals who want to transform themselves through Western civilization on the one hand, and who cannot identify with the western law of the jungle on the other hand.
Returning to the theme of this article, the Qin and Han Dynasties and Rome, two different civilization paths, each with peaks and valleys. We can't use other people's peaks to compare our own lows, nor can we use our own peaks to compare other people's lows. We should experience each other's strengths from the peaks, experience each other's shortcomings from the troughs, and then look for ways to improve our own. China's history is far from perfect, otherwise it would not have suffered a fiasco in modern times; Chinese civilization still needs to be transformed and upgraded in order to truly reflect the ability to keep pace with the times.
Rome's unique value lies in the belief that limited conflict creates dynamism. The Roman historian Lintot said: "This society allows its most capable citizens to realize themselves and achieve greatness in a wide space." What this society accepts is that within boundaries, dynamic conflicts can be creative. Rome's loss was not in conflict, but in the fact that conflict lost its boundaries and had no "oneness" to regulate it, which ultimately led to the Great Schism. The most important thing about "conflict politics" is that unity requires foreign enemies. Western historians believe that once the Roman system eliminated foreign enemies and reached an unrivaled advantage and dominance, all the factors of balance began to cross the "boundaries" they should and begin to collapse. The decline of Rome began after the defeat of Carthage as overlord.
The unique value of Qin and Han lies in the coexistence of unity and pluralism. Unity ensures cohesion, and diversity ensures vitality. The difficulty is to maintain unity and pluralism at the same time. When unity completely overwhelms pluralism, rigidity begins. When pluralism completely overwhelms one, it begins to split. Qin died in "the Fa overridden everything", the Western Han Died in "Confucianism overwhelmed everything", and the Eastern Han Died in the upper and lower levels at the same time divided. How to control "oneness" and "pluralism" at the same time is an eternal issue in Chinese politics.
In the real world, there is no political system that can succeed on the basis of the system alone. The quality of the system depends on the people running the system. Therefore, the real vitality of each system lies in whether it can continuously cultivate people who can both maintain fundamental values and make up for their shortcomings. Today, it is up to the ability to nurture a young generation that embraces the diversity of the world and insists on its own unity.
China is not the only ancient civilization. Other ancient civilizations are also struggling with the pain of "modernization" and "re-examination of themselves", and they will certainly complete modernization and begin to talk about the ancient values that have been obscured by modernization for a while. If China can complete the dialogue of civilizations with the West, it will open up a short path for the mutual integration and mutual learning of all ancient civilizations.
Both the East and the West stand on their own historical heritage, and no one can tear them down and start over. But we can still negotiate.
◎ Excerpt 5
Rome abandons Rome China chooses China
Have the Western Romans, who have returned to the embrace of Eastern Rome, fulfilled their wishes? The answer was unexpected.
When Belisarius attacked the Ostrogoths, the nobles and people of Western Rome joined forces. It was through the secret reception of the Roman noble bishop Severius that Belisarius entered the city of Rome without bloodshed.
The Enthusiasm of the Western Romans for the "King's Master" did not last long. Due to the long offensive and defensive battles, the Western Romans were not accustomed to suffering, first because they could not bathe and sleep, and then for the lack of food, they cursed the Eastern Roman army. Belissa wrote to Emperor Justinian: "Although the Romans are friendly to us at the moment, if their plight continues, perhaps they will not hesitate to choose a path more in their own interests." ”
The complaints of the Western Romans caused Bishop Severius, who had helped the Eastern Romans to open the city gates, to plan to open the locks again at night, to cover the gates, and to help the Goths sneak back into the city to attack Belisarius to end the siege. But the conspiracy leaked out and Severius was immediately exiled. Belisarius no longer trusted the Western Romans, changing the locks of the 15 gates of the Roman walls twice a month, often changing the Roman self-defense forces guarding the gates.
This "one-to-one- and one-to-no" transformation has only been four months.
Those who abandoned Byzantium were not only nobles, but also commoners. Many Western Roman peasants and slaves rejoined the troops of the old Lord Goths; many unpaid barbarian mercenaries also joined the Gothic army and attacked the Liberators together.
The Western Romans were neither loyal to the Ostrogoths nor to the Eastern Romans. They only value their own interests, and it is best for no one to care. As the scholar Helmut Hemitz points out, "For many Romans in the western provinces, the 'demise of Rome' was not a disaster. In fact, a cooperative relationship was formed between the local elite and the barbarians, Roman warlords, and clientkings on smaller units of power."
The Western Romans also had reasons to oppose the Eastern Romans, because The Byzantines did not consider the local livelihood and only wanted to collect taxes. After the war, northern Italy was reduced to rubble, the economy was degraded, and the population was decimated; the general who succeeded Belisarius, Narcissus, established a military junta and imposed predatory taxes for 15 years. The Byzantine tax collectors called them "Alexander scissors" because one-twelfth of every tax could be legally appropriated for themselves, which aroused the frenzied drive of the tax collectors to loot. The "tax package system" in which private individuals extracted commissions from state taxes was a consistent bad government from the Macedonian Empire to Rome, which Byzantium in turn turned into a state act. At the same time, Byzantium did not restore the Roman system of governance, and the Roman Senate, which lasted for thousands of years, ended.
As a barbarian, Theodoric struggled to maintain the Roman system, but Byzantium, as a Roman, swept it away. European historians believe that without the Gothic Wars, Roman classical civilization would not have disappeared so quickly into the Middle Ages. This is to blame the proud Roman aristocracy for never accepting a "barbarian" man as emperor, no matter how benevolent he was to Rome.
The barbarians after the Ostrogothics never deliberately "Romanized" again. They simply abandoned the Roman political system and went their own way altogether. The customs of Roman life lasted for more than a century only along inertia in parts of Europe.
Very similar to Theodoric and Boethius, there are two pairs of Chinese characters. One pair was Former Qin's Jian Jian and Wang Meng, and the other was Tuoba Tao and Cui Hao of Northern Wei.
Let's start with the first pair. Jian Jian was the most virtuous monarch in the Five Hus, and Wang Meng was the leading celebrity in the "Northern Occupied Areas". At that time, the Eastern Jin Dynasty also had a northern expedition, and the general Huan Wen entered Guanzhong, and the celebrities in the world had high expectations for him. Wang Meng saw him, and the two sides touched each other's bottoms. Huan Wen used the high-ranking official Hou Jue to invite Wang Meng to the south. Wang Meng refused. The first reason for the refusal was that Huan Wen did not really want to engage in "great unification." Wang Meng said to him, you and Chang'an are close at hand, but you have not crossed the Bashui, and everyone already knows that you do not have the sincerity to unify the world.
Wang Meng chose Jian Jian. Because Jian Jian aspires to great unification. He is a member of the Yu clan, and in his life, regardless of his obedience or disobedience, his mind and mind are "mixed with six families, and the same is formed by a naked son." Before he could digest the humble nobles of Chang'an, he was about to venture south to the Eastern Jin Dynasty, saying, "Only the southeast corner has not been kingized." I think about the world's differences, and I have not tasted food and quit." Only "unification" can enable him to attain the "Mandate of Heaven." As a hero of hundred battles, Jian Jian is not ignorant of risks, but the ultimate ambition of "great unification" does not care about personal success or failure. This is the same as Zhuge Liang's "Wang Ye is not biased". The Eastern Jin Dynasty was obviously capable, but it never wholeheartedly carried out the Northern Expedition. Although Jian Jian was ridiculed by historians for his great defeat at Shuishui, in terms of his original mission, compared with the north and south, he made a judgment.
The second reason why Wang Meng rejected Huan Wen was that the Eastern Jin Dynasty's way of governing was different from Wang Meng's ideals. The Eastern Jin Dynasty was too particular about door valve politics, and Wang Meng's ideal was a Confucian-parallel Han system. On the one hand, it is necessary to "punish the law with a clear law" and "forbid the strong and powerful"; on the other hand, it is necessary to "pull out the stagnant and show the talents of the Confucians... Persuade the peasants to teach, teach with shame."
The Eastern Jin Dynasty served as the first official according to the door, but Jian Jian selected elites from the lower levels and was known as "Duoshi". In the Eastern Jin Dynasty, "half of the household registrations in the world were introduced", and Jian Jian went straight to the grass-roots level, personally or sent envoys to inspect the Han people and "Rong Yi planting". The Eastern Jin Dynasty engaged in metaphysics and preached elegance for politics. And Jian Jian forbade the study of Lao Zhuang and Tu Chen, looking for people who "learn to be Confucian and talented".
The Former Qin of the Qi people is more in line with Wang Meng's understanding of the "Han system" than the Eastern Jin Dynasty of the Han people. In the hearts of true scholars like Wang Meng, "Han" is not a bloodline race, but an institutional ideal. The ethnic groups in the Chinese world, whether Hu Han, did not use "blood" or "religion" as the basis for dividing ethnic groups as in the Roman world. If Theodoric had been born in China, he would have had countless Hu HanHaojie assisting him in his struggle for orthodoxy.
Let's talk about the second pair. Tuoba Tao was a humble male lord, and Cui Hao was a descendant of the Northern Han clan, who was in the Three Dynasties of the Northern Wei Dynasty, who had extensive knowledge of the History of Hundreds of Families, was proficient in Xuanxiang Yin and Yang, and was good at scheming, comparing himself to Zhang Liang. On the one hand, Cui Hao advised Tuoba Tao to expel Rouran, wipe out Bactria and eliminate Northern Yan, completing the great unification of Northern China. On the other hand, Cui Hao promoted Tuoba Tao to carry out the reform of "civil rule". Abolish the system of six lords of the military nobility, restore the civil bureaucracy of Shangshu Province, and place the secretary province side by side; rectify the grass-roots political power, examine the rule of local officials; and revise the laws three times, and absorb a large number of provisions of the Central Plains Laws. Cui Hao also advocated the great integration of the Xianbei elite and the Han elite, tuoba tao obeyed the plan, and recruited hundreds of Han celebrities into the central and local governments on a large scale.
Tuoba Tao was extremely fond of Cui Hao, and personally visited his mansion to ask about the major affairs of the military state, and ordered musicians to compose music and praise for him. The Xianbei nobles were extremely dissatisfied with Emperor Taiwu's "partiality" to Cui Hao, and there was even an attempted coup d'état in which the Xiongnu nobles conspired with the Xianbei nobles.
Like Boethius, Choi Ho was also unable to die because of his involvement in the sense of ethnicity. When he was majoring in the history of the Northern Wei Dynasty, he recorded old customs such as "receiving and inheriting marriage" in the Xianbei tribal era, and carved a stone stele to stand next to the capital city main road. At this time, the Xianbei people had accepted the ethics of the Central Plains and claimed to be descendants of Yanhuang, and they were very angry about this kind of "exposing the ugly". Just in time for the Northern Expedition of Emperor Wen of the Southern Dynasty, the Xianbei nobles accused Cui Hao of insulting his ancestors, and it was rumored that Cui Hao was plotting to defect to the Song Dynasty- because the Cui Hao family was too large, and its own clan and in-laws had different branches in the Southern Dynasty. Tuoba Tao was furious and exterminated the Cui clan of Qinghe, to which Cui Hao belonged. At this time, Cui Hao was already a septuagenarian and was humiliated.
Will the fusion of han and Xianbei suddenly stop because of Cui Hao's prison? The story of the Xianbei and Han Chinese is different from that of the Goths and Romes.
Unlike the Repeated Betrayal of the Goths by the Roman nobility, the various branches of the Cui clan remained in the Northern Wei after the destruction of the Qinghe Cui clan. When Emperor Xiaowen ascended the throne, the Cui clan of Qinghe was restored to the head of the four surnames, and Cui Guang, Cui Liang, and others were restored to Northern Wei courtiers and rebuilt the history of Northern Wei. In particular, Cui Hong collected various remnants of historical materials and compiled the 100 volumes of the "Spring and Autumn of the Sixteen Kingdoms", which recorded the historical facts of the Wuhu regimes.
Unlike the Goths, who rushed to Romanization because of the betrayal of the Romans, Cui Hao's case did not make Tuoba Tao "ruined by people", and he still ordered the children of the Xianbei nobles to learn Confucianism. Although Cui Hao is dead, his government is still there. Later Emperor Xiaowen pushed the Sinicization reform to the peak. Neither the Han nor the Xianbei construct politics with personal honor and disgrace, and they have a deeper understanding of history.
◎ Excerpt 6
Autonomous with counties
Different views of history come from different civilizations. The Chinese Wuhu carried forward the "logic of unity" of Chinese civilization, and the European barbarians amplified the "logic of division" of Roman civilization.
Although the Roman Empire had an upper-class civil service system, its essence was still grass-roots autonomy. No matter what kind of political system was adopted in Europe after that, its national governance framework naturally gave birth to urban autonomy, ethnic autonomy, and lord autonomy. From the city-state democracies of ancient Greece to the autonomous cities of the Roman Empire; from the feudal kingdoms with castles in the early Middle Ages to the Italian urban republics of the late Middle Ages (such as Venice and Genoa); from the Republics of the North American states established under the "Small Republic" program to the nation-states of Europe under the "one nation, one country" model.
No matter what era, in the Institutional View of History and Value Identity of Europeans, grassroots autonomy is the core code. From Tacitus' discovery of "barbarian freedom," to Montesquieu's praise of the barbarian character of independence and separation, from Kizo's discovery of the representative spirit that originated in the Anglo-Saxon tradition of local self-government2, to Tocqueville's investigation of the township autonomy that underpins American democracy, as Chanmu said: "Look at a history of Europe, and see that they have always been torn apart since Greece, their own states, and they have not cooperated with each other." Although facing a great enemy and facing a crisis ahead, the inability of its various regions to integrate and coordinate is still the same. ...... Western history seems complex and simple, its complexity on the outside and simple on the inside. ...... The so-called British and French in Western history are only like a chemical unit. The Chinese in Chinese history is like a chemical mixture. ”
In contrast, no matter what kind of superstructure China builds, the basis of its national governance is the grass-roots political power at the county and township levels. As Fenner puts it, "China is the 'inventor' of the modern form of bureaucracy." 3 Since the Qin and Han Dynasties created a unified centralized county system, the construction of grass-roots political power has been included in the civil service system dispatched and managed by the central government. Although there have been very brief feudal divisions in history, the unified centralized county system has always been the mainstream. Although China has a little variation of the feudal system, such as the food system without political real power, such as the grass-roots official-gentry cooperation system, these are limited autonomy, state power has long been embedded in the various cells of the social structure, and there is no European-style grass-roots autonomy.
Grassroots autonomy and grassroots political power, two sets of civilization logic.
Looking at the Qin and Han Dynasties from the perspective of Rome, they will think that the weakness of centralized power lies in the fact that it is necessary to move the whole body at one time, and local rebellions can easily spread into national riots. Compared to the rebellions that occurred in Roman history, which were all local (except for the Bakaudian Revolt), this was the benefit of grassroots autonomy. Fenner argued that "the Chinese peasant revolt, which threatened the survival of the Han Empire, never happened in Rome."
Looking at Rome from the perspective of the Qin and Han Dynasties, it would be strange that the clash of civilizations caused by race and religion in Europe after Rome could last for thousands of years. From the 5th to the 7th century, there were 6 Byzantine and Persian wars; from the 7th to the 11th centuries, there were 400 Arab and Byzantine wars; from the 8th to the 15th centuries, there were 800 years of Spanish Christian and Muslim wars; from the 11th to 13th centuries, there were 8 crusades to invade the eastern Mediterranean; from the 13th to 15th centuries, there were Byzantine wars against the Ottomans and Scotland against the British; and from 1618 to 1648, there were 30 years of religious wars involving all of Europe. Almost no century has there been a true reconciliation between peoples and religions. It can be said that in terms of "civil rule", Chinese civilization is ahead of the entire ancient world. Even Fenner, who considered "Roman autonomy" to be superior, had to admit that "the Han Empire was different from other countries and empires before and after it, especially Rome, and it despised military glory." It was an empire that wholeheartedly opposed militarism. It is characterized by 'indoctrination', which is what Chinese call 'wen'. This religious tolerance (perhaps only indifference) and the advocacy of civilized indoctrination constitute the glorious ideal of the Empire."
Western societies like to live in "small communities", from city-state politics to feudal autonomy to small republics to American rural autonomy, and eventually evolved into liberal individual rights supremacy. Chinese society also has various "small communities", such as the family, the three elders (township officials in charge of education in ancient times), the squires and various civil associations, but they always pursue a "big community", that is, "the country and the world".
Many Western scholars, such as Downing, Charles Tilly, McNeill, and Michael Mann, confidently believed that the division and chaos of the Western Middle Ages had brought progress. Because the series of wars that took place in pre-modern Europe brought out the standing army of Europe, the rational bureaucracy of Europe, and the modern nation-state and industrial capitalism of Europe. This low-intensity, centuries-old local war, which is difficult to eliminate each other at once, allows the defeated side to continuously sum up experience and promote the cumulative development of technology. The split and class nature of feudal society is conducive to the emergence of commercial capital, and the emergence of commercially controlled independent cities will make it easier to move towards capitalism. This system of feudalism, weak states, and multi-national competition is the reason why modern Europe has surpassed all ancient civilizations.
The implication is that China is too unified, without a thousand years of local wars and a pluralistic system of competition; China is too centralized, and there are no autonomous cities controlled by hereditary aristocrats and merchants, so it cannot produce industrial capitalism. Therefore, "great unification" has become an obstacle to historical progress. But if you want to ask Chinese, are you willing to endure a thousand years of "warring states jungle" and "ethnic and religious conflicts" in exchange for the birth of primitive capitalism? The mainstream answer must be no. During the Spring and Autumn Period of China, there was a system of multinational competition and sub-feudalism. The reason why Qin was able to unify the six kingdoms against the current, and the reason why Han still adhered to the "inherit qin system" under the public opinion of "violent Qin" was precisely because the super-large-scale war of the Warring States in 300 years allowed the people to reach a consensus that "the world fights together and fights endlessly, in order to have a prince". It is not that China has not gone through this stage, but has experienced and abandoned this stage. The so-called "standing army" and "rational bureaucracy" existed in China during the Qin and Han dynasties, 1800 years before Europe. The real test of the modern transformation of Chinese civilization is how to achieve order and freedom at the same time on the basis of maintaining great unity, and how to have the beauty of both the "large community" and "small community" systems at the same time, which is a higher standard than Western pluralistic liberalism.
◎ Excerpt 7
Yixia's distinction is no different from China
The debate between Yixia and Xia, which has been endless for thousands of years, still triggers the discussion of "what is China". Many debaters only argue by taking out the "only words" in the history books, without taking into account the integrity of history.
The original "Yixia Distinction" comes from the "Spring and Autumn Ram Biography" "Nanyi and Northern Di intersect, and China is endlessly like a line". "Northern Di" refers to the "White Di" that caused the Duke of Qi Huan to honor The King of Qi for the first time, and "Nanyi" refers to the State of Chu. However, in the Warring States, especially in the Qin and Han Dynasties, the former "Hua" and "Yi" have become "Qimin", and the whole world practices the royal law, and there is no difference between ethnic groups.
The peak of the second "Huayi Debate" was the Southern and Northern Dynasties, and to call Yidi to each other was to fight for an orthodoxy. In the Tang Dynasty, the "Huayi Distinction" weakened. Tang Taizong said, "Since ancient times, all of them have been noble in China, and they have been humble and loved as one." Inside and outside the imperial court were all elites of all ethnic groups. The "Anshi Rebellion" that followed was a matter of dominance rather than ethnicity.
The third peak was the Song Dynasty. The economic culture of the Song Dynasty reached its peak, but it was unable to unify. Faced with the military strength of liaojin and western Xia, the Song Dynasty had to self-solidify to distinguish between high and low, And Zhenzong directed himself to perform the Heavenly Book Sealing Zen, and the scholar master also exalted the "Distinction of Huayi". In fact, the Liaoxiajin all absorbed the Han civilization, and the north and south all spoke the same language. In the Yuan Dynasty, the "Huayi Distinction" faded again. The so-called "four-class system" is still controversial to this day.
The fourth peak was the middle of the Ming Dynasty. At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang took the anti-Yuan and Han restoration as a call, and once the state was established, he immediately recognized that the Yuan Dynasty's entry into the Central Plains was the "Mandate of Heaven", preached the unification of the world, "Huayi is boundless, although the surnames are different, the characters are the same", and Kublai Khan was included in the temple of the emperors of the past dynasties and sacrificed with the three emperors and five emperors, and the founding princes of the two Han, Tang, and Song dynasties. It was only after the capture of Emperor Yingzong in the Tumu Fort that the Ming Dynasty's self-esteem was greatly bruised that Kublai Khan was withdrawn from the temple.
The fifth peak is the "Ming and Qing Dynasties". Since Kangxi worshipped Confucius, successive Qing emperors have thoroughly implemented Han civilization. The "Huayi Distinction" has once again dissolved. Yixia is based on the cultural system. As long as you accept the Chinese Taoist system, the legal system, and the political system, you can get the Mandate of Heaven, because there is no outside the world. The strength or weakness of the "Huayi distinction" depends on the unity and division of the country. In the world of division, all ethnic groups are "calling each other Yidi"; where there is a unified dynasty, the rulers are committed to dissolving the "Huayi distinction".
Rome did the same.
The philosophy at the height of the Roman Empire was "cosmopolitanism". Before the 4th century, Roman historians praised the "barbarians", such as Tacitus praised the Germanic people's "excellent customs" such as democracy, martial arts, and simplicity of nature. Many emperors after the middle of the Roman Empire had "barbarian blood", such as Maximinus and Claudius II. Many of the Empire's most famous generals were also born into "barbarians", such as Gainas, Saul, Bakurius, Aetius and Ovida, and even the Famous Roman General Stirico who resisted the Visigothic invasion was a Vandal. After the 4th century, the empire was divided and the Romans were full of resentment. In the 6th century, some historians called Constantine the Great the scourge of the decline of the empire because of the introduction of a large number of barbarians. And the barbarians also began to argue that "heroes come from their own places." For example, after Theodoric was betrayed by Boetheus in his later years, he instructed court historians to write a history of the Goths, emphasizing the glorious history of his family for 17 consecutive generations.
Within every civilization, there are commonalities and differences. When the community is divided, the political centers, in order to demarcate their borders and consolidate themselves, are bound to exaggerate differences and belittle commonality until they become permanent divisions. Even if there are the same ancestors, languages, memories, beliefs, as long as there is political polycentric competition, this tragedy is bound to occur. Sects are divided, ethnic groups are disintegrating, and so is the case.
Political unity is the basis of the existence of cultural pluralism. The more political unity is consolidated, the more multiculturalism can stretch out its individuality; the more fragile the political unity, the more multiculturalism will fight each other and eventually die. Unity and pluralism are not one or the other, but the same weak and strong. If you do not understand the dialectical relationship between unity and pluralism, you will divide the world and confuse yourself.
Disclaimer: This article only represents the personal views of the author and does not represent the position of this public account
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