We read all the lead to present a different history.
When it comes to the legalists and reformers in Chinese history, in fact, there is no one person, that is, the famous martingale. Shang martingale's real name is Gongsun Martingale, a Weiguo person, so it is also known as Wei Martingale. After Qin Xiaogong issued an edict to seek meritocracy, Wei Martin entered Qin alone and expounded for Qin Xiaogong the study of the essence of the Law and the art of hegemony. Duke Xiao of Qin was deeply impressed, so he ordered Wei Martin to lead the state politics of the Qin state and began to change the law in the Qin state. After more than twenty years of changing the law, the system, military, culture, and customs of the Qin state have undergone significant changes, and the national strength has also become rapidly stronger, defeating the Wei state in one fell swoop and retaking the land of Hexi. Wei Martingale was therefore enfeoffed with shang, so it was called shang martingale in later generations.
▲ Shang martingale stills
The ancients have always paid attention to "Lide, Li Yan, And Meritorious Service", and Shang Martin has made great contributions to the Qin State and also laid down detailed and complete laws for the people of the Qin State. Therefore, Shang Martin summed up his experience in governing the Qin state and presiding over the change of law, plus the doctrine of the legalists he admired, and wrote a masterpiece of the law called the Book of Shang Jun. Although this book is only more than 30,000 words, it covers all aspects of national governance, and combines theory with practice, which has unparalleled practical significance. Because of the extremely detailed exposition of the governing strategy and the art of taming the people, the Book of the Shang Jun was listed as a forbidden book by successive dynasties. For a long time, the People who read the Book of Shangjun were either emperors or rebels. The rulers learned from the books how to tame the people and how to maintain their rule, and the rebels learned how to seduce people and gather the masses to revolt.
▲Qin Xiaogong stills
In the Book of Shang Jun, Shang Martin expounded the famous "Five Techniques of Taming People", namely the one people, the weak people, the tired people, the insulting people, and the poor people. "One people" is to eliminate the personality to retain commonality, to turn all people into a whole, when all people become a whole, people will lose the ability to think independently, will only follow the footsteps of the collective, regardless of right and wrong, this is actually a "ragtag crowd". The "weak people" means to reduce the people's ability to resist, and the state can demand from the people at will, ask for grain for food, and ask for people to give. "Tired people" is to arrange things for the people to do, when a person has nothing to do, he will think a lot, more ideas are not conducive to stability - this is why there is less corruption in the rising period of the dynasty, the ministers have something to do, there is no time to engage in corruption, otherwise they will be degraded by the emperor if they cannot complete the task, and when the dynasty affairs are less, the ministers will begin to be corrupt, and they will not do anything after getting used to it.
▲Stills of monarchs and ministers in the Warring States period
"Insulting the people" is to break up the clan society of the people, to form the ranks prescribed by the state, to supervise and report to each other, so that the people will no longer trust each other, so that the state apparatus will become the only authority. The poor people are to keep the people on the verge of food and clothing for a long time, and when the people even have a problem in survival, they will fight the road to prosperity, which is also the reason why the qin army officers and soldiers are mighty and good at war. Living in the Warring States period when the liturgy collapsed and the system did not exist, Shang Martin had a very negative thinking about the people's hearts, and at that time, there were many princes, everyone had different scripts, customs and cultures, and it was very difficult to merge, so it was necessary to have a strong enough national strength. These techniques of taming the people are the key to the powerful national strength of the Qin State.
▲The Book of Shangjun published by Shanghai Guangyi Bookstore of the Republic of China
With strong national strength and the art of taming the people, after the stability of the Qin state, the monarchs and subjects of the Qin State spent all their hearts on the annexation war, and eventually unified the four seas. After Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty "deposed the Hundred Schools of Confucianism", although Confucianism became the orthodox official ideology of successive feudal dynasties, the emperors tacitly adopted the theory of the Legalist Doctrine to govern the country, forming a model of "Confucian Skin And Law Bone". Therefore, it is not difficult to understand that if everyone reads the essence of the Book of Shang Jun, they will inevitably understand the essence of being ruled, and the foundation of the regime will inevitably be shaken, so the emperors will strictly ban this book, for fear of secretly circulating it in the street and causing unimaginable serious consequences.
▲Stills of Qin Shi Huang Yingzheng
In the Warring States period, the people's education level was not high, the sense of identity and belonging to the country was not strong, and even there was no strong national culture as a spiritual bond, so Shang Martin could only choose an extreme way to unite the people to overcome all enemies and sweep away all obstacles. Dynasties since then, essentially, have been the same. However, after the founding of New China, the people were the masters of their own affairs, and the universal education of Chinese the whole people replaced the ancient policy of fooling the people. For ancient books such as the Book of Shangjun, they are no longer banned, but most of the contents are outdated, so modern people must not only take the essence of it and remove its dross" critical vision when reading, but also understand it in connection with the background of the era of its writing.
Resources:
"History of Shangjun Lie", "Book of Shangjun"
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