Under the veil of ancient Chinese civilization, there is an ancient wisdom that divides the land - Kyushu and the five-service system.
"Yu Gong" is the earliest comprehensive and systematic record of the continent in ancient times of the geography of the monograph, the title of the so-called "Yu", in fact, refers to Xia Yu, in order to shape his series of achievements in the process of water control.
Yu laid the territory of the mainland after going through the big rivers and mountains in the process of controlling the water, and divided this range into nine large prefectures of Yan, Hebei, Xu, Qing, Yang, Henan, Liang, Jing and Yong according to the geographical characteristics.
This is not just a geographical map, it is a symbol of power, culture and order, like a code map, waiting to be interpreted. Moreover, with the course of historical development, the name and scope of Kyushu have also changed.
How did these concepts shape the ideological landscape of ancient China, and how did they influence the governance of the country for thousands of years?
The birth and development of the five suits
According to the "Yu Gong", the five suits are divided in order according to the distance from Wang Ji and the strength of Wang Ji's rule. The strength of its rule decreases from Dianfu to Desert.
As early as before the appearance of Kyushu, that is, during the period of the Yellow Emperor and Zhuan, there were already four gates, four directions, four mountains and twelve herdsmen. According to the second paragraph of the first article of the Shangshu Yaodian, Emperor Yao ordered Xi Zhong, Xi Shu, He Zhong, and He Shu to live in Yanggu, Jiao, Yugu, and Youdu in the east, south, west, and north respectively, to observe the movement of the sun, moon and stars and guide local agricultural production accordingly, with the ultimate goal of educating the four directions.
Then, according to the fact that there are 360 days in a year, let them determine the four seasons of the year by setting leap months, which will be used as the basis for stipulating the duties of the hundred officials-"There are 60 days out of 300, and the year is set at 4 hours in the leap month." Allow 100 work, and the performance is Xianxi. This can be confirmed in the relevant records such as "bin in the four gates, four doors of Mu Mu" mentioned at the beginning of the article of "Shangshu Shundian" and "guests in the four gates, four doors of Mu Mu, and the princes and guests from afar are respected" in the "Historical Records".
The so-called "four gates" are the gates of the four squares of the Ming Hall. Under the instructions of Emperor Yao, Shun was in charge of various government affairs of the tribal alliances, and Shun opened the four gates out of the need to welcome the leaders of the four tribes to come to meet him. After Shun accepted Yao's Zen position, he chose a good day and an auspicious day, and held a ceremony, the gods of heaven and earth, famous mountains and rivers are its objects, and every time there is an event, the princes of the four directions will come to see each other. When Shun inspected Mount Tai in the East, a ceremony was held for the various ethnic groups in the East.
The most important thing is that at this time, Shun determined the time, month and day, unified a series of musical rhythms as well as degrees, measurements and weights, and stipulated the five etiquettes to be followed when the princes and leaders came to the court. After that, the same activities were held at Huashan and Diyao Taimiao, forming a tradition of visiting various places once every five years, and on the occasion of each inspection, the princes had to come to the court to see and report their achievements, and reward them by inspecting their political achievements.
In other words, at this stage, the four mountains have been used as a symbol of worship, and through the etiquette and duty regulations they carry, they have become the center of political communication at that time. Emperor Yao died after 28 years of Zen reign, and three years later, on the auspicious day of the first month, Shun went to Yao's Taimiao to open the four doors to announce politics and religion, and planned political affairs with the vassal states. According to the "Shundian", "'Consultation, two out of ten shepherds! He said, "Eat! But the time is soft and far-reaching; It is difficult to appoint people, and the barbarians are obedient. It can be seen that under the Son of Heaven, the world was divided into twelve states, and each state had a political chief, that is, the twelve shepherds. The governors were mainly responsible for court meetings, participating in ceremonies, discussing state affairs, etc., in other words, the powers, responsibilities and obligations of the Son of Heaven and the princes had begun to be systematized during this period.
The political connotation and premature death of the five suits
As mentioned above, looking at the record of Wufu at the end of the "Shangshu Yugong", it is not difficult to see that the narrative of Wufu and Kyushu is particularly abrupt, and there is no theoretical basis for the transition from Kyushu to Wufu from the text, so it can be seen that Wufu is only a conception of future social politics by later generations. It is only used as a basis for the distance from the imperial capital to adopt different tributes and political influence of the regional concept, its significant difference from Kyushu is that the division of Kyushu is still in a regional classification of the territory and territory, and the five costumes can only appear on the basis of the existence of a higher administrative center on the tribal alliance, which more clearly shows the royal government's indoctrination intentions and conquest plans for the frontier.
The appearance of Wufu corresponds to the archaeological Nongshan culture and the late Xia Dynasty. In other words, relative to Kyushu and Wufu, it has a national concept and a clear political system. At the heart of this is the relationship between the rights and obligations of the royal family and the princes, so the taxes of Kyushu are not handed over to the heads of the states within Kyushu, but to the higher political organizations.
At the time when King Wu of Zhou had just seized power, the society was still unstable, and the political, military and cultural were still in the rising stage, and the Zhou royal family did not have the absolute strength to rule the vassal states comprehensively, so the political concept of Wufu was just used as an ideal means to alleviate the contradictions between the Zhou royal family and the vassal states, and it played an important role in stabilizing the social order during this period. Wufu strictly stipulates the rights and obligations of each vassal state to the Zhou royal family, and each vassal state must recognize the absolute status of the Zhou royal family as the co-lord of the world, and each vassal state has different obligations to the Zhou royal family, and the monarch of each vassal state still has the highest administrative power within its scope.
Under the management of the first three generations of the Zhou Dynasty, the Zhou Dynasty reached its peak during the reign of King Zhao. Therefore, the political concept of Wufu was mainly reflected in the implementation of the feudal system during the reigns of King Cheng, King Kang, and King Zhao. The Zhou Dynasty implemented feudal feuds for the major clans and nobles to consolidate their dominant position, and this political system with blood relations as a link did reflect the disparity in the political status between the royal power and the princes in the idea of five suits, and also showed that the feudal system was implemented through the concept of five suits in the early stage.
The emergence of the feudal system is not only the basis for the stable development of the Zhou royal family, but also the disaster of the decline of the Zhou royal family and the war of the princes. The reason why the concept of five suits is just a plan that has not been implemented and died halfway is because in the Warring States Period, due to the continuous development and growth of the vassal states themselves, it seriously threatened the dominance of the Zhou royal family, until the time when the co-lord of the world existed in name only, the development of the five suits, that is, the political system of the feudal system, came to an end, but the core of the relationship between the rights and obligations between the royal family and the princes still existed.
The time when the book was written in Kyushu
As mentioned above, what is the meaning of the word "Yu" in the title of "Yu Gong", and what should be the meaning of the word "Gong"? After the systematic recording of each state, the description of each state has a sentence describing the tribute road of the state to convey tribute as a summary, such as Jingzhou "floating in Luo, reaching the river", Liangzhou "leaning west because Huan is coming, floating in the dive, beyond the Wei, chaotic in the river" and so on, which is the meaning of the title of "tribute".
Throughout the whole article of "Yugong Kyushu", it is not difficult to find that it can be divided into three parts in the order of record: the first part describes the hydrological and soil characteristics of each state; The second part systematically describes the distribution and trend of mountain and water systems in the whole territory. The third part describes the division of the five costumes and the conditions for the tribute of each suit. The third part is the most abrupt and extremely incongruous with the physical geography of the first two parts. Obviously, the chapter on Wufu was added by later generations, but it is actually "a utopian plan about political geography with a little background of ancient history and probably out of fiction".
According to Mr. Shao Wangping, the completion of the book "Yugong Kyushu" requires at least two conditions: "One is the emergence of writing, and the other is the emergence of the central dynasty that overrides the cultures of all systems. Therefore, "Yu Gong" can only be a product of the civilized era. In this article, he systematically discussed the interaction and development of various cultural regions such as Yan culture, Qilu culture, Wuyue culture, Jingchu culture and Zhou Dynasty culture in the Yellow River and Yangtze River basins and the major cultures of the Zhou Dynasty, and concluded that the influence of Zhou culture in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period has greatly exceeded the scope of Kyushu in "Yugong".
Therefore, he believes that the geographical knowledge of the author of "Yu Gong" was limited to the early Western Zhou Dynasty, about 2000 BC. This point is also discussed in the book "Commentary on the Proofreading and Translation of Shangshu" by Mr. Gu Jiegang and Mr. Liu Qiji.
The two gentlemen believe that the author of "Shangshu Yugong" did not know that the direction of the Yellow River had already changed, and still recorded the direction of the ancient course of the Yellow River as a northward movement from the Great Ling, and the Yellow River had eight major diversions in the history of the mainland, the first of which was in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. Therefore, this point can be said to be ironclad evidence that the book of "Yugong Kyushu" was written no later than the middle of the Spring and Autumn Period.
According to the author's record of the mountains and rivers of the whole territory of Kyushu, it can be concluded that the book must have been written no later than the Spring and Autumn Period, because the author's level of knowledge of geography is far from that of the Warring States Period.
The practical significance of Wufu and Kyushu thought
The formation of the concept of the world
The division of Kyushu was the germ of the emergence of Chinese consciousness. The division of Kyushu laid the foundation for the development of the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties, especially the idea of five suits on the basis of Kyushu, which made the Chinese society sprout a feudal social state. Within the territory with Wangji as the core of power, the political relationship of the feudal system with clan and blood ties as the core plays an important role in the stable development of social stability. In other words, "according to the distance and kinship between the Son of Heaven and Yiwu, Yixia's rights and obligations in the political, economic, and cultural fields are differently stipulated, so as to show that he observes the duty of a "royal minister" to the Son of Heaven and fulfills the responsibility of a "royal minister".
Especially in the Qin and Han dynasties, after the great unification, the concept of the world was the political pursuit of successive dynasties. The history of the rise and fall of any dynasty, in a word, is a continuous cycle of division and merger. Under the influence of the concept of the world, every dynasty regarded the concept of territory and the world as a sign of "power orthodoxy", which is the unity of the rationality of historical logic and the legitimacy of political power.
Provide a theoretical source for early social institutions and social structures
In a certain sense, the five-service system objectively reflects the social system and social structure of the Xia Dynasty, which mainly contains two elements, namely: rights and obligations (the relationship between the royal family and the princes) - service, different political levels of Dian, Hou, Sui, Yao, and Huangfu; Distance & Control - Miles, different geographical levels, divided in units of 500 miles. In this kind of social structure, the strict standardization of regional division can only be an ideal state, a kind of conjecture for the planning of the political system, and it cannot be implemented.
However, this did not prevent it from becoming a theoretical source for the later establishment of the socio-political order. Confucius stated in the Analects of Confucius that "Zhou is due to Yin, and Shang is due to Xia", that is, although Shang seized power and replaced Xia, its basic political system and social structure were still inherited from Xia. This point is also proven by historical data, according to the "Shangshu Kanghe" recorded that "Houdian male state, picking and guarding hundreds of workers", and "Shangshu Jiuhe" recorded that "the more in the outer clothes, Houdian male Wei Bangbo; The more they take it internally, the more they serve it, the more the people live in it, and they dare to drink wine, not only don't dare, but they are also flawless."
It can be seen that the Shang Dynasty still had regional titles such as Hou Fu and Dianfu, and there were internal and external services, according to the disparity in the political status of the internal and external services, the internal service served in the royal family, and the external service served outside Wangji. It can be seen that the internal and external clothing of the Shang Dynasty has a certain degree of inheritance relationship with the five-service system of the Xia Dynasty, or it can be said that the five-service system of the Xia Dynasty is the theoretical source of the internal and external clothing system of the Shang Dynasty.
National Turnover and Geographical Patterns
Before the division of Kyushu, the center of power was still in the stage of tribal alliance or state, and the center of political power at this time was mainly concentrated in the tribal alliance, and the division of Kyushu determined that after the country developed from the early stage of the ancient kingdom to the emergence of the Kyushu system, there must be a political organization that overrode the tribal alliance.
Since the Xia Dynasty established the first state in Chinese history, disputes over the succession to the throne and the change of state have become fierce. First there was Taikang lost the country, and then there was King Wu's war, from the initial "world for the public" Zen concession system, to the beginning of the Xia Qi "family world" system, and then to the Zhou Dynasty "primogeniture inheritance system". From the territorial disputes to the struggle for national power, it intensified in the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties, and reached a climax in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period.
After the division of Kyushu, the boundaries of different ethnic groups gradually became clear - "Dongyi, Xirong, Nanban, Beidi", plus the Central Plains, the concept of "people of the five directions" appeared. As early as the beginning of the war between the three tribal leaders of the Yellow Emperor, the Yan Emperor, and the Chiyou, wars between various ethnic groups followed, and this process undoubtedly catalyzed the political order of Yixia. Through the continuous exchanges and contacts, the common psychological qualities of various ethnic groups have gradually emerged, and the sense of national identity has also been continuously strengthened. The emergence of Kyushu was an important prerequisite for the subsequent division of administrative regions.
In general, the biggest difference between Kyushu and Wufu is that Kyushu is only a horizontal division of different regions based on the geographical characteristics of each state, while Wufu is a political product that originated from Kyushu and developed into a political product with hierarchical differentiation and political organization and thus has a vertical connection.
Wufu is the vertical superior power center to the subordinate executive body of the ruling system, but also the inevitable product of the feudal social state power, its characteristics are that the scope of responsibilities corresponding to each different level is not the same, and Wang Ji's rule over the five services continues to weaken with the increase of distance. Whether it is the Kyushu Thought or the Five Service System, the two ideas are combined to establish a broad and grand theoretical system of the world view, and the Kyushu and Five Service Thought will still reflect strong vitality.