Evaluate Qin Shihuang

People are familiar with Qin Shihuang, but their evaluation of him is quite different. Some people praised him as an "emperor through the ages", while others called him a "tyrant". As the same person, they are generally clear about what they do. Why is the evaluation so different? This is mainly because the evaluation criteria and methods are different.

We might as well take a brief look at the main historical activities of Ying Zheng (Qin Shihuang): in 22 1 year BC, he led a million troops and achieved the great cause of "four seas and one place"; He also sent troops to Nankai Lingqu to attack the Vietnamese. Build the Great Wall in the north, crusade against Huns, and establish a unified multi-ethnic country with unprecedented territory in China history; He adopted a series of measures such as emperor system, three public officials and nine ministers system, county system and so on. He practices unified currency, unified measurement and unified writing; Taking legalism as the guiding ideology of governing the country, he formulated and promulgated the Qin law, which stipulated that law should be the teacher and officials should be the teacher; He ordered the burning of books to bury Confucianism; During his reign, the punishment was severe, the corvee was numerous and the taxes were heavy.

This is Qin Shihuang. Undoubtedly, it is easy for people to find reasons for affirmation or negation: admirers focus on his great cause of reunification, and accusers seize his tyranny. But the problem is that the merits and demerits of emperors in history are often linked, and it is not so easy to cut them in half. Qin Shihuang is a very typical example. For example, in order to accomplish the great cause of reunification, Qin fought for ten years, and hundreds of thousands or even millions of lives perished in the war, but the war of reunification did promote the progress of history; Another example is burning books to bury Confucianism, and most of them are severely condemned by future generations; But to be fair, Qin Shihuang may also have a subjective desire to safeguard the central authority and national unity.

Obviously, to correctly evaluate a historical figure, a better way is not simply to make a moral judgment on whether something he has done is "meritorious" or "excessive", not just to focus on what he has done, but to put these things and this figure in a specific historical environment to see if this figure's historical activities are conducive to the development and progress of China society, and then make a concrete judgment. From this perspective, Qin Shihuang can be regarded as the "Emperor through the ages" who made great contributions to the development of China, although there are many points worthy of criticism.

Of course, there were many such emperors in ancient China, such as Emperor Wu of Han Dynasty, Emperor Taizong, Kublai Khan and Emperor Kangxi, all of which can be evaluated by the above methods.

Modern Evaluation of Qin Shihuang After the founding of New China, Qin Shihuang once again attracted people's attention. Mao Zedong expressed his opinion. He said: "As a historical figure, Qin Shihuang should be divided into two parts. Qin Shihuang's progressive role in the process of historical development should be affirmed, but after the unification of the six countries, he lost his enterprising side, was full of ambition, indulged in pleasure, begged immortals to build palaces, cruelly oppressed the people, wandered around and killed time, which was very boring. 」

Since then, many historians have studied Qin Shihuang. Lv Zhenyu believed that Qin Shihuang pushed the history of feudal society in China to a new stage, but his rule was "characterized by urgency and tyranny". Tian Changwu, An, et al. I believe that Qin Shihuang is both a contributing politician and a tyrant.

Evaluation of Qin Shihuang: How to evaluate the first feudal emperor in China history? Since the death of Qin, it is still a controversial issue. Some people praised him as "an emperor through the ages" (Li Zhi's Book Collection Volume II Catalogue); Some people say that Qin Shihuang "is not as good as the dragon, although he is the fourth or sixth emperor" (Zhang Taiyan's Qin Zhengji); Some people praised Qin Shihuang's reunification cause: "Qin is the master of sweeping Liuhe, and I want to see it!" They all spoke highly of Qin Shihuang's achievements and affirmed his role in history. He is a great historical figure. Others cursed Qin Shihuang for "being greedy for perfection" and "taking tyranny as the beginning of the world" (Jia Yi's New Works of Qin); "The first emperor was tyrannical until his son died" (Volume 8 of Zhenguan dignitaries); "The first emperor was resolute and willing to take punishment as a threat. He is a full-time jailer, and he is lucky to be bored and bored at home "(quoted from Chen's Old News of National History). They all denounced the cruelty of Qin Shihuang's rule and were tyrants. These viewpoints all have some truth, but they are also one-sided because of the different positions and starting points of commentators.

To look at the problem historically is to put Qin Shihuang under the historical conditions at that time, analyze his merits and demerits and study his merits and demerits. To study the historical environment of Qin Shihuang, we should not only pay attention to the general trend of historical development at the end of the Warring States period, but also pay special attention to the historical characteristics of Qin's formation since the founding of the People's Republic of China and its influence on Qin Shihuang. This latter point has been ignored by most people in the evaluation of Qin Shihuang so far. When we systematically study the history of Qin dynasty and then evaluate Qin Shihuang, it is expected to avoid the one-sidedness of the past and draw a conclusion that is more in line with historical reality.

According to this observation, it should be said that Qin Shihuang was an outstanding historical figure who made great contributions to the historical development of China, and was also a brutal tyrant. His achievements are the main aspects, but they can't cover up his sins; His sins are deep, but this should not erase his great historical achievements.

The most important historical achievement of Qin Shihuang was to complete the great cause of reunification and establish the first feudal centralized state in history.

Of course, the unification of Qin is an inevitable trend of historical development, and the objective situation has created conditions for reunification. Qin Shihuang came to the orchard when the unified fruit was ripe. But this historical inevitability does not mean that the role of individuals is insignificant. Why was reunification achieved by the State of Qin? Why should reunification be completed in 22 1 year BC? In these respects, it shows the personal role of Qin Shihuang.

Qin Shihuang's contribution to reunification, in addition to making decisions of great historical significance, also lies in making good use of people and being brave enough to make up for it. Some critics praised Qin Shihuang's "military command ability", and there is not much basis for this evaluation. Compared with his predecessors such as Qin Mugong and Qin Wugong, Qin Shihuang almost never directed the war directly; However, Qin Shihuang made more brilliant achievements than his predecessors, except for the luck caused by history, mainly because he was good at employing people and brave in change. On the eve of China's reunification, Qin gathered almost all the first-class military strategists and politicians in China. There are Wang Jian, Wang Ben, Liao Wei, Li Si, Yao Jia and Dunwei. Most of them are not from Qin, but they are all fighting for Qin. All military offensives and political strategic plans to defeat the enemy were formulated and realized by them. The role of Qin Shihuang is to give full play to their role, listen to their advice and be brave in correcting mistakes. For example, when Chu State was destroyed, it began to misuse Li Xin. After the failure, he immediately changed course, invited Wang Jian to go out and delivered all the soldiers in the country to Wang Jian. As a result, he won. This kind of situation, if compared with the situation that unbelief in Li Mu and disinformation led to national subjugation, can be seen that Qin Shihuang, as a monarch, was good at employing people and had the courage to make up for it, which had a great impact on historical development.

Qin Shihuang's contribution also lies in laying the foundation of a multi-ethnic feudal country. Some policies and measures implemented after Qin's reunification not only affected the feudal society in the next two thousand years, but also affected the present, such as the unification of characters. The unified measures and systems adopted by Qin Shihuang were bold innovations in the historical development at that time. He not only changed the political culture of the separatist regime, but also made the feudal society and economy develop smoothly. But also changed the inherent historical tradition of Qin in many ways. For example, the State of Qin has always been regarded as a backward area in the West by the Central Plains countries, and Qin Xiaogong is also troubled by this. Although the forces of Qin entered the Central Plains after the Prince of Zhao, the main ruling areas and base areas have not yet left the customs. By the time of Qin Shihuang, its territory had reached an unprecedented level. Faced with this situation, Qin Shihuang created various systems on the basis of the Qin system, but he was not confined to the inherent systems and traditions of Qin, which shows that his political vision was far-reaching. Most of the systems formulated by the Qin dynasty were inherited later, which can prove that these systems and measures were adapted to the historical situation at that time. Qin Shihuang, who created these systems, could not have done this if his political vision did not go beyond the limitations of Qin in the western frontier. /question/224 1932.html

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