@秦楚刊号
Please pay attention to the next issue.
The previous issues introduced the rise and fall of the Great Qin, and analyzed the reasons for its rise and demise. Looking at the thousands of years of Chinese history from the Zhou Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, we can think that the Qin Dynasty must have had the greatest influence on Chinese history, and there is no one! Why? Here's why.
One. The Qin Dynasty created the model of China's great unification
The history of China has been recorded in official history books since the Zhou Dynasty (e.g., the Spring and Autumn Period of the Lu Kingdom), and the Records of the Historians, written by Sima Qian of the Western Han Dynasty based on various historical sources, is the most credible description of pre-Qin history. According to records, King Wu of Zhou destroyed Shang and established the Zhou Dynasty, and named the descendants of Shennong in Jiaoguo, the descendants of the Yellow Emperor in Zhuguo, the descendants of Emperor Yao in Jiguo, the descendants of Emperor Shun in Chen, and the descendants of Dayu in Qiguo.
and then a large number of meritorious strategists, and the master Shangfu (Jiang Shang) was sealed in Yingqiu, which was the country of Qi; Feng Zhou Gongdan in Qufu, for the state of Lu; Feng Zhao Gong is in Yan Guo, Guan Shuxian is in Guan Guo, and Cai Shu is in Cai Guo; Other brothers and relatives were also entitled to the vassal states one by one (according to the records of the 24th year of the Duke of Zuo Chuan, Guan, Cai, Yun, Huo, Lu, Wei, Mao, Dan, Gao, Yong, Cao, Teng, Bi, Yuan, Xu, Xun and other states were given to the sons of King Wen of Zhou; and Yu, Jin, Ying, and Han were given to the sons of King Wu of Zhou); After the death of King Wu of Zhou, the youngest son Cheng Wang succeeded to the throne, Wu Geng rebelled with Uncle Guan and Uncle Cai, and after the rebellion of Zhou Pingping, Wei Ziqi, the brother of the King of Shang, replaced Wu Geng to rule the remnants of Yin Shang, and the country was named Song; He also named Uncle Wei Kang in Wei Guo; King Cheng of Zhou sealed his younger uncle Yu Yu in Tang, which was the Jin Kingdom; During the Western Weekend period, Zheng Guo, Qin Guo and so on were sealed. The king of Zhou had six armies, each with 12,500 men (the fourth Xia official Sima in "Zhou Li"), and Zhou Tianzi actually managed only "Wang Ji Qianli".
Each vassal state administers its own state affairs (including the hereditary monarch, the monarch appoints his own officials, each country establishes its own army, the large country has three armies, the sub-state has two armies, and the small country has one army; For example, the Jin State was the second army when it was dedicated to the government, and when it was the middle army, the upper army, and the lower army, it was the middle army, the upper army, and the lower army, and then the new upper army and the new lower army were added, a total of five armies. The taxes of the fiefdom were at their own disposal, etc.), and the vassal states only had to pay a symbolic tribute to the royal family (e.g. the Chu state paid a tribute "Bao Mao"), and there was an obligation to send troops to support the royal family when it was threatened. This was the feudal system of the Zhou Dynasty, that is, the vassal states enjoyed almost complete autonomy relative to the Emperor of Zhou. In the early Zhou Dynasty, the prestige of King Wu of Zhou and the Duke of Zhou was very high, and the princes were very respectful to the King of Zhou; However, with the passage of time, some vassal states (such as Qi and Jin) gradually became stronger, and the mutual relations linked by blood gradually became estranged, so the phenomenon of "etiquette collapse and happiness" that Confucius was distressed about appeared, and Zhou Tianzi almost lost his influence on various countries, forming the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period.
Qin Shi Huang eliminated the Six Kingdoms, unified the world, and established a centralized empire called the "Qin Dynasty"; This form of state was inherited by the Han Dynasty after the fall of the Qin Dynasty and has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people ever since; Since then, although China has been divided for some time, it has always been "divided for a long time". For example, after the division of the Three Kingdoms, the Jin Dynasty was unified; After the division of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the Sui Dynasty was unified; After the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, the Song Dynasty was (partially) unified. So why is the idea of unity so deeply rooted in the hearts of the people? The answer is cultural identity, especially the unity of words.
Two. Unified writing creates cultural identity, so that the concept of unity is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people
Before Qin Shi Huang unified China, the scripts of different countries were different, such as the following:
After the unification of the written language, the writing of the characters is standardized, and the same character is known by people everywhere, and the written word serves as a common link, making the Chinese an inseparable cultural community.
Three. The Zhou system changed to the Qin system
The above section on the great unification has already described some of the contents of the Zhou system and the Qin system, and the following is to emphasize the most important characteristics of this "thousand-year change".
1. The core and biggest feature of the weekly system is "decentralization"! The first is the decentralization of power between the central and local governments, the second is the division of power between the Son of Heaven and the nobles such as the princes, secretaries, and doctors, and the third is the further division of power between the princes and the scholars; In other words, in addition to the division of land into feudal land, the power of the Zhou system was also decomposed. See also: Feng Tianyu, "The Zhou System and the Qin System" (The Commercial Press).
2. The system of the Qin Dynasty was very different from that of the Zhou Dynasty, the most important of which was the change from the original feudal system to the county system, Qin Shi Huang set the world into thirty-six counties, which were appointed and dispatched by the imperial court (central) to guard (taishou, local chief officials) and wei (local military and magistrates); Taxes collected by local governments are also handed over to the central government. Localities have no personnel, military, or financial powers. Therefore, the core and biggest feature of the Qin system is the centralization of power, and the imperial court concentrates all the great powers; The emperor again concentrated the power of the imperial court; With the will and ability, the emperor can gather almost all the power in one.
Of course, there was also a process of transformation from the Zhou system to the Qin system, and it was not achieved overnight. In the twenty-sixth year of Qin Shi Huang, as soon as China was unified, Prime Minister Wang Juan and others said: "The princes have just broken down, and Yan, Qi, and Jing (Chu) are far away. Sons, please"; Qin Shi Huang asked his ministers to discuss, and everyone agreed; Lieutenant Lee was opposed; Qin Shi Huang thought that Li Si was correct, so he began to implement the county system. In the thirty-fourth year, Qin Shi Huang held a banquet in Xianyang Palace, and Zhou Qingchen sang praises of Qin Shi Huang's great achievements and praised the county system. Dr. Chun Yuyue confronted each other and put forward the advantages of the Zhou system and the disadvantages of the county system. Qin Shi Huang once again let everyone talk. Prime Minister Li Si put forward vicious suggestions such as "burning books", "abandoning the market for those who dare to speak "poems" and "books", and "exterminating the (extermination) of the people who are not the present with the past", which were all adopted by Qin Shi Huang. At this point, the Qin system was established.
Xiang Yu destroyed Qin, called himself the overlord of Western Chu, Liu Bang was the king of Han, and divided some meritorious people as kings, which is equivalent to "restoring feudalism". Liu Bang established the Han Dynasty, and named Han Xin as the king of Chu, Peng Yue as the king of Liang, Han Wangxin as the king of Han, Wu Rui as the king of Changsha, Ying (黥) Bu as the king of Huainan, Zang Tu as the king of Yan, and Zhang Ao as the king of Zhao. Later, he named the children of the Liu family as the king of Jing, the king of Chu, the king of Qi, the king of Dai and other princes. From these, it can be seen that the early Han Dynasty was actually a mixed system based on the county system and supplemented by the feudal system, but several "kings with different surnames" such as Han Xin and Peng Yue were eliminated by Liu Bang on the charge of "rebellion". By the time of Emperor Jing of the Han Dynasty, he began to cut the feudal domains, and all the feudal domains cut at this time were the Liu family, which led to the "Rebellion of the Seven Kingdoms" and was later pacified by Zhou Yafu. After the establishment of the Jin Dynasty, large-scale feudal relatives led to the "Rebellion of the Eight Kings".
Why was the feudal system practiced in the Zhou Dynasty able to persist for more than 800 years, while the dynasties after the Qin Dynasty would cause rebellions as long as they played true feudalism (the princes had real power, especially military power)? I think one reason is that the attraction of the "emperor" throne is too great, Liu Bang can wait for the throne with a pavilion chief, why can't those who are born in the imperial family and have an army at the same time be emperor? Some people will say, the emperor is a relative of your family, why don't you learn from the children of the Zhou Dynasty to keep to themselves? That's because the king of Zhou didn't have that much power, and his relatives could rule a country as a prince; The second is that the emperor and his sons, and even the crown prince, often do not hesitate to kill each other for the throne, and other relatives will not think of any brotherhood!
There has been much controversy about the advantages and disadvantages of feudalism and the county system, as early as the beginning of the Jin Dynasty, Liu Song, the prime minister of Huainan (the prime minister of the king of Huainan), expressed his views on the feudal system in a recital to Sima Yan, Emperor Wu of the Jin Dynasty (see the biography of Liu Song in the Book of Jin); Of course, Liu Zongyuan's "On Feudalism" in the Tang Dynasty is probably the most famous related treatise.
Four. The traditional aristocracy withdrew, and everyone wanted to be the king and hegemon, climbing the dragon and attaching the phoenix
The six kingdoms of Qi, Chu, Zhao, Wei, Han and Yan were destroyed, and their traditional hereditary nobles, including princes, doctors and scholars, withdrew from the stage of history.
Chen Sheng said that "the prince and the prince will have a kind of Xiangning", which ideologically broke the hereditary concept that the aristocracy mainly relied on their origin. Liu Bang became emperor with a cloth cloth, and most of his princes such as Han Xin, Xiao He, and Cao Shen were from low-level backgrounds.
This change of concept and the exemplary role of role models make people have the impulse to "be willing to cut their bodies and dare to pull the emperor off the horse" when there is no hope of survival, so the later "uprisings" and "rebellions" continue to occur, resulting in frequent changes of regime and frequent wars!
Five. Cultural catastrophe
1. Crack down on or even ban the ideas of Confucianism and other schools
During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, some great thinkers emerged in China, and they founded many ideas and doctrines that have been passed down through the ages, such as Confucianism, Taoism, Moism, Legalism, and so on. Among them, Confucianism has a long history, from the early Western Zhou Dynasty Zhou metric system of ritual music, the formation of ritual music culture and system, the rites have "Zhou Li", music has "Music Jing", as a Confucian classic there are "Shangshu" (also known as "Shujing", referred to as "book"), "Book of Songs" (also called "Poetry Three Hundred", referred to as "poetry"), "Book of Changes" (referred to as "Yi"), and the history books of various countries "Spring and Autumn" (there are three biography for the Spring and Autumn Period, "Gu Liang Biography", "Ram Biography" and "Zuo Chuan"); The above classics are the Six Classics of Confucianism.
"Shang Junshu" "to strengthen the fourth" believes that "the state has courtesy, music, poetry, books, goodness, cultivation (kindness), filial piety, piety, honesty, and argumentation (discernment)" will be weak, and even die. In the "Book of Shang Jun", "Jin Ling Thirteenth", it is pointed out that the state-owned "six lice (pests): rites, music, poems, books, cultivation, filial piety, integrity, chastity, benevolence, righteousness, non-soldiers (against force), and shame (shame in war). "With these twelve items, the king is not victorious over the ministers, and the officials are not victorious over the people. According to Shang Ying's meaning, not only are Confucian classics harmful, but also Confucianism's benevolence, righteousness, courtesy, wisdom, faithfulness, honesty, shame, filial piety, etc. should also be abandoned! After Qin Shi Huang unified China, according to Li Si's advice, he further destroyed traditional culture.
2, book burning "pit Confucianism"
Li Si suggested that Qin Shi Huang "burn the historians and not the Qin records." ...... There are people in the world who dare to have a hundred languages of "poems" and "books", and they will keep them and burn them. ...... Those who do not go, the book of medicine divination and tree planting. If you want to learn the law, take the officials as teachers. That is to say, all the history that is not recorded by the Qin State will be destroyed; Those poems, books, and works that recorded the opinions of the hundred schools of thought were also handed over to the magistrates to be burned; The only thing that can be kept is the book of medical divination and planting trees. And what about law books? I didn't say whether it would be burned or not, but it definitely couldn't be spread, and if you want to learn the law, you have to take the officials as your teacher. For these suggestions of Li Si, Qin Shi Huang instructed: "Agree" (system said: may)! This caused the first catastrophe of Chinese culture, which almost completely wiped out the traditional culture of China's pre-Qin period; Fortunately, some people risked their lives to hide some books, and it was only in the Han Dynasty that Chinese culture was partially restored by "collecting books and opening up the road of book dedication"; Ban Gu's "Book of Han" "Art and Literature Chronicle No. 10" describes the inheritance of some books.
I have already said in "The Rise and Fall of the Great Qin (4): Qin Shi Huang Annexed the Six Kingdoms and Ruled the World" that the so-called "pit Confucianism" is not accurate, but it is also the beginning of the large-scale killing of critics (Qin Shi Huang called it slanderers) and suppressing speech!
3. Suppress speech
In fact, the suppression of speech is not from the Qin Dynasty, I introduced in the "Idiom Allusion Tracing the Source (3)" that King Zhou Li of the Western Weekend killed the "slanderers", so that the Chinese people "the road to the eye", was described as "the mouth of the people is more than the defense of Sichuan"! The difference is that the Western Zhou Dynasty was a feudal society, the control ability of the Zhou king was limited, and the aristocracy had a great countervailing power, and finally the king of Zhou Li was exiled to other places, forming China's first "republican" period.
During the reign of Qin Shi Huang, according to Li Si's suggestion, "those who dare to say "poems" and "books" abandon the market. The ancient is not the present. Whoever sees that he does not raise the line is guilty of the same crime. That is to say, if anyone dares to talk about the Book of Songs and the Book of Songs, he will be executed in the market, and if he criticizes the present, he will be exterminated, and the officials who do not report it will be regarded as the same crime. This kind of suppression of speech is far from being comparable to that of King Zhou Li! And the later dynasties not only had those who were convicted for their words, but also the literary prisons of the Ming Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty!
Some people may say that since the Western Zhou Dynasty had the act of suppressing speech, why is it said that this is the influence of Great Qin? My reasons are as follows:
(1) Before the Qin Dynasty, the intensity and effect of controlling speech could not be compared with that of the Qin Dynasty. We know that it is often the "intellectuals" who can make speeches that displease the king; Some of the pre-Qin intellectuals were aristocrats, and they held a certain amount of power, and if they were pushed to a hurry, they would encounter resistance and even cause disastrous consequences; For example, King Zhou Li was driven away because he made people "look at the road", and he was not happy for a few days! Other intellectuals generally had their own way of survival, and the monarch did not have as many methods to them as the dynasties after the Qin Dynasty.
(2) After Qin Shi Huang unified China, the traditional aristocracy was basically eliminated, and the survival of intellectuals was heavily dependent on the imperial dynasty. If the emperor wants to punish intellectuals, it is not difficult to arrest them, because intellectuals can flee to other countries like before the unification of the Qin Dynasty, and the imperial court can easily cut off the intellectuals' livelihood and force them to comply. Thus, the Qin Dynasty pioneered a more thorough, efficient, and harsher system of speech control that influenced China for thousands of years.
During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, there were Taoism, Confucianism, Moism, Legalism, Bingjia, Zonghengjia, Famous Scholars and other doctrines, forming a situation of a hundred schools of thought, this period is the golden age of Chinese thinkers, also known as the Axial Age; With the unification of China by Qin Shi Huang, this glorious period came to an abrupt end, and no pioneering ideas emerged again.
Six. Legalism became the exclusive secret of the emperor
Shang Ying and Han Fei are recognized as two representative figures of Legalism, and Shang Ying, with the support of Qin Xiaogong, successfully changed the law in the Qin State. The success of Shang Yang was actually a victory for the Legalist doctrine, which proved that the Legalists could indeed "enrich the country and strengthen the army". It can be summarized in this way that Shang Ying's Legalist technique is to concentrate the manpower and material resources of the Qin State through means such as weak people and foolish people, so as to realize "militarism", so that the monarch can obtain strong power and whip the world! Of course, there are some techniques of domination in the Book of Shang Jun, but they are not the point.
Han Fei is Li Si's classmate, and both of them are Xunzi's students. Han Fei is not as eloquent as Shang Ying and Li Si (because of his stuttering), but he is good at writing books and speaking. Qin Wangzheng sighed after seeing Han Fei's "Lonely Anger" and "Five Worms": "Wow! The widow can see this person swim with him, and he will not hate it! ”
Han Fei's greatest influence on Chinese history is his imperial rule in "Han Feizi", the core of which is "law", "technique" and "potential". This kind of book that specializes in the art of monarchy is similar to Machiavelli's "Treatise on the Monarch" in Italy, but Han Fei's doctrine is much earlier in time!
It was only natural that the Legalist doctrine was favored by the emperor, because those contents were exactly what he liked, so they were regarded as undeclared secrets by almost all later emperors.
Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty is known as "deposing a hundred schools of thought and respecting Confucianism alone", but this is only a superficial article, and its essence is "Confucianism". According to the "Book of Han" "Yuan Emperor Era", Emperor Xuan of the Han Dynasty said to the prince: "The Han family has its own system, which is originally a tyranny. The "overlord road" here is the Legalist doctrine, and the "moral education" is the Confucian doctrine; "Zhou Zheng" is the government of the Zhou Dynasty and also Confucian politics. This statement of Emperor Xuan of the Han Dynasty clearly reveals the essence of the politics of "Confucianism and Legalism" of the emperors of various dynasties. Liu Bei, the emperor of the Shu Han Dynasty of the Three Kingdoms, instructed in the "Edict" to his son Liu Chan: "You can read Han books and ritual records, and read the books of the princes and Liutao and Shang Jun in your leisure time, which is beneficial to people's minds." Wen Cheng has completed the ...... of writing Shen, Han, Guanzi, and Liutao. Among them, "Shang Junshu", Shen, Han and Guan Zi are all Legalist doctrines, which shows that Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang both have a soft spot for Legalism.
Seven. Other impacts
1. Emphasize agriculture and light business, and make a hole
Merchants had always been discriminated against in ancient China, and their status was low; In the "Book of Shang Jun", the idea of valuing agriculture and ignoring commerce was brought into full play. The Qin State not only discriminated against merchants, but also cracked down; Commercial activities are suppressed. For example, in the "Book of Shang Jun", "Reclamation Order II", it is proposed: "So that merchants have no way to get rice (tiao), and farmers have no way to buy rice." ...... If there is no profit, it will be timid. "If the merchant is ordered to be a merchant by the number of merchants, and the servants, public servants, apprentices, and children must be named, then the peasants will be free and the merchants will work (according to the number of merchants' families, they will be shown to be forced into service, so that the servants in their families, such as servants, public servants, apprentices, and children, must all serve according to the official registration, so that the burden on the peasants is light and the burden on the merchants is heavy)." There were many similar policies, such as the 33rd year of the reign of Qin Shi Huang, who confiscated fugitives, sons-in-law (sons-in-law) and Jia people (merchants) to uncivilized lands in the south.
This extreme policy of valuing agriculture over commerce has limited the people's means of livelihood to agriculture, and it is almost impossible to survive without agriculture. Daqin also implemented the household registration policy and the law of joint sitting, which firmly controlled the "Qianshou" and made them a machine of "agriculture" and "warfare". Later dynasties followed the example of the Qin dynasty and adopted a similar approach; It's just that in view of the extreme policy of the Qin Dynasty, which caused the negative effect of the death of the second emperor, it had to be relaxed slightly.
2. The emperor pursues immortality
Qin Shi Empress was bent on the pursuit of immortality, sent people to ask for immortal medicine many times, and called herself a "real person". Many later emperors, especially those who were "brilliant and strategic", had similar pursuits, such as Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty in this respect, in the same way as Qin Shi Huang.
3. The formation of a bureaucratic system
According to the "Book of Han" "List of Hundred Officials and Ministers", important official positions in the imperial court, such as prime minister, taiwei, and imperial historian, all came from "Qin officials", that is, these positions were established by the Qin Dynasty and continued to be used by the Han Dynasty. Similarly, local official positions such as county guards, county lieutenants, guan duwei, county commanders, and county magistrates are also "Qin officials". Therefore, the bureaucratic system established by the Qin Dynasty had a profound impact on the later dynasties; Of course, with the passage of time and the needs of the rule, the bureaucratic system has been constantly changing, especially the central government's position of prime minister, local chief officials, and inspection and supervision officials have changed greatly.
4, the Great Wall
Meng Tian built and connected the Great Wall to defend against the northern nomads, and the Great Wall remained in function until the Ming Dynasty rebuilt it. (Sun Yuexi)