On the merits and demerits of Qin Shihuang

In 21 BC, Qin Shihuang died of illness in a sand dune, which abruptly ended his 5-year life course. A person's life is over, which means that he has completed his cycle. But in the history of China, Qin Shihuang, as we said in the last episode, is a person who can never say goodbye! Let me cite two facts: First, in real politics, Qin Shihuang is one of the heavyweights who have influenced China and the world history. Whether you agree with him or oppose him, you have to admit this historical fact. Second, on the artistic stage, Qin Shihuang is even more wonderful. He can be said to be "the first brother of Qin opera". In all the dramas of the Qin Dynasty, he is always the boss, and there are always some best actors to show him constantly. I often ponder a question in my mind, why is someone still thinking about a person who has been dead for more than two thousand years? I think there must be his reason. What is this reason?

I want to talk about my opinion. First, contribution. It is this man's great contribution that makes people unable to forget him. What is the contribution of Qin Shihuang? In my personal opinion, Qin Shihuang's life contribution is only two words-"unification", which is his greatest contribution. This unification includes two aspects, one is the unification of the territory, and the other is the unification of the system. Let's talk about the unification of the territory first, and the annexation of six countries by Qin Shihuang unified the world. This is the first time that the Chinese nation has achieved real reunification, which made the Daqin Empire lay a basic framework for modern China. After the general trend of reunification was realized in the Qin Shihuang era, although there were divisions later, that is, the division of the Five Dynasties and Ten Countries and the division of the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, these divisions were short-lived, and the general trend of reunification was irreversible! Qin Shihuang didn't live long, only fifty years old. It's not easy to do so many things in fifty years. There are many people who lived longer than Qin Shihuang. How many people can do so many things like him? He is not easy. After Qin Shihuang succeeded in annexing the six countries, he immediately sent 3, troops to the north to attack the Huns and build the Great Wall, and then sent 5, troops to the south to conquer South Vietnam. We have said a lot about attacking Xiongnu in the north, but we might as well say a few more words about conquering South Vietnam. Qin Shihuang used 5, troops to conquer South Vietnam, which was the largest use of troops after his successful annexation of six countries. This battle lasted for four years, and two coaches changed, and finally the whole place of South Vietnam was occupied. The so-called South Vietnam refers to Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian and Yunnan, including the northern and central parts of Vietnam. Finally, three counties were established: Nanhai County (Guangdong), Guilin County (Guangxi) and Xiang County (northern and central Vietnam), all of which were incorporated into the territory of China by Qin Shihuang. After the uprisings in Chen Sheng and Wu Guang, this Southern Expeditionary Army did not come back, but stayed there. There is a key figure named Zhao Tuo, a native of Zhengding, Hebei Province, who is now from Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province. Zhao Tuo established Nanyue State there, calling himself the King of Nanyue, and later submitted to the Han Dynasty. Zhao Tuo's 5, people settled in South Vietnam and became the ancestors of Hakka people in Guangdong, Guangxi and Fujian today. Zhao Tuo once gave a report to Qin Shihuang when he was the magistrate of Longchuan County, asking Qin Shihuang to send him thirty thousand women from the Central Plains. Why? Is to let those women combine with some soldiers of his 5 thousand army, organize families and reproduce. He asked for 3, yuan, and Qin Shihuang gave him 15, yuan (this later formed a rule, and the report will be more important, and the approval will always give you a knife). After the 15, Central Plains women arrived in Guangdong, they became what the Hakka people in Guangdong call "Hakka" today, and Hakka is the grandmother of the Hakka people. There were two large-scale migration movements of Hakkas later. Now you go to Heyuan City, Guangdong Province, where there is a town in Longchuan County. Up to now, there are still ancestral temples with nearly 5 surnames, which shows that there are more than 2 surnames in this town. This is the phenomenon left over by Qin Jun, who traveled south at that time. Qin Shihuang incorporated all these places into the territory of China, and established a vast territory extending to Fujian and Guangdong in the south, to the coast in the east, to Lintao in the west, and to the north of the Great Wall in the north. This was the first time that he laid the basic framework for China's great power. Of course, the territory of the Qin Dynasty could not completely match the territory of China today. Later, after the expansion of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the geographical pattern of such a big country as ours was basically formed. This is a great geographical heritage. From the perspective of national defense, in today's world, the most powerful countries and powers have the right to speak; If your country is big and strong, then you have full right to speak. The country is vast in land and has incomparable advantages in national defense depth, while a small country can cross the country in just one hour, and our country can run freely from the eastern coast to Xinjiang, which is enough for you to run for a while. With this depth of national defense, we can carry out cascade defense, which is a unique national defense condition. Economically speaking, the ability of a big country to resist risks is much stronger than that of a small country, because the big country has a vast territory, huge population resources and great domestic demand capacity, which is beyond the reach of a small country. Therefore, it is a big country that can really withstand the wind and waves. The reason why the aircraft carrier is terrible is precisely because of its huge size. And all this is the foundation that Qin Shihuang laid for us. Another is the system. Qin Shihuang not only created a vast territory for us, but also established a complete political system, which is the centralized system headed by the emperor. Under this system, Qin Shihuang completed a series of work, unified the writing, unified the train tracks, unified the unified measurement and unified the currency, and realized the national unity in a whole sense. The human political system is not the original creation of any one person, it is the inevitable development of a nation's history, and it is finally formed under the influence of many factors. The system founded by Qin Shihuang has brought the prosperity of imperial society for more than two thousand years to future generations, and at the same time brought profound disasters to the people. With the passage of time, the decay of this system has gradually emerged. This system finally ended, and the person who ended China's imperial system for more than two thousand years was Dr. Sun Yat-sen.. Sun Yat-sen and Qin Shihuang are landmark figures in the history of political system. They ended a system and started a system. The centralized system established by Qin Shihuang lasted for more than 2, years, and finally died out. So why can the political system he founded be accepted by people? I think the most important things are two points: first, the system itself has advantages; Second, the system is irreplaceable. Is in that society can't find a better system, or can't find a system that can replace it. Therefore, after the success of the peasant leaders' uprising, they still want to be emperors. Aren't Liu Bang and Zhu Yuanzhang going to be emperors? Because there is no more advanced political system. This is one of the reasons why Qin Shihuang is constantly mentioned by people.

There is another reason why people keep mentioning Qin Shihuang for more than two thousand years, which is manifested in one word-"curse", which is endless. People always curse Qin Shihuang. We can see from the cursing of Qin Shihuang that it is a law that literati and politicians in past dynasties will never have the same evaluation of Qin Shihuang as long as they have different purposes, different visions, different times and different angles. Therefore, people's evaluation of Qin Shihuang is also a matter of opinion. Of course, the evaluation of Qin Shihuang focuses on three issues: one is to burn books to bury Confucianism, the other is to use harsh laws, and the other is to abuse people's power. These three points should be analyzed. For example, we can see from the comments of some scholars in Ming and Qing dynasties that most of them think that burning books to bury Confucianism is only a temporary act, not a continuous killing. Burning books is first of all cultural autocracy, which is to be criticized; Pit Confucianism is a temporary move made in a moment of anger. As far as the number of people killed is concerned, it is not the most. Of course, it is wrong to kill one person in vain. As we said before when we talked about Lu Hou, Zhu Di, the Ming emperor, killed ten families in Fang Xiaoru, killing 837 people at a time, and no one said he was a tyrant. If the tyrant is determined by the number of murders by kings of past dynasties, then Qin Shihuang is not the only one; If a tyrant is identified by repairing imperial tombs, palaces and abusing people's power, there is no emperor who does not repair imperial tombs and palaces. We have heard that the mausoleum of Empress Dowager Cixi was built for more than two million taels of silver, and it was demolished and rebuilt, which cost countless money. If we use harsh methods to evaluate whether the emperor is a tyrant, the whole Han Dynasty inherited the laws of the Qin Dynasty, and Emperor Hui of Han Dynasty abolished the order of cooperation in writing, and the crime of three families was abolished in Lv Hou period. Finally, three families changed to five families, five families to seven families, seven families to nine families, and nine families to ten families, but the more they killed, the more severe the laws of which dynasty were.

In evaluating Qin Shihuang, of course, we should see that he did have a cruel side. For example, after he destroyed Zhao, he went to Zhao himself and killed all those who had enemies with his mother. This was the only revenge of Qin Shihuang among the six countries destroyed by Qin, but this incident was only an individual phenomenon. He did not destroy one country and kill another, which was related to his history. What Qin Shihuang did is often called tyranny, such as building the Great Wall, crossing the road, straighting the road, imperial tombs, palaces and so on. We should make a concrete analysis of these things, and we can't comment on them in a cage. Qin Shihuang's projects were of two types. One was beneficial to the stability of the empire, and the Great Wall, Chi Dao and Zhi Dao projects were beneficial to the stability of the empire and the peaceful and stable life of the people under agricultural civilization. Of course, these projects did bring great disasters to the people. Another kind of project is purely for his personal enjoyment, such as the palace and the imperial tomb, which is what we should criticize. Then I think that the reason for the national subjugation of the Qin Empire lies not in the projects undertaken by Qin Shihuang, but in the haste and concentration of these projects. From the founding of the People's Republic of China at the age of 39 to his death at the age of 5, Qin Shihuang completed so many projects in 12 years, and many of these projects were necessary. But this completely ignores the lives of ordinary people, so many projects are launched at once, which makes the people overwhelmed, and of course the people can't survive. Therefore, when Chen Sheng and Wu Guang revolted, the people would respond enthusiastically. In this way, Qin Shihuang is a tyrant, and he is worthy of the standard of a tyrant. But the same brutal emperor in history is not called a tyrant. It is a bit unfair to say that Qin Shihuang is a tyrant. Mr. Lu Xun once said something very interesting: "Qin Shihuang was really wronged. His losses died in the second year, and a group of idlers spoke ill of him for the new master." "Helping leisure" refers to those literati, and the "new master" is Liu Bang. It seems that Mr. Lu Xun is very accurate in this question.

To put it objectively, a person's life is divided into several stages. From zero to thirteen, this is the first stage. Qin Shihuang spent his childhood in Zhao, and spent the first nine years as a hostage with his father in Zhao. These nine years did not even guarantee his right to exist. After he was nine years old, he came back with his father and became the prince of Qin. By the age of thirteen, his life was much better. In his childhood, Qin Shihuang was not a king, let alone a monarch, let alone a tyrant. From the age of thirteen to twenty-two, it was the second stage of Qin Shihuang's life. Although he became the king of Qin at this stage, his power was in the hands of his mother Zhao Ji, Miao Du and Lv Buwei because he was young. At this time, the king of Qin was actually an empty shelf. Although he was not a person in power, he had already seen the dark side of the court. Twenty-two to thirty-nine years old is the third stage of his life. Ying Zheng, the king of Qin, did three great things: first, he got rid of the two major groups, Miao Du and Lv Buwei; Second, a lot of preparations have been made for the merger of six countries; Third, the merger of six countries was initiated and completed. This stage is the most brilliant stage of Qin Shihuang's life. What we see is a wise, decisive and good at listening to opinions, and there is no tyranny at this stage. From the age of 39 to 5, this is the fourth stage of Qin Shihuang's life. He founded the emperor system, engaged in three public offices and nine ministries in the central government, and engaged in the county system in local areas; Building the Great Wall, attacking Xiongnu in the north and conquering South Vietnam in the south; He also repaired palaces, tombs, chidao and straights, and did many things. During this period, his achievements were numerous, but his merits and demerits were mixed. The root cause of Qin Shihuang's mistakes was that he got carried away after he became famous, which decided that his administration was bright before it was dark. The more he came to the end of his life, the more stupid he became-46 annual repair Great Wall, 47-year-old poet, 48-year-old pit warlock, and 5-year-old died. People accused him of repairing the Great Wall, burning books and burying Confucianism in the later period. It should be affirmed that Qin Shihuang basically did a good job in his life, but made a series of mistakes in his later period. At the end, history only proved a familiar maxim: you must defeat yourself. This is the tragedy of Qin Shihuang, and it is also the tragedy of all dictators in the world. All dictators end up like this. This is the second reason why Qin Shihuang is always remembered by people.

Qin Shihuang's short life left a lot of room for future generations to think. People always think about Qin Shihuang, including today's people want to get some inspiration from Qin Shihuang. I think there are probably the following questions worth thinking about: first, about the ruling ideology. Qin Shihuang can be regarded as a relatively successful person, and the centralized system headed by the emperor he established is a successful model. But the failure of Qin Shihuang was that he did not find a suitable ruling thought. What we want to emphasize here is that the long-term stability of a country depends not only on the system, but also on thought; System depends on integration, and thought depends on innovation. In this regard, Qin Shihuang gave us a lot of inspiration. We have said that Qin Shihuang did not abolish Confucianism, but he preferred legalism, which brought problems. Legalists emphasize the autocratic monarchy, which means that no one can control and restrict the emperor. Once the emperor who lacked restraint made mistakes, the empire collapsed. One of Qin Shihuang's great mistakes in ruling ideology was that he didn't realize the importance of Confucianism. Legalism is the way to strengthen the country and Confucianism is the way to govern the country; The rule of law is indispensable, and so is the rule of virtue; Legalism makes people afraid, while Confucianism makes people loyal. Legalists emphasize the rule of law, while the emperor is outside the law. Confucianism pays attention to the idea of ruling by virtue of sage personality, which not only educates subjects, but also binds kings. If a ruling thought can't restrain the king, the king will be autocratic and make mistakes, and his empire will perish. Qin Shihuang's empire was too short-lived. He was the first person to create the emperor system, but he didn't know how important Confucianism was to governing the country. This is the first question we have to think about. Second, the decay of the ruling class, which we seldom talked about in the past. Many people attributed the demise of the Qin Dynasty to the tyranny of Qin Shihuang, the tyranny of Qin Ershi, and Zhao Gao did many bad things in the middle. But people have neglected one thing, that is, the decay of the nobles themselves in the Qin Dynasty. Let me give you an example. After the uprisings in Chen Sheng and Wu Guang, the old nobles of the six Shandong countries were founded in succession, but what was the final result of the six countries' rejuvenation movement? All failed. Who won? It is the Liu Bang who originated from the grass roots. He is the final winner, and he founded the Western Han Dynasty. There is a question here. Is Liu Bang's victory and the downfall of the descendants of the Six Kingdoms accidental or inevitable? In fact, the main reason why the six countries were annexed by Qin was that the nobles of the six countries themselves became more and more decadent in the development of hundreds of years, which led to the final national subjugation, so the nobles of the six countries could not succeed in the Zionist movement of the great uprising at the end of Qin Dynasty. As a tribe, they were made a vassal state by the Emperor of Zhou in that year, and were finally annexed by the State of Qin. In the course of hundreds of years' development, the aristocratic class itself decayed. The nobles of Qin were the best performers, so they were able to destroy the six countries, and the nobles of Qin themselves quickly decayed. It is very cautious for the nobles of Qin State to walk on thin ice before destroying the Six Kingdoms.