Text: Zi Xia Yan
Read history, view the world, and practice
The first person to complete the unification of China was Qin Shi Huang Yingzheng, but Qin Shi Huang also completed the unification on the basis laid by his predecessors, and all the merits were won by Qin Shi Huang.
The first to begin the unification work was the Five Emperors group headed by the Yellow Emperor, which officially began in 2697 BC, when the Yellow Emperor ascended the throne. (According to the Yellow Emperor's chronology, it does not match the current official Xia Shang anniversary table)
Why?
①
The real Yellow Emperor
Now the impression of the Yellow Emperor is that he is the ancestor of humanity, and he is also an amiable, fairy-like white-bearded old gentleman.
but ignored the main identity of the Yellow Emperor, a military strategist, a politician, and a strategist.
He was a strong-armed monarch and a formidable conqueror, and while we will now sing the praises of the Yellow Emperor's great achievements in the humanities for the Chinese nation, he did launch a unified war of conquest against the surrounding tribes during his reign through advanced bronze weapons and systems.
War means violence and killing, and I don't deny the merits of the Yellow Emperor, but objectively speaking, the Yellow Emperor is indeed not the image of the Spring Breeze as propagated by Confucianism.
The "Historical Records" records:
There are those who are not in line with the world, and the Yellow Emperor will collect them, and the peaceful ones will go to them, and they will not live in peace.
—"Historical Records"
Where there are disobedient tribes, the Yellow Emperor will go to clean up, and then clean up the next disobedient one when he is convinced, the Yellow Emperor's creed is: "As long as you don't listen to me, you will be cleaned up by splitting mountains and opening roads"
It's really domineering enough.
After defeating the strongest opponent, Chi You, the Yellow Emperor did just that.
The Yellow Emperor met Chiyou, so he was captured. Peel off its leather and think that it is dry, so that people shoot it, and those who have more in it will be rewarded; the sky that is built by its hair is called Chi You's Jing; it is full of its stomach and think that it is bowed, so that people will stick to it, and those who have more in it will be rewarded; rot its flesh and bones, and throw it into the bitter sink, so that the people of the world will cry it.
—"The Yellow Emperor"
To put it simply, the Yellow Emperor did not give respect to the defeated Chi You, but gave the defeated Chi You's flesh cramps and bones, and his bones were scattered.
In order to deter those who do not return to the world, it is to tell the princes of the world: If you go against me, Chiyou will end, and Chiyou is so strong, I will clean it up, and I will clean it up as you little characters.
This also shows that the Yellow Emperor is not the talkative white-bearded old gentleman that everyone imagines.
History proves that only this kind of person, such as Qin Shi Huang, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, Taizong of the Tang Dynasty, and Taizu of the Ming Dynasty, can have the ability and courage to open up a vast territory and establish great achievements.
②
Ancient Chinese basic plate
See how big the area expanded by the Yellow Emperor's conquest?
Such a large territory is not given away by phone bills, but by a knife and a gun.
This was before the expansion
Figure: Full History
This is the comparison between the before and after expansion I painted, the location of the Yellow Emperor tribe is not very standard, but it is probably like this, the small circle is the territory before the expansion, and the large circle is the territory after the expansion.
East to the sea, south to Hunan and Jiangxi, west to Gansu, north to Youyan, basically consistent with historical data.
To the east is the sea, Mount Maru, and Daizong. As for the empty tung in the west, climb the head of the chicken. As for the river in the south, Dengxiong and Hunan are climbed. The meat porridge in the north is in line with Busan, and the city is in Zhuolu.
—"Historical Records"
This range basically set the shape of the Chinese territory in the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties, and the scientific and technological productivity in the period of the Yellow Emperor was already the limit of expansion, so it was called the basic plate of ancient China.
That is to say, the Yellow Emperor hit the territory of China, that is, the small territory of the hinterland of Henan in the middle of the Yellow River, to the vast area of the sea in the east, Hunan and Jiangxi in the south, Gansu in the west, and Youyan in the north.
The author believes that the area laid down by the Yellow Emperor is the basic plate of China in ancient times.
Of course, it is not enough to just fight down, it is necessary to defend it, to operate it, to digest it, to absorb it, to consolidate the rule from generation to generation, and to completely become the territory of China.
Therefore, the sub-enclosure system has come to the stage of history.
③
Split envelope system
The Yellow Emperor captured and killed Chiyou, defeated Emperor Yan, and conquered the princes of the world. In Heluo, the capital was established, in fact, the nature of the country at that time was actually a "federal system", which was composed of many city-states and rural areas, and a city and a settlement were considered a country.
Whether it is the Central Plains region centered on Heluo or the land of Siyi, it is a situation of many states, so the Yellow Emperor conquered these large and small vassal states, and they all regarded the Yellow Emperor as the co-lord of the world.
However, what the Yellow Emperor wanted was not just a verbal and nominal submission, he wanted a real unification, and all these large and small vassal states were unified into China.
Therefore, the Five Emperors Group, represented by the core figures of the Yellow Emperor, is a political group with a clear strategic plan, and they have formulated a plan to unify the world.
Therefore, the Xia Dynasty had tens of thousands of vassal states, the Shang Dynasty had 3,000, and the Zhou Dynasty had 800, why those countries were getting fewer and fewer, because the unification of the Yellow Emperor was gradually proceeding.
The specific steps are to first conquer and expand the territory, and then gradually send the clan relatives to divide and digest and consolidate the territory of China.
The local tribal city-states were conquered by military force, subject them to the central power and called them tribute, but they still had administrative, financial, and military independence.
The Yellow Emperor tribe conquered the local area, but could not form a long-term effective rule, and the local grass head king, the soil emperor, each playing its own game.
Slowly the Yellow Emperor found that this is not a way, although he is very capable of fighting, these territories have been beaten down, but they cannot form a stable rule, as soon as the Yellow Emperor's army arrives, they obediently surrender as good children, and as soon as the Yellow Emperor's army leaves, they immediately rebel, or Yang Feng Yin disobeys.
Therefore, the history books record that the Yellow Emperor: the passage of the mountain, did not taste the peaceful residence.
In other words, the Yellow Emperor is basically fighting outside, but there is no time to rest, why?
That's what happened, because the territory just conquered, the rebellions were one after another, the Yellow Emperor had just come back from a battle, and was just about to rest for a few days, when he heard the military intelligence report of rebellion in other places, and people did not take off their armor and horses to quell the rebellion, so they did not taste Ningju.
It was only a military conquest, and the tribes were only superficially subservient to the central power of the Yellow Emperor, and when the central power weakened, they would inevitably have to fight each other.
Too tired, the Yellow Emperor decided that he had to think of a solution to solve it completely.
Therefore, in order to completely digest these spheres of influence into the territory of China, the Yellow Emperor came up with a strategy that had an impact of two thousand years: separation.
Divide the sons and daughters of the clan into the territory expanded through conquest, establish a feudal state, spread culture, and consolidate the rule.
The preference is given to one's own sons, grandchildren, relatives, after all, their own family members can be trusted, and then ministers, etc.
They were sent by the Five Emperors Group to establish a feudal state here, which sounded good about founding the country, and bad at worst was that the armed groups of the Yanhuang Alliance ruled the local cities, organized the army, ruled the local tribes, and established local governments loyal to the center.
With blood relations as the bond, military conquest as the mainstay, supplemented by cultural export, the local tribes were gradually digested and assimilated into the Huaxia people.
According to the strategy of Yanhuang Group, it is to first lay out the expansion group one by one, first occupy the important strategic territory, and the descendants of the future generations are slowly operating to win the living space for Huaxia Group.
Fertile land suitable for farming, pastures for animal husbandry, and forests are occupied first, and of course, those native tribes are not obediently handed over to you when you come, and you are at your command.
It is by virtue of the advanced armament of the sub-feudal personnel and the powerful force that they bow down, of course, there are some tribes who will not listen to your command, thinking that the army of the Yellow Emperor can't be defeated, and you, a few hundred or thousands of people, can't deal with it?
Therefore, there are armed confrontations among the local tribes, and they are wearing animal skin skirts and holding stone weapons, so for those children who are divided, it is not a beautiful difference.
It's drudgery, eating and drinking spicy food every day in the capital.
Now you run to the wilderness, there is nothing, you have to build a city from nothing, and you have to fight with the local primitive tribes, and the treasury is cleaner than your face after paying tribute to the Son of Heaven every year, which is indeed very hard.
Of course, after suffering this generation of feudal people, there are still results, from the five emperors to the Xia Dynasty, the children of the feudal people established several countries in the newly conquered territory, and it lasted for thousands of years.
④
Tertiary separation
There are a total of three such divisions of China, and it can also be said that there are three unification processes for the basic plate of ancient China.
The planners are:
1. Five emperors to the royal family of the Xia Dynasty
Because the time from the Five Emperors to the Xia Dynasty is not too far according to the historical records, the division of this matter can be grouped together, and the monarch has the surname Him
2. Shang Dynasty royal family, surname
3. The royal family of the Zhou Dynasty, surnamed Ji
What's interesting is that they are all descendants of the Yellow Emperor, and I think they were arranged in advance by the Yellow Emperor.
The first time was the division from the Five Emperors period to the Xia Dynasty, such as the Yue Kingdom, the Shu Kingdom, the Ge Kingdom, the Xu Kingdom, the Yan Kingdom, and the Pi Kingdom, all of which were divided at this time.
Dayu, the successor of the Yellow Emperor, has been implementing this policy of separation, which is also the first time in Chinese history to divide the seal, which is of far-reaching significance.
Figure: Full History
There are very few ancient kingdoms that still exist in the Zhou Dynasty for the first time, mainly in the eastern region, and the first feudal states in other directions are not said to be none.
Yes, but the power is not as good as the feudal states in the eastern region, perhaps because of this, they have been annexed by the primitive tribe Rongdi because of their weak strength, which shows that the focus of the Five Emperors to the Xia Dynasty was in the direction of Dongyi.
Sanxingdui of Shu is also a regime established by the descendants of the Yellow Emperor's branch to conquer the local aborigines, which can be regarded as a successful case of the division of the Five Emperors Group.
Shu is the country, caused by the emperor, and is confined with Ba. To the Yellow Emperor, his son Changyi married the daughter of the Shushan clan, and gave birth to a son Gao Yang, who was the emperor's concubine; Lixia, Shang, Zhou, King Wu cut down, Shu and Yan
—"Huayang National Chronicles"
To be honest, the effect of this partition is average, but it still works.
The subsequent Shang Dynasty continued to divide the territory for the second time in Chinese history on this basis, and the effect of this division and consolidation of the territory was much better than the previous one.
Figure: Full History
It can be seen that the Shang Dynasty expanded its actual territory much more than that of the Xia Dynasty through the division of feuds, and the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River were basically in their hands.
During this period, there were princes with the same surname, Laiguo, on the Shandong Peninsula.
"Road History: Country Name Ji IV" says that Lai is the country after the Shang Dynasty, and Yin Shang's surname is the surname of Lai, so the country of Lai is also regarded as the surname of the child.
"Historical Records" Volume 3 "Yin Benji" contains: "(Shang Zu) deed for the surname of the son, and then divided, with the country as the clan, there are Yin and Lai. ”
"Zuo Chuan: The First Year of the Hidden Emperor" is righteous according to the "Shiben" "to be the surname of the son".
This is just a saying, and it is also said that Laiguo is a descendant of Zhurong. Of course, if it is really a princely state with a surname, it will be of great significance.
Because the Shandong Peninsula was the hinterland of the Dongyi people at that time, if the Shang Dynasty had not dealt with the Dongyi people, if a vassal state with the same surname as the Shang Dynasty was really established in the hinterland of the Dongyi people, it would be of great significance to stabilize the eastern region.
There is also the Guzhu Kingdom in the north, which is the location of the bamboo side on the map, and the Guzhu State is indeed a vassal state with the same surname in the Shang Dynasty.
About 1600 B.C., the ancestors of Guzhu were a branch of the Mo clan of the Shang tribe. When the Shang Dynasty, the princes of the Xia Dynasty in the Central Plains, was corrupt and declining, the leader Shang Tang grew stronger with the assistance of Yi Yin and took the opportunity to destroy the Xia to establish the Shang Dynasty, and divided the clan with the same surname to establish the Guzhu State in the northern border of the Shang Dynasty, so that it could be used as a vassal state to resist Rong Di and protect the border of the Shang Dynasty.
The Shang Dynasty's plan was that the Lai State controlled the eastern part and the Guzhu State controlled the northern part.
There are also sub-surnamed vassal states Tan State, non-sub-surname vassal states, Qi State, Misu State, Lu State, Chong State, Xue State, etc., most of which rule the vast territory by controlling the form of vassal states. However, it is strange why there are so few princes with the same surname in the Shang Dynasty?
The Zhou State should also be divided by the Shang Dynasty, because the Zhou tribe ran from the hinterland of China to Baoji City, Shaanxi Province, Fufeng, Qishan area to beg for a living, they are the ancestors of Houji is a descendant of the Yellow Emperor, but after Shaanxi mixed some fame, it was adopted by the Shang Dynasty and given the title to the Shang Dynasty to catch the Qiang people as human animals, and established the Zhou State.
The work of catching people and livestock was done impressively, and was highly appreciated by the rulers of the Shang Dynasty, and the royal princess was married to the leader of the Zhou people, in fact, the Zhou people and the Shang Dynasty fought very hotly, it can be said that the Zhou people became bigger and were supported by the Shang Dynasty, and it was reasonable to be feuded.
The third time was the division of the Zhou Dynasty
Figure: Full History
Because of the accumulation of the Xia Dynasty and the Shang Dynasty, there is also the improvement of productivity and technology.
The area that can be divided into the Zhou Dynasty is already very large, the northernmost is the Fu Busan planned by the Yellow Emperor, and the Yan Kingdom of its own people is divided, and in addition to the Lai people in the east, it is basically to the sea, and the country of Qi is divided here. Hanyang Zhuji in the Yangtze River region in the south, and the old Ji family in the land of Feng Ho in the west is in charge of themselves.
East, West, North and South, all under control.
It can be said that the Lao Ji family, the policy of respecting the ancestor Yellow Emperor, basically grasped the basic plate of ancient China in their hands, and the Lao Ji family has made great contributions to China.
But this is still not the real unification, the real unification is handed over to the old winner who raised the horse for the old Ji family to complete.
And the surname Ying is also a descendant of the Yellow Emperor.
So in the end, the Qin Dynasty unified the six kingdoms and finished the work of unifying the basic plate of ancient China arranged by the Yellow Emperor.
Figure: Full History
It was not until the unification of the six kingdoms was completed in 221 BC that it could be said that the basic plate of ancient China that the Yellow Emperor had laid down and planned was truly digested and absorbed.
You can look at the comparison between the territory I laid down by the Yellow Emperor according to the historical records and the territory after Qin Shi Huang unified the Six Kingdoms, which is generally the same.
From the Yellow Emperor to Qin Shi Huang for more than 2,000 years, the efforts of the Xia and Shang dynasties completed the feat of unifying the basic plate of ancient China.
The Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties were digested, absorbed and consolidated in the basic plate of China, because it was indeed too big, and through the division that lasted for more than a thousand years, it was absorbed and consolidated from generation to generation.
In fact, this was the case throughout the Xia, Shang and Zhou periods, which paved the way for the unification of Qin Shi Huang.
But this was already in the plan of the Yellow Emperor, and it was his descendants who finally completed the unification of ancient China, and Qin Shi Huang was one of the people who gave a perfect answer to the unification work assigned to him.
When the Zhou Dynasty began to divide the vassal states, why did it look for those descendants of the Five Emperors, in the name of saying that other people's ancestors were saints and benevolent monarchs, in fact, the reason was that others were originally thousand-year-old countries, but they always remembered that they were members of the Yanhuang Alliance.
Now that you Zhou Dynasty is the boss of China and the co-owner of the world, I still recognize you as the boss.
If someone wants you to seal it, it is just to give you a face, and others have been entrenched in that group for thousands of years.
Otherwise, I will tell you from the current boss that I will promote you to be the person in charge of this area, but it is unrealistic for you to do the money and people yourself.
Moreover, the sub-feudal system illustrates a problem, to solve the internal problem, it is necessary to expand outward, and seal the king, not inward, inward involution, involution is not promising.
What is said here is that the ancestors of the Zhou people and the ancestors of the Qin people did not love involution, and the ancestors of the Zhou people were the first to be sealed in Taidi by Emperor Shun, which must be a good place, but others feel that the Central Plains involution is uncomfortable, and there is no future to run to the northwest and Rong Di to mix, and when they mixed with the Shang Dynasty, they hugged the thigh of the Shang Dynasty, developed, and finally killed the old club and replaced him.
The Qin people surnamed Ying are also a restless character, originally there were two feudal states of their clan, one was the feudal state of Boyi's eldest son Dalian, and the feudal state of Xu Guo, the second son Ruomu.
When Fei Chang was in Xia, he went to Xia to return to business, for Tang Yu, and defeated Mingtiao.
—"Historical Records"
That is to say, at the end of the Xia Dynasty, Fei Chang, a descendant surnamed Ying from the Xu Kingdom, went to the Shang Dynasty to rebel with Shang Tang, and defeated Xia Wei in the Battle of Mingtiao.
Da Lian's great-great-grandson said Meng opera, Zhongyan, and the bird's body speaks. Emperor Taiwu heard and made the emperor, auspicious, so that the emperor and his wife. Since Taiwu below, after Zhongyan, the world has meritorious, to Zuo Yin country, so the surname is more obvious, and then it is the princes.
His great-great-grandson said Zhongwei, in Xirong, Bao Xitui.
—"Historical Records"
Zhongyan, a descendant surnamed Ying from Huang Guo, also went to the Shang Dynasty to work and worked at the top of the Shang Dynasty's management.
When Zhongyan's great-grandson Zhongyan was in the middle of the day, he had already mixed into the position of the highest military governor in the western part of the Shang Dynasty, and others were already princes.
Therefore, the Qin State was actually bred by the descendants of the Huang State, and they were relatives.
It is precisely because of Zhongyan's long-term vision that the Qin people finally dominated the world.
Therefore, those large groups and large companies, don't think about competing for profits with the small people at home, don't roll up with domestic and peer involution, and compete in the international market, which is the right way.
The words are far away, back to the article, it can be said that from the period of the Yellow Emperor to the end of the Warring States Period, Qin Shi Huang abolished the division of feuds, force, set up counties and counties, unified currency weights and measures, books with the same text, cars with the same track, and the basic plate of ancient China was truly unified.
This is the merit of Qin Shi Huang's reign, but it is also the result of the efforts of the Chinese people in the past dynasties.
We can look at the map of Xia, Shang, Zhou and Qin to know that the strategy of unifying China has been done in the Yellow Emperor period, and the framework plan has been done in the early stage, and the rest will be handed over to the descendants of later generations to improve and consolidate digestion and absorption step by step through the sub-feudal system, and it was only during the period of Qin Shi Huang that the great unification was truly completed.
⑤
Advanced civilization
So why is the Yellow Emperor Huaxia Group so powerful and able to lay such a big foundation?
Compared with the prosperity of ancient Egypt at the same time, we are fully capable of believing that during the Yellow Emperor's period, the Chinese civilization was able to expand such a large area, although it was still a tribal alliance.
Because the Huaxia group represented by the Yellow Emperor was the most advanced civilization at that time, let's see what inventions the Yellow Emperor has?
Clothes, guide cars, the well field system, his wife Zuzu invented silkworm raising to make silk, his subordinate Cangjie invented writing, and so on.
The "Historical Records" records:
Sow hundreds of grains and plants, purify birds, beasts, insects and moths, and punish, the sun, moon and stars, water waves, earth, stones, gold and jade, hard work, ears and eyes, and save water and fire materials. There is the Rui of Tude, so it is called the Yellow Emperor.
This simple description shows the development of the agricultural level and animal husbandry level of the Yellow Emperor tribe.
The sun, moon and stars have been observed and the calendars have been observed, and he has a wealth of astronomical knowledge.
The use of bronze has begun.
The Yellow Emperor mined the first mountain copper and cast the tripod at the foot of Jing Mountain.
—"Historical Records"
The Yellow Emperor cast the tripod, it can also show that the Yellow Emperor tribe has been widely used in bronze at that time, although there is no corresponding time of cultural relics to prove, but the single-edged bronze knife unearthed from the Majiayao cultural site in Gansu is the oldest known bronze in China, and it is also the oldest bronze knife in the world. It has been identified as carbon-14 about 5,000 years old.
Gansu is not far from Henan, which is enough to show that it is very possible that the bronze casting technology of the Yellow Emperor tribe is developed.
Technology is productivity, so the Yellow Emperor tribe was extremely powerful at that time, and it could form an overwhelming advantage over the surrounding tribes.
The Yellow Emperor's tribe is strong in humanities and technology, and it provides a huge advantage in military conquest, so it can unify the world through advantages.
⑥
In the same vein
Shun, Yu, Qi, and Houji are all descendants of the Yellow Emperor. The Yellow Emperor ruled the world with the mandate of heaven, and Deze was deep in later generations, so his descendants were reinstated as the Son of Heaven, which was the reward of heaven and virtue. People don't know, thinking that it is from the cloth clothes. Fu Buyi Pi Fu An can rise up for no reason, the king of the world, and it has a destiny. ”
—"Historical Records"
And I don't know if Sima Qian is connotating the emperor of the Han Dynasty in this passage, because Liu Bang said that he was born in cloth and held a three-foot sword to win the world.
Sima Qian meant that:
Liu Bang, what virtue do you have, you still don't know?
An old fritter in his forties, you still think that you have fought hard to win the world, and it is not that your ancestor surnamed Liu is Danzhu, the son of Di Yao.
Descendant of the Yellow Emperor, he has deep fortune.
Look at how you look like Dan Zhu is really the same.
If you can conquer the world, you are just the blessing of the ancestors.
It may be that the emperor was given to Emperor Shun back then, and the way of heaven is good reincarnation, and now compensate you for the Liu family and let you ascend the throne.
Therefore, the "Historical Records" records that the kings of Xia, Shang, Zhou, and Qin are all descendants of the Yellow Emperor, in fact, the emperors of the Han Dynasty are also.
After the Yellow Emperor, Zhuan, Emperor Yu, Yao, Shun, and Yu successively became the co-masters of the world. During this period, the so-called "Chan concession system" was practiced when the monarch ascended the throne, in fact, these kings were all from the Yellow Emperor family, which was a primitive form of hereditary system, and they were all relatives.
Sima Qian said that why the sons of heaven in later generations are all descendants of the Yellow Emperor is because of the Yellow Emperor's benevolence and virtue in the world, and the blessings of the descendants.
In fact, the most important thing is not the inheritance of the position of the Son of Heaven, but the inheritance of the spirit of the Yellow Emperor's unification of China by the successive kings and the Son of Heaven, and the spirit of unification has long been integrated into the Chinese bloodline.
Although there is war in reunification, it is in exchange for long-term peace, which is where the benevolence of the Yellow Emperor lies, and virtue covers the world
Therefore, the heroes of all generations have taken the unification of China as their own responsibility, and even those people with backward ideas like the warlords of the Republic of China who have divided the country have a unified consciousness.
So for our descendants of the Yellow Emperor, China must be unified and will be unified
Pay tribute to the heroic ancestors who contributed to the unification from the Yellow Emperor to the present