Qin Shihuang's measures to consolidate reunification

Qin Shihuang (259-22 BC1), the son of Wang Xiang of Qin Zhuang, was a very talented person in the history of China. In 246 BC, Ying Zheng, who was only 13 years old, was declared King of Qin. Eight years later (238 BC), Ying Zheng, king of Qin, held a coronation ceremony in the Palace of Prayer for the Year and took charge of the state affairs. At the beginning of Qin Wang's accession to the throne, the state power was dominated by Prime Minister Lv Buwei and eunuch Lao Ai. In 238 BC, he personally took charge of state affairs, put down Lao Ai's rebellion, and then removed Lv Buwei's post and appointed Wei Liaozi, Li Si and others. From 230 BC to 22 BC1year, the first unified, multi-ethnic, autocratic and centralized country in China's history, the Qin Empire, adopted the strategy of "making friends far away and attacking near", divided and alienated from each other and was finally established. Ying Zheng claimed to be "a high-ranking Huang San and respected five emperors", created the title of "Emperor" and claimed to be the first emperor, and announced that his descendants would be called II and III, and even passed down from generation to generation. In addition, Ying Zheng thought that posthumous title was "the son is the father, and the minister is the king", which was greatly inappropriate, so he abolished it and changed the number of people in the world.

After Qin Shihuang unified the whole country, he took a series of important measures to strengthen his rule over the empire:

Political aspects:

1. Qin Shihuang changed the traditional title of emperor. Qin Shihuang thought his contribution was higher than that of Huang Sanhe and Wudi, and finally called the emperor and the emperor "emperors". The emperor controlled the state power of the whole country, instead of enfeoffing governors and managing various places like the Western Zhou Dynasty, which led to the independence of governors and the uncontrollable central government, leading to chaos in the world. In order to maintain the dignity of the emperor, the name was also stipulated: the emperor claimed to use "I", the emperor's life was called "system" and the order was called "imperial decree". The emperor's seal is made of jade, called the jade seal. Only the emperor's seal can be called a seal. At the same time, the emperor's wife is called "the queen", his father is called "the emperor's father" and his mother is called "the empress dowager".

Qin Shihuang reformed the central political system. There are three officials and nine ministers under the emperor: the three officials are the prime minister, Qiu and the imperial adviser. The prime minister is the chief executive, who assists the emperor in handling government affairs and is also responsible for managing civil and military officials. Qiu is the highest military and political chief in charge of military affairs, but he has no military power at ordinary times and has to obey the emperor's orders in wartime. Moreover, he needed the emperor's Jeff to mobilize the army, and the military power was actually in the hands of the emperor. The inspector is responsible for supervising officials and is also the deputy prime minister. Imperial edicts are generally handed over to the prime minister for execution by the imperial censor. Under the three fairs is Jiuqing: Feng Chang, who is in charge of ancestral temple etiquette; Langzhongling, responsible for conveying the emperor's orders and the emperor's guards; Wei Yan, the chief bodyguard of the imperial court, is responsible for the daily guards of the emperor's residence; Servants, whose main job is to serve the emperor and take charge of his chariots and horses; Ting Wei, in charge of national judicial affairs, is responsible for hearing major cases; Temple branch, responsible for the country's external affairs and internal minority affairs; Living in Zheng Zheng is an official who specializes in royal affairs; Manage the internal history of Xiaomi, manage the central finance, and be responsible for the national tax work; Shaofu was the emperor's private financial official, who managed all the Yamazawa Lake and palace handicrafts of the emperor.

3. At the local level, an important measure to strengthen the centralization of monarchy is to implement the county system. This is a historic change in the local political system, replacing the original enfeoffment system. The establishment of counties and counties was governed by officials appointed by the emperor himself, and the power of recall was also manipulated by the emperor. This will make the world stable for a long time, and the political power will always be in the hands of the central emperor. Qin Shihuang set up 36 counties in the country, with counties under it. The county magistrate is the county magistrate. The chief executive of a county has two names, one is the county magistrate (above 10,000 households) and the other is the county magistrate (below 10,000 households). Below the county level are Xiang, Ting, Li, Shi and Wu, which is a paramilitary management system. Five grassroots people are a unit, and the corporal is responsible. What is made up of ten, and who is in charge. The management of officials in the Qin Dynasty was very strict, and many laws were enacted to punish officials. Officials who break the law don't enjoy the privilege like the Western Zhou Dynasty, that is, "they can't be punished as doctors", but they increase the punishment. This made the bureaucracy of the Qin Dynasty very clear and the efficiency of the government extremely high. It is very strict for officials to be familiar with the law, but it also gives them a high status, not only political status, but also legal study, that is, "taking officials as teachers."

In addition to the political system reform, Qin Shihuang also took a series of measures to consolidate centralized rule. First, build the Great Wall. Qin Shihuang ordered the demolition of the original capitals of the six countries and the Great Wall they built, and then built the Great Wall to resist the Xiongnu in the north. Qin Changcheng starts from Lintao (now Min County, Gansu Province) in the west, east to Liaodong (now Datong River area), and east to Wan Li. Second, confiscate the weapons of the world, and then melt them into twelve huge copper men, each with 240 thousand Jin, to prevent the world from making trouble. Third, build official roads, that is, relax roads. With Xianyang as the center, * * * has built three roads, one of which reaches Inner Mongolia in the north, which is called the straight road. One leads to Hebei and Shandong in the east, until the sea. One goes south, connecting the two lakes and Jiangsu. The equator is fifty paces wide, and a pine tree is planted every three feet on both sides. The establishment of the equator has greatly shortened the time of information dissemination, which is conducive to the strengthening of centralization and the timely transmission of government decrees. Fourth, in order to eradicate the rebellion of the descendants of the six countries, Qin Shihuang moved the descendants and the rich to Xianyang, which was convenient for monitoring and prospered the capital economy. Fifth, develop South Vietnam, so that China's territory includes today's Guangdong and Guangxi, and even extends to today's northern Vietnam. Making China the largest empire in the world at that time.

Economically:

1. In 2 16 BC, Qin Shihuang issued an order to "make the first place in Guizhou a real field" and confirmed the private ownership of land.

2. Qin Shihuang's reform unified the original chaotic weights and measures, taking the weights and measures formulated by Shang Yang as the standard.

3. Abolish the common currency of the six countries, unify the currencies used, and use Qin "half Liang" money as the currency in circulation.

4. Based on the common characters of Qin State, Li Si was ordered to simplify, formulate and promulgate the characters, and unified them.

5. Qin Dynasty also made great contributions to the establishment of a unified postal system. In the Qin Dynasty, different names such as "Qi", "Qi" and "Jia" were all called "Hou". Since then, "post" has become a proper term for communication systems. In the Qin dynasty, the "post" was responsible for the delivery of long-distance official documents and letters, while the "step delivery" was adopted at close range, that is, people were sent to deliver them on foot. In the way of postal delivery, most documents in the Qin Dynasty were relayed, and along the fixed route stipulated by the government, the person in charge of postal delivery was relayed station by station.

Evaluation: Qin Shihuang's political and economic policies strengthened the emperor's control over political power and created autocratic centralization, which was used by later feudal dynasties. If we pay attention to the collapse of India, Babylon and Egypt, we know that relatively advanced civilizations can guarantee nothing, and only those nations that can stand the baptism of war can guarantee extinction. Compared with other ancient civilizations, China is undoubtedly very lucky, because it is the only one that has survived both nationally and culturally, and the most fundamental reason for this continuation is that China was fortunate to achieve reunification in the era of the first emperor, thus creating a material foundation for racial reproduction under the same culture. Qin Shihuang's historical achievement lies in that he not only conquered the six countries, but also created an institutional basis for how to unify the people of China whose habitual life has been divided for hundreds (perhaps thousands) years. We assume that China has been unable to be reunified, so the passage of time will enable civilizations to continue their respective development on the basis of relative independence, and a unified nation will be out of the question at all-if we consider the serious problems and worrying trends in national and ethnic identity caused by the relative isolation between the two sides of the strait, we can understand the historical value of Qin Shihuang and the bloody reunification of China, and the traffic conditions at that time determined that the direct communication between people was 100 times behind now. This value can not be understood from what it caused at that time, but from the perspective of "creating a historical foundation for the formation of the Chinese nation" and "creating a historical foundation for the continuation of the Chinese nation and Chinese culture". In other words, without the above unification, the Chinese nation could not be formed; Without such unification, it will be a serious problem whether the Han nationality, the main ethnic group of China people, can be formed and continued in history, and the continuation of its civilization will be even more problematic.

Cultural aspects:

1. Promote the manufacturing process. The bronze smelting and casting process in Qin dynasty is the inheritance of bronze casting art in Shang and Zhou dynasties, but it has developed greatly. Its smelting and casting technology has reached a very high level, which is a comprehensive period in the ancient metallurgical history of China. No matter in bronze smelting and casting technology, or in welding, metal cold working and assembly technology, it has reached an amazing level, which shows that science and technology have made great progress since Qin Shihuang unified the whole country.

2. Specify the costumes of the Qin Dynasty. Qin Shihuang abolished the six crowns in the men's crown system and only adopted sacrificial clothes. Women's clothing is dressed according to the idea of yin and yang and five elements.

3. Burn books to bury Confucianism, and make a thorough cleaning of China culture. In order to curb people's thoughts and accept Li Si's suggestion, all historical books, agricultural books, divination books and medical books except Qin Shi were ordered to be burned, and all the classics and hundreds of classics collected by the people and scholars in the country were also burned by the government, which is called "burning books". Because the people and scholars are dissatisfied, the speech is flying all over the sky. There are two alchemists (people who seek immortality and refine the elixir) named Lu Sheng and Hou Sheng, who speak ill of Qin Shihuang behind his back. When Qin Shihuang learned about it, he sent someone to catch them. They had already escaped. Qin Shihuang was greatly annoyed and found that some Confucian scholars in Xianyang also talked about him together. Qin Shihuang arrested those Confucian scholars for interrogation. Confucian scholars can't stand the torture and give up many people casually. Qin Shihuang ordered more than 460 people to be arrested, taken to Lishan Valley and killed, that is, buried alive. Because most of these people are Confucian scholars, they are called "pit Confucianism" by later generations. The rest of the banned Confucian scholars were exiled to the border.

Evaluation: Speaking of China's classical civilization, we have to mention Qin Shihuang's policy of burning books to bury Confucianism. From Qin Shihuang's point of view, the policy of burning books and burying Confucianism is very necessary. After Qin's death, although the thought of a hundred schools of thought contended again, its deterrent force "effectively suppressed the situation of a hundred schools of thought contending in the Zhou Dynasty", which eliminated obstacles for the consolidation of the landlord class regime and the development of the feudal regime. Because even after the revival of Confucianism and Taoism, which defended the slavery regime, it had to evolve itself under the great deterrent of burning books and burying Confucianism, and gradually approached the needs of the emerging landlord class rulers. Comparing the history of Western Europe: It is precisely because of the demise of the classical civilization represented by slavery civilization in Western Europe that the suppressed technology can be developed and applied, and a new civilization can be born to replace this civilization, thus promoting the development of new technologies. In this way, western Europe became stronger and developed in modern times, and ran to the forefront of the world. However, China and India, two great countries in the Middle Ages, have fallen behind the world more and more in modern times, because they failed to get rid of the oppression of backward civilization and were burdened with heavy cultural burdens, which made the advanced production technology unable to be applied or even developed. Therefore, while leaving us a rich spiritual heritage, history also invisibly bears a heavy cultural burden for us, which makes our ancestors addicted to it and unable to break through. After being invaded by western colonists, the original spiritual belief or spiritual burden was broken by the colonists, and the ancestors gradually got rid of it, which promoted the leap of civilization and promoted the development of technology and economy. So, in order to break this old ideological bondage, should we burn books and bury Confucianism, or indulge ourselves, wait for foreign enemies to invade and break it with their devastating sweeps? I believe this is self-evident.

Military aspects:

Qin Shihuang was able to destroy the six countries in ten years because of his powerful combat troops and superhuman military strategy.

Qin Jun has the following characteristics: 1). Strict discipline. The ranks of the army, law and criminal law reached an unprecedented height at that time. 2). rewards and punishments are clear. No dynasty can reach the level of the Qin Dynasty. 3). Greater preparation. More than one million. 4). Better weapons production. The weapons of different times are basically the same size, and crossbows are one of the best weapons against cavalry. The strongest crossbowman in China's history came from the Qin Dynasty. Unlike ordinary bows, Qin crossbows can only be wound with the help of the whole body. Experts estimate that the range of this Qin crossbow should reach 300 meters, and the effective killing distance is within 150 meters. The lethality of Qin crossbow was much higher than that of any kind of bow at that time, and it could easily penetrate ordinary armor. Qin Jun used this crossbow to drive Huns to the north of the Yellow River in a short time. Qin Jun also has a heavy infantry equipped with heavy spears. Since the discovery of terracotta warriors and horses in 1974, archaeology. 5). There is an unborn genius general. Qin people have brought us some shocking names: Bai Qi, Meng Tian, Meng Kuo, Wang Jian, Wang Ben ... Maybe we can still see their shadows from the terracotta warriors and horses of Qin Shihuang's mausoleum today.

2. In terms of military strategy, there are mainly: 1). The guiding ideology of disintegration and destruction war. In order to destroy the six countries, Ying Zheng adopted a strategy of combining political disintegration with military strikes. Pay attention to the use of space, buy off the ministers of the six countries with heavy money, disrupt their strategies, disintegrate their fighting spirit and alienate their good generals. According to the development of the war situation, nibbling gradually turned into swallowing whales, concentrating forces to destroy each other and quickly destroying the six countries. In the war, there must be counties for every piece of land, so as to ensure the consolidation of the land and the cohesion of the people from the organization and ensure the smooth progress of the unified war. 2). The frontier defense thought of building walls and guarding borders, and migrating people's solid borders. After beating away the Huns, Ying Zheng ordered Meng Tian to preside over the construction of the Great Wall, add pavilions and pavilions, connect the old Great Wall of Yan, Zhao and Qin, stretch for thousands of miles, and build a straight road, heavily stationed. Immigrants actually think this is a barrier to the north. At the same time, large-scale immigration enriched border counties and played a positive role in the development and defense of border areas. 3). Overall national strategy. That is, regardless of age, north and south, everyone who can participate in the war has been pushed to the front line of the war. The strength of Qin State is not only created by the army itself, but the whole war system of Qin State ensures the supply of military necessities such as rations and weapons in Qin Jun more effectively than other six countries. After the reunification of the whole country, the state of Qin did not stop, but continued to maintain an effective strategic deployment of the country's overall war during the war and continued to expand its army. The army controlled by the central government once reached 6.5438+0.6 million, which did not include a large number of guards in charge of royal security and soldiers from various counties and countries under the command of local material officials.

Evaluation: Qin Jun is the most powerful army in China's history, and it was also the strongest army in the world before muskets appeared, which is inseparable from Qin Shihuang's military policy and good use of personnel. They advocate black, wearing black clothes and black armor. They slaughtered soldiers as brave as themselves. They annihilated more than 400,000 Zhao troops in the battle of Changping, and the Zhao army was Khufu's first riding and shooting army. What is the concept of 400,000? According to historical records, "the skull is full of wild blood, the eagle owl covers the original, and the wolf walks by day." Almost at the same time in Europe, Alexander's army was around 50 thousand, and the Roman legion was only a few hundred thousand at its strongest. During the Spring and Autumn Period, Qin, a small country, dared to move eastward and compete with traditional powers such as Jin and Chu. After entering the Warring States period, they continued to advance eastward and defeated the eastern Huaxia powers one after another. It cannot be said that its military policy has played an important role. As many historians believe, although Qin had no choice, it did create a precedent of continuous laws and regulations for more than two thousand years.

Personality:

1. In order to gather all the power, Qin Shihuang was busy every day, hearing cases during the day and reviewing official documents at night, and set himself a workload: he had to approve one stone of official documents every day before he could rest. One stone was 120 Jin, which is equivalent to 60 Jin now.

After Qin Shihuang unified the six countries, he immediately built the luxurious Epang Palace and the tomb of Mount Li, and made five large-scale cruises, carving stones everywhere to show off his prestige.

In order to seek the medicine of immortality, alchemist Xu Fu led thousands of boys and girls across the sea to seek immortality, which cost a lot.

4. On the issue of choosing heirs, Qin Shihuang was arbitrary and harsh and advocated the rule of law; However, Fu Su, the eldest son, had a soft spot for Confucianism, and advocated Zhang Yiren to govern the country. In terms of his position, ability and prestige, Fu Su should be the best heir to the throne. Qin Shihuang was also very clear about this, but he didn't want to hand over power to someone who was different from his own way of governing the country. Hu Hai, the youngest son, was the favorite of Qin Shihuang, but this kind of love was more due to the inner psychological function of the old man loving his youngest son. Hu Hai was dull on the surface and vicious on the inside, and had no dimension in the Qin Empire. Young Hu Hai inherited the throne, ministers may not be afraid to take it, and naturally it is difficult to reassure Qin Shihuang. This is true for the talented and popular eldest son and the beloved youngest son. It goes without saying that other philosophers can't find a successor who can satisfy themselves. A series of tyrannies in the Qin Dynasty disturbed the world and the social crisis was very serious. Qin Shihuang was worried about the grim situation facing his successor.

Evaluation: Special experience and supreme status made Qin Shihuang self-righteous and arbitrary. He is greedy for power, and he is even more carried away after reunification. I'm the only one who doesn't listen to any different opinions. Such a character naturally makes him suspicious of anyone. He doesn't trust others to handle political affairs, so he has to "decide everything", and he is even more unwilling to hand over the political power to others after his death. For him, the best choice can only be immortality. In the process of seeking immortality, Qin Shihuang's thought was always in extreme contradiction. Although he listened to the alchemist's words, he sought immortality and refined immortal medicine, but the facts were disappointing again and again, so he built the tomb of Mount Li on a large scale, hoping to move the luxurious and extravagant imperial life underground. Seeking immortality to build a tomb is also the product of Qin Shihuang's infinite expansion of personal desires. From the above analysis, we can see that Qin Shihuang's character not only embodies the greed of the exploiters who pursue pleasure and are unwilling to give up extravagant life, but also has his own experience and physical condition; It was not only restricted by the social and cultural environment at that time, but also influenced by personal personality hobbies; There are both limitations of low scientific and cultural level and cognitive ability, as well as realistic political needs. Social factors, political factors and personality factors are intertwined, which have a great influence on the later life of Qin Shihuang and the Qin Dynasty.

Qin Shihuang, the first emperor of China, is a legendary and epoch-making figure in the history of China. Such a famous figure, his childhood is very unfortunate. His father is the son of Qin. Although he was born in the royal family, he was sent as a "proton" to the state of Zhao, which was hostile to Qin. Ying Zheng was born in Zhao, where he lived alone for nine years. His childhood had a great influence on his life, and the controversial measures he took after the reunification of the six countries also had a lot to do with his personal experience. For more than 2,000 years, Qin Shihuang was regarded as a tyrant by most people, and people criticized him for burning books and burying Confucianism, repairing the Great Wall, building palaces extensively and building great buildings. However, some people praised him as "an emperor through the ages" and affirmed his contribution to reunification, unified measurement and the territory of China. So, was Qin Shihuang a tyrant or an emperor? This is actually your evaluation of him. Different angles have different evaluations, so there are two different Qin Shihuang.

In fact, when we evaluate a person, we should affirm that the character of "person" is three-dimensional, that is to say, the character is multifaceted, so we can't draw conclusions unilaterally, and the same is true for evaluating Qin Shihuang. We often say that Emperor Qin built the Great Wall and palaces, wasting people and money. However, in that era of Qin Dynasty, the building technology was not developed. You don't have to use a lot of people's strength, but you should also build a military defense line like the Great Wall, okay? Although it brought pain to the people, it built a solid defense line for the Qin Dynasty to resist the invasion of Xiongnu, and also provided a foundation for future generations. Can't this be called meritorious service?

Qin Shihuang's other actions, such as merging the world, claiming the title of emperor, abolishing feudalism, setting up counties, selling weapons, moving to enrich the people, overcoming difficulties, conquering Baiyue, driving away Huns, dredging ditches, sharing the same track with cars, adopting laws, etc., have great influence on the great unity of the country, the establishment of China's political system, the establishment of China's territory and the inheritance of the Chinese nation. However, Qin Shihuang's autocracy, exorbitant taxes and harsh punishments not only led to the demise of the Qin Dynasty after the reunification of China 15, but also led to the autocratic monarchy of China for more than 2,000 years, which made the people of China live an unbearable inhuman life for a long time. We should not just defend Qin Shihuang, a tyrant.

It can be seen that Qin Shihuang, on the one hand, was the "one emperor through the ages" who created a unified situation, and on the other hand, he was an autocratic tyrant, which just confirmed the fact that human nature was three-dimensional. Therefore, judging a historical figure is not one-sided, and it is necessary to discuss it from multiple angles in order to return the true face of historical figures.