When it comes to Huang Renyu, the first thing that comes to mind may be his most famous work, "Fifteen Years of The Wanli Calendar".
In fact, in addition to this book, Huang Renyu has published more than a dozen important works. Among them, there is a book that I think is more important is "The Great History of China".
The book "The Great History of China" has a total of only 240,000 words and more than 300 pages. However, what makes Huang Renyu powerful is that he can tell the entire three-thousand-year history of China in 240,000 words.
Some people may find it inconceivable, or think that Huang Renyu's "Great History of China" is not like the popular "Brief History of China" or "Brief History of the West", just introducing some of the most basic historical knowledge?
In fact, this is not the case at all. Huang Renyu put forward a brand-new viewpoint in the "Great History of China", which can accurately summarize the mystery of the continuous development of Chinese history throughout the three thousand years. What is this mystery? It is the government structure system of "submarine and bread", which is the core reason for the development of China's history for three thousand years.
What is "submarine with bread"? In fact, it is what we call sandwiches now. Everyone has eaten sandwiches or hamburgers, and sandwiches look like a submarine, which is why Americans call sandwiches "submarines and bread." In Huang Renyu's view, the bread above the sandwich represents officials in the central government, and the bread below represents the traditional rural system.
The two groups of central government officials and peasants, because of their strict organizational methods and stable systems, generally do not have rebellions to overthrow a dynasty. For example, because the officials in the central government are around the emperor, few people dare to act recklessly and overthrow the emperor. Moreover, if the emperor is overthrown, they will not be able to get paid. They want a country to be in peace and stability for a long time.
The same is true in the countryside, where farmers need to cultivate land every day and then pay taxes to the state. When they were able to eat enough, they generally did not rebel and overthrow the emperor.
However, why, then, did China continue to have peasant uprisings or rebellions for thousands of years, and there would be a group of people who risked their lives to take the initiative to overthrow the previous dynasty? The reason lies in the middle of the sandwich, that is, local governments and local officials.
In ancient China, the whole world was the emperor's, so the emperor did not want the country to be in turmoil and overthrow himself. The same is true of the peasants at the bottom, whose greatest wish is to plant the land safely every day, produce more grain, and feed themselves. However, local governments and local officials are not constrained by these factors.
Local officials are often appointed by the emperor, and local officials would not have thought about how to make a country long-term peace and stability from the perspective of the overall situation like the emperor. Their purpose as officials is to embezzle money by squeezing the peasants and the common people.
In any case, they were far away from the emperor, they were doing something wrong in the local area, and the emperor did not know, so they often levied heavy taxes on the peasants, which eventually led to the peasants not being able to survive, having to rise up and rebel, and finally overthrowing a dynasty.
Huang Renyu uses the metaphor of sandwiches to describe the traditional structure of Chinese politics, which is very vivid. The sandwiches we eat now must have two slices of bread. However, the meat, vegetables and sauces sandwiched in the middle can be constantly changed, such as beef sandwiches or chicken sandwiches. Therefore, Huang Renyu believes that the middle area is constantly changing, and their changes have precisely led to the continuous turmoil in Chinese history, and constantly restored stability from the turmoil.
In the book "The Great History of China", in addition to introducing important historical events, the most important part of Huang Renyu is to write about how China's ancient tax system and economic reforms affected the management of peasants and ordinary people by local officials. This is the main reason why Huang Renyu can use 240,000 words to sort out the development of Chinese history for us for more than 3,000 years.