As the first centralized dynasty in China, the Qin Dynasty left behind countless miracles, but also many mysteries, one of which is the rise and fall of the Qin Dynasty.
Due to the lack of too many historical materials of the Qin Dynasty, later generations do not understand the history of Qin. Fortunately, as the underground cultural relics continue to "come forward", especially many Qin Dynasty documents, which fill in a lot of gaps, but also slowly lift the veil on them, allowing us to see a more real face.
At the beginning of this century, in Liye Town, Longshan County, Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, Hunan Province, archaeological discoveries of the ruins of the ancient city of Liye, in which nearly 40,000 Qin slips were unearthed.
The rise of the Qin Dynasty and the rule of officials
Wei Zheng, a famous minister of the Tang Dynasty, said in "The Essentials of Mass Writing": "Those who are in government are not good at clearing their officials." ”
As a matter of fact, many politicians in ancient and modern times have emphasized that "governing the country is governing officials," because it is not difficult for the people to govern, but it is the officials who are difficult to govern! The logic is very simple: Without a good system of officials, no matter how good the policy is, it will be in vain, and the lessons of history are vividly visible.
Therefore, no matter how good the content of the Shang Yang reform is, if it is not well implemented, it will inevitably become empty talk. The Qin Dynasty showed that the Qin Dynasty had an efficient, highly executed, and tightly supervised bureaucratic system, such as the following two points:
First of all, the Qin Dynasty official documents were transmitted, and the information was transmitted and fed back in a timely manner in order to solve the problem in a timely manner. The Qin Dynasty's official documents were delivered in an all-weather state, and through a complete post system, as well as "relay mail", to ensure the smooth upload and distribution channels, such as the central documents can go directly to remote areas such as Liye, and the uploaded documents can also reach the upper level or the central government in time.
What's even more amazing is that the sending, receiving, transmitting, and delaying of official documents of the Qin Dynasty will be recorded on the slips one by one, and the time is accurate to the hour, which shows the strictness of the system and the meticulousness of management.
The second is the assessment of officials, that is, the officials of the Qin Dynasty have KPIs, which are linked to their political performance and promotion. The Qin Dynasty's official evaluation system was very strict, and the officials' "attendance sheet" assessed the length of attendance, etc., as well as the completion of the rated tasks, whether there was any negligence, etc., and each official also had a "resume". Every year, the main officials of the counties of the Qin Dynasty reported to the imperial court on the state of governance.
From this, we can see the strictness of the Qin Dynasty's officials. With such a system of officials, there is a basic guarantee for the rise of the Qin State, as long as the policy is not wrong, and the above is not nonsense, the Qin State will rise sooner or later, and now it is no wonder that Qin Shi Huang can unify the six countries.
It is a pity that with the fall of the Qin Empire, although the Han inherited the Qin system, it has lost a lot, and after Confucianism took power, it lost even more, and the rule of officials has become a big problem in the decline and fall of all dynasties.
The fall of the Qin Dynasty and the cool law
There are many reasons for the sudden demise of the Qin Dynasty, but there is one thing that should not be wrong in the history books, that is, the Qin Dynasty's laws and regulations are too strict, such as the following two things recorded by Liye Qin Jian are enough to explain:
First of all, there were 12 men in Yangling County who owed debts to the government and were issued by the government to collect the debts, but these 12 people were unable to repay, so they were switched to forced labor to pay off the debts. Among them, a person named "Xiao Zhen" was fined 11,211 yuan. At that time, the daily wage was 8 yuan, and the fine was equivalent to nearly four years of continuous work without leave, which shows the weight of the fine.
Secondly, in 213 BC, the 34th year of Qin Shi Huang, the number of people who needed to serve labor for life in Qianling County was as high as 4,376, of which 1 died for every 7 prisoners every year. Qianling County is a subordinate county of Dongting County, with a small population, and more than 4,300 people have been forced for life, which shows the cruelty of the law, which also led to the flight of many prisoners.
The reason for this is that the laws of the Qin Dynasty became stricter. For example, Chen Sheng was targeted at Yuyang because of "Lu Zuo", of which "Lu Zuo", according to Zhangjiashan Han Jian and other records, was basically determined to be a commoner or a poor person, and did not violate the law. In other words, Chen Sheng, who did not break the law, was all subjected to reprimands, so the number of the above-mentioned lifetime labor is so large, it can only be that the Qin law has become stricter.
In fact, after Qin Shi Huang unified the six countries, he started many major projects, such as the Lishan Tomb, Abang Palace, the Great Wall, Chidao, etc., as well as the 300,000 troops who guarded against the Xiongnu, and millions of soldiers and civilians before and after the southern attack on the land of Baiyue, etc., which led to the Qin Dynasty needing a lot of labor, and it was free labor. Therefore, the Qin Dynasty had an incentive to make the laws stricter and create more free labor, and for example, those who were merchants of their fathers or grandparents were also punished by the defence, which was a clear expansion of the deception.
However, the consequences of such an abuse of people's power are just as Chao Cuo said, "If it doesn't go well, the walkers are deeply resentful, and they have a heart behind their backs", resulting in the loss of people's hearts. Therefore, after Chen Sheng and Wu Guang revolted, there would be a situation where there would be a large number of responders, and the Qin Dynasty would be easily overthrown by the righteous army, and the second would die.
Aftermath
The rise and fall of the Qin Dynasty has become a thing of the past, but the historical lessons left behind are extremely profound, on the one hand, the successive dynasties of the later generations shouted to learn the lessons of the Qin Dynasty's cool law and the collapse of the country, but on the other hand, they imposed heavy taxes on the ordinary people, and still treated the people harshly, which eventually led to the people of the world having to rebel.
Perhaps, just as the saying "the only lesson that history teaches mankind is that human beings never learn a lesson", all dynasties have shouted to learn the lessons of Qin's death, but in the end, they just changed their way and continued to implement the way of Qin's death!
References: "Historical Records", "Liye Qin Jian", "Xinhua News Agency - Millennium Slips Reveal the Rise and Fall of the Qin Dynasty", etc