What is the historical significance of the unification of the Qin Dynasty?

Qin completed the unification of the six countries in the first decade from the demise of Korea in 230 BC to the demise of Qi in 22 1 BC, ending the chaotic situation of warlord separatism since the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, and establishing the first unified multi-ethnic centralized feudal country.

The unification of the Qin Dynasty provided the people with a relatively stable production environment. The Qin Dynasty carried out many measures to eliminate separatist factors, which laid the foundation for the long-term reunification of China. This has had a great and far-reaching impact on the development of China's history.

For a long time, China's feudal society stood in the forefront of world civilization with its highly developed economy and culture, which could effectively resist foreign aggression and maintain national independence, and was closely related to the pioneering work of Qin reunification.

Nowadays, most of the related works hold a positive attitude towards the unification of Qin, which is often a political attitude rather than a realistic academic research, so it is necessary to discuss this issue in depth. We believe that the process of China's reunification began with the Great Seal of the Western Zhou Dynasty, which is actually more effective than the resettlement of Rome. Through the economic and cultural exchanges during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the Chinese nation actually achieved a situation of integration in the late Warring States Period. Therefore, the unification of Qin was the inevitable trend of the unified culture at that time, and Qin Shihuang only completed this formality without amplifying its historical role.

However, in this form, the price paid by the Chinese nation is quite heavy. The first is the so-called unified war, which is unprecedented in cruelty. The number of China people killed by Qin in the war of reunification was 65,438+0,600,000, many of which were unnecessarily cruel. For example, Qin Jun attacked the girders of Wei, opened an army in Yi Qu and flooded the girders of the Yellow River. As a result, the city was destroyed by Wei, mainly because the people drowned countless times. Especially in the battle with Zhao Changping, he won, but still buried more than 400 thousand prisoners alive. These atrocities are crimes against the people in any case.

After the reunification of the Qin Dynasty, the people were subjected to cruel autocratic rule. Qin Shihuang's "full-time warders" ... abused tyranny by threatening punishment. Less than two years ago, in order to monopolize political power and autocratic culture, he forced Lv Buwei, the minister, to death and severely punished his scholars. In order to prohibit the disclosure of the emperor's words and deeds in the palace, he once killed the maid-in-waiting attendants. Some Confucian scholars were dissatisfied with politics and buried more than 460 people. Found a stone carving of "the first emperor died and divided the fields" and tried to kill the residents next to the stone. Its laws are becoming more and more cruel. For example, the Book Burning Order stipulates: "Those who dare to speak poetry and books abandon the market and reject the ancients as their homes. ..... "Yunmeng Qin Bamboo Slips stipulates that" a thief is worth 110 yuan, and his wife and children know his crime of eating meat. " "If B knows his thief, he will not profit from sharing the stolen goods", which is the same crime as theft. "Stealing people's mulberry leaves will not make a profit", serving hard labor for 30 days. Qin law also includes relatives sitting together, neighbors sitting together and positions sitting together.

Under such cruel rule and harsh laws, officials are even more unscrupulous and indifferent to human life. According to Historical Records and Biography of Zhang Er Chen Yu, john young was an official for ten years. "The father of the murderer, the son of the orphan, the foot of the disabled and the head of the deaf are countless." It is hard to imagine how many people are easily offended, persecuted and sentenced. There are 3,000 criminals sent to Xiangshan for logging at one time, more than 700,000 criminals built Epang Palace and Lishan Mausoleum, and at least several hundred thousand criminals built the Great Wall to defend the north and south. History of Han Criminal Law describes the situation at that time: "Clothes block the road and it becomes a city." "On Salt and Iron" said: "If there is no moral education in the world, there will be no punishment, and the nose will be tired and the car will be broken. Hexi is not enough for the world, and the king of Qin will die." It can be seen that the people live under an extremely horrible rule.

The ruler's extravagant desire caused great damage to the productive forces at that time. During the war of annexation, every time Qin captured a country, he ordered the palace pattern of this country to be drawn and then copied on the north bank of Wei River in Xianyang. From West Yong Men to Water Mirror, there are 270 palaces in Fiona Fang within 200 miles. In the twenty-seventh year of Qin Shihuang, a tall palace was built on the south bank of Weihe River in Xianyang. Formerly known as Xin Palace, it was later renamed Ji Palace. At the same time, a road leading to Lishan Mountain was built. Soon, a Ganquan Qian Dian was built in front of the original Ganquan Palace, and a tunnel leading to Xianyang was built. In the thirty-fifth year of Qin Shihuang, the huge project of building Epang Palace in Shanglinyuan, south of Weishui, began. Building palaces and tombs on a large scale like Qin Shihuang requires not only a lot of manpower, but also a lot of building materials, which need to be mined and transported from all over the world. If 700,000 prisoners are used to build the Epang Palace and the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor, then the manpower used to build the above other palaces will be more than several hundred thousand. Coupled with hundreds of thousands of Huns, hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese Shu and hundreds of thousands of Great Wall ... Then, among the nearly 20 million people at that time, there were about four or five million young and strong laborers. How many laborers will remain in the front line of production?

After the reunification of the Qin Dynasty, all the books in Historical Records and Huainanzi only recorded that it was difficult to test the specific figures. However, according to the records in Biography of Historical Records and Chen Yu, such as "the political abuse of Qin Wei, ... the first meeting was skipped for military supplies", the so-called "the first meeting was skipped for military supplies", that is, the apportionment was based on the head, and the dustpan was used to break into the house and plunder, which reflected that the taxes in the Qin Dynasty should be quite heavy. At the same time, able-bodied men have to serve the government for one month every year, which is called "many deaths"; Two years of military service in one's life: serving in this county or Beijing for one year is called "being one year old"; Another kind of frontier defense is called "garrison for one year", which is only the legal service period, and the actual situation far exceeds. Some have to go back and forth for several years, and all kinds of burdens are heavy. Especially in the war against Xiongnu and Baiyue, the migrant workers who participated in the war to deliver goods were extremely hard, and sometimes they were even called "Ding Nv". "Biography of Yan Hanan" contains: Qin "Ding Nan defeated Jia, Ding Nv turned to lose, suffering, and dying." Biography of Historical Records of Yan Fu records: "Qin Shihuang was a conqueror, and ... never stopped winning, and ... La Shu, who made the world famous, started from the county town where Dong Xie fell into the sea and moved to the North River, with a speed of 30 minutes, killing him with one stone. ..... People are lonely, lonely, old and weak, and can't support each other. The road faces the dead. " "Biography of the Han Dynasty and Cuo" said: "The defenders of the Qin Dynasty can't stand the water and soil, the defenders die on the edge, and the losers lose their way. When Qin Min sees the trip, he will abandon the city. " Therefore, Dong Zhongshu of Hanshu Shihuozhi said: In the Qin Dynasty, "the power service was thirty times that of the ancient times, and the benefits of land rent and oral tribute were twenty times that of the ancient times." This cruel exploitation and slavery of the people has brought great disasters to the people.

Its attack and destruction on private industry and commerce also hindered economic development to a considerable extent. In the process of annexing the six countries, in order to curb the development of private industry and commerce, the government monopolized the iron smelting industry and exiled the big businessmen of the six countries, especially the iron smelting owners. For example, "Qin defeated Zhao and moved Zhuo's family. Zhuo's family saw Lu's strategy, and the husband and wife pushed the chariot alone and traveled to Wan Li Road." Another example is "moving to Lu" and "Qin cut Wei and moved to Wan". [1] All the property was plundered and the people were exiled. The scene is extremely miserable. It is reasonable to think that when Fan Qin occupied a country, he confiscated his private industrial and commercial households and exiled them to the border areas. After reunification, it was "thirty-three years later, people died and both husband and wife were killed. The land of Lvliang was slightly taken from Guilin, Xiang Jun and Nanhai to properly guard it." [2] Businessmen were exiled to the south for no reason. Chao Cuo in the Western Han Dynasty said, "I was demoted to the garrison" in the Qin Dynasty, and "I used husband and wife first, then I tasted those who had city citizenship, then I tasted those who had city citizenship with my parents, and then I took the left". [3] The Qin Dynasty not only exiled all the businessmen, but also spared their three generations of descendants, which can be described as extermination. Most of the 500,000 soldiers sent by Qin to Lingnan were businessmen and their descendants. The horror of the above-mentioned "abandoned city" can be imagined. The private industrial and commercial economy, which flourished during the Warring States period, suffered a devastating blow after the reunification of Qin.

Culturally, Qin adopted a policy of prohibiting private studies and burning books to bury Confucianism, especially the cruel order of burning books. "All historians burn except", those who dare to have poems, books and hundreds of languages in the world without being doctoral officers will carefully preserve and burn them. Others dare to write poems and books, and abandon the market, so that the past is not the present. It is the same crime for an official to see what he knows and not lift it. If it doesn't burn for the next 30 days, it will be a city. Don't go, books such as medicine, divination and tree planting. If you want to study law, you should take an official as your teacher. "The rich and colorful social culture into a single cruel legalist cultural autocracy. On the basis of the above policies and rules, the purpose of unified writing mainly lies in the smooth flow of military orders and decrees. The purpose of the unified survey is nothing more than collecting taxes and paying salaries, training troops on the same track, and building roads mainly to facilitate the travel of emperors and officials. However, the so-called various evaluations that are objectively beneficial to economic and cultural exchanges completely ignore the above-mentioned economic and cultural ruling policies of Qin, which can be said to have little effect in this respect.

It is also naive for some historians to put forward the view that the so-called Qin reunification conforms to the wishes and requirements of the people. If you think that people want what they want, God will definitely give you something, which is actually an out-and-out "idealistic view of history". The fact is that history often does not develop according to people's wishes. At the same time, the so-called people's wishes vary greatly among people of different classes; Many so-called wishes and demands are only in a spontaneous and scattered state, not concentrated in a certain form, and cannot play much role in many major historical events. In short, when it comes to how a specific social development process meets the people's wishes and requirements, it needs to be supported by real historical facts. As far as historical facts are concerned, there is no historical evidence to prove that it meets the people's requirements. On the contrary, we can see many examples of people from all walks of life who were tired of war and opposed to Qin in the Warring States Period in Historical Records. For example, Qu Yuan opposed the annexation war of Qin. However, his loyalty to Chu did not win the trust of the king of Chu, but he was dismissed from office and exiled. Finally, Chu was invaded by Qin, and Qu Yuan was martyred for Chu. People gave great sympathy. Now, at the beginning of May every year, we row dragon boats and make zongzi to commemorate this poet who loves Chu and opposes Qin. Historical events such as Jing Ke's stabbing of the King of Qin have also been widely praised by the people and become earth-shattering the legend of heroes. Even after the reunification of the Qin dynasty, meteorites engraved with the words "the first emperor died and divided the world" will appear everywhere. ..... all show that the people's hearts have always opposed the Qin unification war.

With the establishment of the Confucian ideology system in Han Dynasty, Confucian ideology and culture began to unify the whole country (in fact, outside the country and within the law). The supremacy of the emperor's authority and the people's aversion to war gradually formed the people's virtual desire for a good emperor to unify the whole country in a certain mode and live a stable life. The so-called traditional concept of great unification was formed in the historical process of hundreds and thousands of years after Qin dynasty, which can not be used as the basis for Qin reunification to meet the wishes of the people. To say the least, at that time, some people hated war and hoped for reunification. There was also a question of what kind of rulers they hoped for reunification. Judging from the above historical facts, the people will never want to be reunified by the Qin Dynasty. A sentence from Wei Liaozi in Historical Records of the First Qin Emperor can best explain the problem: "The king of Qin is a man with a far-sighted vision, loyal to birds and birds, noisy and worried about tigers and wolves. Pingdingshan is easy to be knocked down, but he is also tolerant of cannibalism. ..... Sincerely make the king of Qin win the world, and the world is lost. "

Although the unification of the Qin Dynasty made a grand appearance in the existence of the country, the essence was that the rulers used the financial and material resources of the unified country to further squeeze and destroy the people. Even the death of Qin Shihuang, the palace concubines without children "all died on orders, and there were many dead"; It is really outrageous that a large number of craftsmen who repair tombs have also stopped working and died. Social progress should be based on whether the quality of people's living conditions is improved. Unity and division are just the existing situation of the country. Although it is closely related to people's lives, it is not an important standard to measure social progress. Or the unification of the Qin Dynasty ended the chaos in the Warring States Period. In fact, after the reunification of Qin, the Huns were attacked and won every battle, and with a series of corvees, the people did not get a stable chance to recuperate, let alone related economic and cultural development. Qin's rule is so cruel to the people, which shows that the essence of his rule is: don't treat the people as people! Is such a unified country commendable?

In particular, it is necessary to point out that the centralized monarchy system was completed prematurely, forming an extremely powerful unified kingship. Its special criminal law and cruel officials terrorize the people, which not only directly deprives them of various rights, but also suppresses the awakening of people's power in society. People can't talk about any freedom rights, even the right to know and the right to speak are deprived. The situation of a hundred schools of thought contending during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period completely disappeared. As a result, the ancient society in China has been in a state of ignorance of rights, and the grassroots people have no basic awareness of human rights, let alone any cultivation and accumulation of political wisdom in this field. Therefore, it is impossible to produce an independent civil society and cultivate a cultural ability and tradition of checks and balances between social forces and state power. In this way, an authoritarian government with excessive concentration of power and strong power will seriously hinder the normal development of society, rather than pose a fatal threat to people's basic rights. In the evolution of institutional culture in the next Millennium, people do not understand what equality, freedom, rights, power checks and balances, and power supervision are, and it is impossible to produce corresponding concepts and mechanisms in the legal system. Therefore, there were no legal rights concepts and institutional facts of "free man" and "national citizen" in ancient China. It will definitely have an extremely adverse impact on the economic and cultural development of society. Because people's basic rights are deprived prematurely, social vitality will be stifled prematurely. Under the strong autocratic rule, the people will gradually become ignorant and the society will gradually stagnate, thus completely stepping into a historical cycle with high-level power struggle as the main theme, dynasty cycle, rigid cultural connotation and sluggish economic development.