Qin is a big bird, hanging its head to China - from the uniqueness of Qin culture to see the inevitability of Qin unification

On the afternoon of April 8, 2022, the School of Archaeology and Archaeology of Peking University held a series of lectures entitled "Eight Lectures on Qin and Han Archaeology and Civilization" entitled "Qin as a Big Bird, Hanging Head to China- The Inevitability of Qin Unification from the Uniqueness of Qin Culture". This lecture was delivered by Professor Liang Yun of the School of Cultural Heritage of Northwest University and was held in Room 101, Block A, Archaeological Building, Peking University.

Figure 1 Teacher Liang and a map of the countries in the Warring States Period

At the beginning of the lecture, Teacher Liang mentioned that the qin state was able to finally unify China after the Spring and Autumn Warring States period, which was related to the uniqueness of its culture, and the theme of this lecture was based on the comparison of Qin culture and the culture of the six eastern countries, discussing the inevitability of Qin unification seen in archaeological culture.

Figure 2 Lecture scene

The different countries of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty all had their own uniqueness, and the cultural characteristics of the Qin state were closely related to their unification process, which could be highlighted by comparison with the Eastern countries. The "History of Chu Shijia" mentions that "Qin is a big bird, located in the sea, standing in the east, with his left arm in the southwest of Zhao Zhi, and his right arm Fu Chuyan, attacking Han Wei, hanging his head to China, and taking shape and having a favorable position" This sentence occurred during the period of King Xiang of Chu, that is, to discuss the situation of the Warring States princes on the eve of baiqi and the removal of The Emperor. Teacher Liang used this to explain that first of all, by the middle of the Warring States period, the Qin state had two-thirds of China, gaining an absolute advantage among the nations, and also reflected that the Chu people did not regard the Qin people as part of China, but as the frontier of China. The Qin also believed that they were different from China, and there was a cultural gap between the eastern countries and the Qin. Another example is the Warring States period, which explicitly referred to the Six Kingdoms as "Shandong", and as opposed to Qin, the six eastern kingdoms called each other brothers, and Qin was hostile to it as the "country of tigers and wolves", and these cases have many examples in the "Warring States Policy".

In addition, we can also pay attention to the change in the definition of "Shandong" in the pre-Qin era, before the Zhou Dynasty was divided into east and west soils, the Zhou dynasty was divided into western soil; in the Western Zhou era, it was divided into four soils; the Warring States Period was again divided into east and west two soils due to the emergence of the combination of vertical and horizontal horizontal, of which Shandong refers to the east of the HaoShan. This can also echo the aforementioned difference between Qin and Eastern countries.

Teacher Liang talked about the concept of the ancient kingdom era, the Fang guo era and the imperial era put forward by Su Bingqi, Li Boqian and others, and believed that the Eastern Zhou period belonged to the "axis era" of the transformation from the Fang state to the empire, and the axis era was proposed by German thinkers, believing that there were philosophical breakthroughs in both the East and the West in this era. In this process, there was a cultural imbalance between the countries, of which the difference between the Qin and the Six Eastern Kingdoms was particularly critical, and directly pointed to the imperial era that lasted for nearly two thousand years, and was also an important node in Chinese history, the beginning of the imperial era, and the end of early China.

From the above, it can be seen that in the hundreds of years of national strife, the Qin state can stand out and unify the world has its particularities, which can be analyzed from the aspects of history, philology, and the focus of this lecture. First of all, in terms of history, in the Song Dynasty Hong Mai's "RongZhai Essay" talked about the multi-use clan aristocrats of the Six Kingdoms, Qin reused Keqing and Zang Zhifei's "Zhou Qin Social Structure Study" that the Six Kingdoms reform law was not complete, failed to abolish the secular official family system, and the political privileges of the nobility were still very large, while the Qin state had begun to reuse the Keqing from the Spring and Autumn Period, plus the Shang martingale transformation law deprived the clan privileges very thoroughly, Yang Zhaorong and other scholars mentioned that the privatization of land in eastern countries was more developed than that of the Qin state, and Qin established a more thorough state land grant system after the Shang martingale transformation law. Chu Jian recorded the existence of land transactions in the local area. In terms of philology, Wang Guowei proposed the "Ancient Zhou Dynasty" that the Ancient Zhou Ancient Script can be divided into two systems, East and West, and the East is the Ancient Script of the Six Kingdoms and the Ancient Script of Yin Zhou. Li Xueqin and others also agreed with this view, believing that the Qin script was more simple than that of the East and close to the Western Zhou script.

In archaeology, Yang Xizhang and Li Jinghan believe that the social difference between Qin and Eastern countries is the opposition between Confucianism and Law, such as Qin's coin production is more concentrated than that of Eastern countries, and pottery vessels are rampant in the East and disappear in the Qin State. Wang Xiaotian, Gao Qingshan and others, as well as Yu Weichao and Gao Ming, look at the Shang martingale transformation method from the perspective of the difference between the archaeological use of ding and the pottery ceremonial system.

In short, compared with the Oriental countries, Teacher Liang summarized the uniqueness of the above materials and the archaeological Qin culture into the following five points, namely:

Evolution of artifact groups

Institutional changes

Sequence of tomb ranks

Cemetery hierarchy

Evolution of the capital city

1. Evolution of artifact groups

In view of the changes in the artifact group, Mr. Liang emphasized in his lecture that the changes in the artifacts of the Six Kingdoms of the East are continuous gradients, and can be more obviously staged according to typology, which has appeared in both the Three Jins, the Chu state and the Qi state. In this gradient feature, the old instrument does not disappear immediately when the new instrument appears, and there is a stage where the two coexist.

Figure 3 Evolution of the Jin and Sanjin bronze groups

However, in contrast, the bronze ware group of the Qin State showed obvious faults, and the artifacts of the Qin State in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty underwent a significant leap-like transformation, and the bronze ware at the turn of the Spring and Autumn Warring States can be divided into the early Spring and Autumn shape and the late Warring States shape. The Spring and Autumn shape has its own collocation, such as the combination of Gui and Ding, the square yong, etc.; but in the middle of the Warring States period, new factors appeared, such as Jin-style bronze ware such as Gaiding and Round Body, and there were also different styles of utensils such as bashu factors. The use of other artifacts such as pottery vessels has also changed, such as the disappearance of pottery vessels in the middle and late Warring States period, and the combination of artifacts has also undergone mutations. Daily pottery changed from trumpet jars, the number of clay pots suddenly increased and the number of pottery manes decreased, and even pottery manes also appeared from the Rong people's cultural factors in present-day eastern Gansu. After the emergence of these new artifacts, the new and old artifacts only coexisted briefly, and in the middle and late Warring States period, the early Spring and Autumn factors disappeared, and the source of Qin-style bronzes such as garlic pots was not yet known, which may be the result of the innovation of the Qin State itself.

Figure 4 Qin bronze group

Figure 5 Comparison of the Spring and Autumn Bronze Ware of the Qin State (top) and the Warring States Type Bronze Ware (Bottom).

In addition to bronze, pottery in addition to imitation copper ceremonial ware or daily utensils have obvious jumps, and the mainstream will appear immediately after the appearance of new instruments in the Warring States period. Compared with the artifacts of eastern countries, the archaeological culture of the Qin State has undergone a comprehensive mutation, and it can be divided into two archaeological cultures with the Spring and Autumn Warring States as the boundary, which Teacher Liang called the mutation phenomenon of archaeological culture. This situation shows that the same group of people used two different archaeological cultures, and this kind of case can also be used to inspire the study of the pre-Zhou and pre-Shang cultures.

Figure 6 Comparison between The Spring and Autumn Type Pottery of the Qin State (Top) and the Warring States Type Pottery (Bottom).

2. Changes in the system of use of instruments

In addition to the changes in the appearance of bronze ware, pottery and other utensils, there have also been obvious mutational changes in the utensil system. In the Spring and Autumn Period, when the cultural mutation had not yet occurred, the instrumental system of the Qin state was more traditional than that of the Eastern countries. In the late Western Zhou Dynasty, there was a system of utensils with Ding and Gui, but in eastern countries after the Eastern Zhou Period, there were gradually phenomena such as nobles burying more than two sets of Ding Ding, such as the appearance of a large wok Ding and multiple sets of Ding Ding in the tomb of Zhao Qing in Jinsheng Village, Taiyuan, a total of 27 pieces. There are many explanations of the multi-set Lieding system, and there are theories of practical and ming instruments, or the emergence of modern and ancient utensils, etc., but Teacher Liang believes that it is possible to refer to the "Ceremonial Ceremony and Dowry", which explains that the princes use Qing as an emissary to visit other countries, and at this time, Qing Dafu can enjoy the treatment of the monarch. Utensils are released in a group of raw meat and cooked meat in a group, and are distinguished according to food.

Figure 7 The tomb of Zhao Qing in Jinsheng Village M251 excavated copper ding

The new multi-set system of listing appeared in the eastern countries may be associated with the increase in aristocratic resources and frequent exchanges between the princes caused by the phenomenon of ritual system complexity, Mr. Luo Tai believes that this complexity is the change of the etiquette system in the middle of the Spring and Autumn Period, which belongs to the top-down reform, and Teacher Liang believes that because of the simultaneous occurrence of this phenomenon in many countries, it should be the result of the natural development of the etiquette system. However, this new system of multiple sets of ceremonial dings did not appear in the Qin state, and its performance was more traditional than that of eastern countries, such as the Maojiaping cemetery in Gansu, which still maintained the combination of Western Zhou ritual instruments and gui, and did not increase in quantity and variety of utensils.

Figure 8 Wuding Tomb, Maojiaping M2059

In the middle of the Warring States period, the State of Qin completely abandoned the Zhou Dynasty Ding system, such as the large tombs of the Wuding level using only two copper Ding burials, and abolished the incomplete combination of ceremonial vessels. The high-level cemetery has a large tomb opening, but the number of utensils is small and lacks a fence, and the original popular painted imitation copper pottery ware declined in the middle of the Warring States period, and almost disappeared in the late period, and the Three Jin-style pottery ware was also reduced and changed to daily pottery. Relative oriental countries still have a high proportion of pottery vessels, and even the phenomenon of the proliferation of pottery vessels, such as the tombs found in Yanxia, there are obvious retro style pottery vessels, such as Square Seat Gui, Fang Ding, etc., which may also reflect the retro customs such as the Yanwang Zen Rang incident.

Figure 9 Yanguo tomb imitation copper pottery vessel

Figure 10 Scale curve of pottery vessels in eastern Zhou cemeteries

In the Western Zhou Dynasty, the nobles used Ruixin such as Yugui or Yuge to mark their identity, and large Yugui only appeared in tombs of the princely rank. Changes occurred in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, on the one hand, large-scale yugui appeared in low-level tombs, and the proportion of yugui and yugui tombs also increased, and the eastern countries still used yugui and even appeared to be rampant, which also belonged to the phenomenon of ritual transgression. However, the State of Qin was suddenly no longer used in the middle and late Warring States period, such as the Tomb of Dabaozishan in the middle of the Spring and Autumn Period, which still has piles of Gui, but disappeared after the middle of the Warring States Period. The reason for the disappearance of this combination of Zhou dynasty artifacts in the Qin State came from the abolition of the Zhou ceremony by the Shang martingale transformation method, which led to a fundamental change in the symbol system and social values of its traditional ritual instrument system.

Figure 11 Variation of the proportion of cemeteries in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty

(The solid black line is the Longxian Dianzi Cemetery, which belongs to the Qin Tomb)

All in all, from the perspective of the copper ceremonial vessel, pottery vessel, jade gui and other utensils, the culture of the Warring States period was very complex, and there was a cut-off or change of the past like the Qin state, and there was also a retro phenomenon in eastern countries. The system of use of utensils contrasted sharply between the eastern countries and the western Qin states.

3. Sequence of tomb ranks

In addition to the artifacts, the hierarchical sequence of tombs can also reflect the differences between the cultural and social structure of the Qin state and the eastern countries. Tombs in the Western Zhou Dynasty can be divided into ranks such as monarchs, qing masters, scholars, and commoners, showing a top-down hierarchical sequence.

In the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, the tombs of eastern countries also continued from the Western Zhou Dynasty, and the tombs were multi-class and smallly spaced, and the differences between adjacent levels of tombs were small, showing a pyramid-type structure. For example, the scale of the Tomb of Qing Dafu, a Jin mausoleum found by archaeology, is almost the same as that of the Wang Mausoleum. The huge scale of the Wei state tombs in Hui County and the tombs of the Chu nobles, such as the Zaoyang Jiulian Dun Chu Tomb, the Baoshan Chu Tomb, etc., in the Spring and Autumn period of the State of Qi and the early Warring States noble tombs also appeared a large number of people martyrdom and similar to the Chu State class phenomenon, showing the huge power of the nobility. The sequence of tomb hierarchy shows that the social hierarchy of the Eastern countries is fine, and the middle class is stable and powerful, and the power is more decentralized.

Figure 12 Tombs of Eastern Zhou Nobles in Guwei Village, Hui County (Part 1), Jiulian Dun of Zaoyang (Part 2)

Compared with the Eastern Zhou tombs, the Qin tombs showed obvious polarization, and the monarch tombs were very large relative to the small and medium-sized tombs of other classes, and this phenomenon had appeared since the Spring and Autumn Period, such as the Dabaozi mountain cemetery. The scale of the tomb is completely incomparable with that of the monarch, reflecting the obvious monarchical centralization of power and the weakness of the middle class in the Qin State, showing a flat social structure, and having less power. This phenomenon of centralized power of the central monarch was more peculiar during the Eastern Zhou Dynasty. This phenomenon can also reflect that the Qin state uses more guest secretaries, and the middle and lower classes are more active in social mobility, while the eastern countries are the aristocratic forces are developed and prefer to appoint clan relatives and implement the sub-feudal system.

Figure 13 Comparison of the size of the Qin Gong Tomb in Yongcheng, Qin Province, and the tomb of the Wuding nobles in the south of the Sun family

4. Hierarchical structure of the cemetery

In his lecture, Mr. Liang mentioned that the study of the hierarchical structure of the cemetery can be divided into two aspects, first of all, the relationship between the tombs in the same cemetery to reflect the social organization, and then there is also a more macroscopic study of the relationship between the cemeteries in the same cultural circle. The tomb hierarchy of the Zhou Dynasty is similar to that of the hierarchy, which can be divided into three layers: the royal tomb area where the monarch and his wife are buried, the clan tomb of Qing Dafu, and the state tomb of the scholar and the commoner. In the Eastern Zhou Dynasty of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, the tombs of the Qing Dafu clan were developed, lasting a long time and far from the capital, such as the tomb of Zhao Qing in Jinsheng Village in Taiyuan, which is the tomb of the Zhao family of the JinGuo State in the Spring and Autumn Period, and the location is located in the northwest of the family fiefdom of Jinyang City, the Liulihe Cemetery in Hui County may be the tomb of the Jinguo Qing Dafu or the cemetery of the Weiguo Gongfu, the Changzhi Watershed Cemetery belongs to the nobles such as the Three Jinqing Dafu, the Chu Tomb of the Lower Temple of The Chu Dynasty contains 25 tombs, which is the Ling Yin Zi Feng (倗) family cemetery, which belongs to the long duration of the middle and late Spring and Autumn Period. Nanyang Peng Family Cemetery is the tomb of the Zhi Peng family in Chu State County. The above phenomenon shows that the local aristocracy is powerful, and the local monarchy is hereditary.

Figure 14 Changzhi Watershed Cemetery (Part 1) and Tomb of Zhao Qing in Jinsheng Village, Taiyuan (Part 2)

On the other hand, the tombs of the Qin state are seriously polarized, the tombs of the monarch are huge and the tombs of Qing Dafu and other classes are not developed, reflecting the obvious monarchical centralization phenomenon in the Qin state, which has emerged from the Spring and Autumn Period and continued to the Warring States Era. In addition, the cemeteries of the Qin state and Qing Dafu are located next to the monarch's cemetery, such as the Yongcheng Qin Gong Cemetery and its affiliated tombs, the Gongzi family tomb is located next to the monarch's tomb, and the clan relatives and nobles are also buried near the capital. In general, the tombs of the Qing Dafu clan in the eastern countries are more developed, lasting a long time and are far from the capital, while the tombs of the Qing Guoqing Dafu clan are not developed and are mostly located near the capital.

Figure 15 Location of Qin Dabaozi mountain cemetery (top), Yongcheng Qin Gong Cemetery and annex tomb (bottom)

5. Evolution of the capital city

The capital type can also be used to reflect the country's political and cultural ecology, Teacher Liang explained that in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, the eastern countries belonged to the division of cities and guos, dividing the city into aristocratic areas and civilian areas, showing the phenomenon of juxtaposition of large cities and small cities, this phenomenon generally appeared in the capitals of eastern countries, such as the Jin capital Xintian has not yet appeared in large and small cities, but the Zhao capital Handan has presented the character-shaped city of Guo division, Xinzheng did not appear in the Zhengguo era, but the phenomenon of two cities appeared in the Korean era, Wei du Anyi and Yanxia both appeared in the two-city system, and the small city of Linzi in the capital of Qi was embedded in the big city And the wall between the two cities is thicker than the outer city wall, the focus of defense is the northeast of the big city, the big city may be the capital of Jiang Qi, Tian Qi is another small city, reflecting the antagonistic relationship between the rulers of the Tian Qi era, the capital of the Chu state is also divided into two large and small cities.

Figure 16 Archaeological line map of Linzi City, Qidu

As for the Yongcheng of the Qin State, there is no distinction between large and small cities, only a circle of city walls, and the palace area is scattered in the city and the scale is large, the phenomenon of Yongcheng not dividing the big and small cities continues to Xianyang City, the palace area of the city is very large and has not yet appeared in the big city, most of the cities are palace areas, reflecting the centralized system of the Qin State.

Figure 17 Archaeological line map of Yongcheng, the capital of Qin

Figure 18 Archaeological line map of Xianyang City, the capital of Qin

To sum up, the difference between the Qin state and the six eastern kingdoms in archaeology can be divided into the above six points, the evolution of the artifact group in the East is a continuous change, the Qin state jumps and mutates; in terms of the instrument system, the East gradually transgresses the ritual system, and the Qin shang martingale transformation method abolishes the Zhou rite; the six kings' tombs are in the Chinese glyph or A shape, and the Qin state is sub-glyph; in terms of the tomb hierarchy sequence, the eastern countries belong to multi-class small intervals, the Qing Dafu class is stable and strong, the Qin State is polarized, and the Qing Dafu class is weak In terms of the hierarchical structure of the cemetery, the eastern Qing Dafu clan cemetery is developed and far from the capital, and the tomb of The Qing Guoqing is not developed and lacks independence; in terms of the form of the capital city, the capital of the Six Kingdoms has a "two-city system" of city and Guo division, and the Qin capital Xianyang is a "non-city guo system" form without a big city, and most of the city is a palace area.

These six different points of the artifact group and the instrument system are used to illustrate the different cultural development paths between Qin and the Eastern countries, the East belongs to the continuous gradual change, and the Qin State is a jumping mutation, reflecting the thoroughness of the Qin Shang martingale transformation method and the unsuccessful and incomplete Oriental transformation method. The capital form reflects the political, economic and military characteristics, the two-city system of the Eastern countries reflects the internal political struggle of the ruling group and the development of industry and commerce and the needs of military garrison, while the non-city-shaped system of the Qin State reflects the national conditions of the monarchy, underdeveloped industry and commerce, and external battles. The sequence of tomb hierarchy can indicate that the sub-feudal system of the eastern countries is developed, and the central classes such as Qing Dafu are stable and strong, while the Qin State shows a more obvious monarchical centralization, the Qing Dafu class is weak, and the social structure is polarized and flattened. Combining the hierarchical structure of tombs and the hierarchical sequence of city sites can reflect the development and long-term implementation of some feudal seals in the Eastern Column, and the phenomenon that the nobles have their own caiyi or fiefdoms to form a "large capital coupled country", which also proves the historical understanding of the Qin state without separation.

At the end of the lecture, Professor Liang concluded that the various archaeological evidences reflect the different development paths and different national conditions between the Qin Kingdom and the Six Eastern Kingdoms. The State of Qin, unlike the Eastern states, did not experience the decline of the office, and the monarch had enough authority to promote and succeed in changing the law, which in turn would strengthen the monarchy's centralization. The strong and stable middle class of the Eastern countries led to the miscarriage of drastic changes, which belonged to the phenomenon of path dependence. It was precisely in the period of fierce competition in the Warring States that a high degree of centralization could mobilize enough social and material forces to deal with the annexation war, and the uniqueness of Qin culture and the thoroughness of reform made it stand out and eventually unify China.

This article was reviewed by Teacher Liang Yun

Written by 丨 Guo Zhishuo

Photography 丨 Guo Zhishuo

Edited by 丨Gong Zisang

Audit 丨Shen Ruiwen

This article is from the WeChat public account of "School of Archaeology and Archaeology of Peking University"