This video demonstrates a better
understanding of Chinese history than Qin Hui does. The Shang (Yin)–Zhou transformation was more fundamental and more profound than the
Zhou–Qin transformation.
Qin Hui came of age during a period marked
by the campaign for ‘the Reassessment of Legalism and the Critique of Confucian orthodoxy’. His historical outlook has remained
constrained by Mao Zedong’s well-known
proposition that ‘From the Chou (Zhou) and Chin (Qin) Dynasties onwards, Chinese society was ...’. As a result, Qin Hui treats the Zhou–Qin transformation as the most fundamental one
in premodern Chinese history, and regards the opposition between Confucianism
and Legalism—or, in his own terms,
the tension between small and large communities—as the most significant one in premodern China.
What Qin Hui failed to realize is that the
Zhou system had already given rise to what he calls the Qin system—a highly centralized state system first
established by the Qin and one that continues to shape China to this day. The
latter was, in fact, an upgraded version of the former. Both the Zhou and Qin
systems envisioned the civilized world, the form of the state, and the
structure of society as a highly unified and sharply hierarchical
pyramid. Under the Zhou system, the king—who styled himself the ‘Son of Heaven’—occupied the
apex of the pyramid, while the zhuhou (regional
hereditary rulers), ministers, and officials were arrayed below according to
rank and ritual order. Through the system of rites, a rigid and uniform
hierarchy was both expressed and enforced. This already constituted the
embryonic form of the highly centralized and bureaucratized order later
perfected under the Qin. The differences lay only in the means of
implementation and the degree to which this order was realized.
Did the Zhou kings ever willingly accept a
condition of fragmented, autonomous self-rule among small, kin-based
communities? I think not. ‘All under
Heaven belongs to the king; all within the borders are his subjects’ was originally a Zhou slogan. Even the
so-called liao min—the
registration of households for the purpose of population control—was an innovation of King Xuan of Zhou. It was not for lack of effort that the Zhou failed to achieve
full centralisation; rather, the technical means had not yet made it possible.
It was not that they did not intend to do so, but that they were unable to do
so.
Qin Hui has repeatedly assimilated the Zhou
system to medieval European feudalism, treating the two as essentially
equivalent. Such an approach is clearly ignorant and superficial. In contrast
to the Zhou system’s highly
unified and orderly pyramidal structure, European feudalism was always
fragmented, plural, and chaotic. Although the king of East Francia assumed the
title of emperor, the king of France to the west never swore allegiance to him
and was not his vassal. The Duke of Normandy, though a vassal of the French
king and owing him fealty, led his own forces to conquer England, became king
of England, and yet retained his identity as Duke of Normandy under the French
crown. The Elector of Brandenburg conquered the Baltic coast and took on the
crown of King of Prussia, yet within the framework of the Holy Roman Empire he
remained merely the Elector of Brandenburg.
Such multiple and overlapping titles—impossible to situate within a single,
unified pyramidal framework—were entirely
absent from the Zhou system. As for the inheritance of thrones or lordships
across different realms in medieval and even early modern Europe, along with
the continual division, consolidation, and exchange of territories through
marriage and succession, these arrangements were even less compatible with the
Zhou system and, to this day, remain difficult for most Chinese to comprehend.
Accordingly, when the Zhou system and
European feudalism collapsed, the directions in which they developed were
fundamentally different. What Qin Hui has never been able to explain is why the
collapse of the Zhou system resulted in the formation of the Qin system,
whereas the collapse of European feudalism did not lead to the establishment of
a Qin-style order.
Admittedly, after the breakdown of European
feudalism, absolutist monarchies did emerge, and at first glance they may
appear somewhat similar to the Qin system. In reality, however, they were
fundamentally different. Compared with both the preceding feudal order and the
subsequent constitutional order, early modern European absolutism was indeed ‘absolute’, but even the system of absolute monarchy constructed by Louis XIV,
together with its accompanying bureaucratic apparatus, differed profoundly from
the Qin system of the Emperor Qin
Shi Huangdi or Emperor Wu of Han.
Louis XIV sought to control the nobility by
having them reside at Versailles, immersing them in its lavish court life and
rendering them politically harmless. The Han dynasty,
by contrast, would never have allowed princes and nobles to live in the Weiyang
Palace, the Changle Palace, or the Shanglin Park to enjoy themselves. Instead,
they were sent to their respective fiefs, monitored by centrally appointed
chancellors; the slightest misstep could be seized upon as a pretext for
punishment, deposition, or even physical elimination. From the ruler’s perspective, the Qin–Han system was clearly more ruthless and
more efficient than Louis XIV’s
absolutism.
In fact, the institutionalization of Louis
XIV’s absolutism was far
weaker than that of the Qin system. Whether absolutism could be sustained
depended to a large extent on the personal character, ability, and authority of
the monarch. In essence, absolutism was closer to authoritarian rule. By the
third generation, under Louis XVI, a fiscal crisis forced the reopening of the
Estates-General, power slipped away, and he ultimately lost his head. Although
Napoleon later emerged and the Bourbons were restored, it was no longer
possible—unlike the Han
succession to Qin institutions—to restore
the pre-revolutionary absolute monarchy and ancien régime. Instead, France embarked on an
irreversible path toward constitutionalism. Though the process was tortuous, it
is evident that it did not continue along the path of ever more highly unified
despotism.
To be sure, Qin Hui has always been well
aware of the differences between the Qin system and European absolutism. For
example, he frequently invokes Marx’s notion of an ‘alliance
between the masses and royal power’ to explain absolutist monarchy in early modern Europe. Yet if the
Qin system is so radically different from European absolutism, how can one so
readily place their respective origins—the Zhou system on the one hand and European feudalism on the other—on an equal footing? In fact, just as the
Qin system differs profoundly from European absolutism, so too does the Zhou
system differ profoundly from European feudalism.
Although the Zhou system never achieved a
form of centralisation as direct and efficient as that of the Qin system, it
nevertheless articulated and realised a prototype of a unified pyramidal order.
This Zhou prototype pyramid profoundly shaped and constrained the Chinese
imagination of the civilised world, the form of the state, and the structure of
society. The unified pyramidal structure became the sole frame of reference
through which these issues were understood. As a result, even to this day, most
Chinese remain unable to comprehend forms of social identity that lack clearly
defined ranks, gradations, or titular markers, and are unable to imagine a
dispersed and pluralistic configuration of the state. When confronted with a
world composed of many coexisting states, they may acquiesce verbally but
remain unconvinced at heart. Thus, in recent years, with only a modest increase
in national prosperity, their geopolitical imagination has contracted to a
simple binary—China and the United
States—with other countries
scarcely registering at all. Even this apparent Sino-American coexistence is
seen merely as a temporary interlude, analogous to the Chu–Han contention, destined sooner or later to
give way to China’s sweeping unification
of the world. Only such an all-under-one order is regarded as the ideal world.
This impoverished imagination concerning
the world, the state, and society led Chinese thinkers to regard a neat,
uniform pyramid as the only goal worth pursuing. The various pre-Qin schools of thought emerged in an age when the Zhou order had
collapsed and the original pyramidal structure had disintegrated; yet without
exception, all of them sought to reconstruct a pyramid. Their disagreements
concerned only the means and pathways through which this pyramidal ideal state
was to be realised. Confucianism, Taoism, Legalism,
and Mohism all
aspired to the unification of tianxia—the human world under Heaven—and none was able to conceive of a genuinely dispersed and
pluralistic tianxia. Some have argued that Laozi’s vision of ‘small states with few people’ represents such pluralism; in fact, however, small states that
remain mutually isolated and non-interacting merely constitute another form of ‘oneness’, a point that will not be elaborated here. In the end, what prevailed
was the most direct and effective Legalist version of the pyramid, formulated
by Han Fei, the eminent disciple of Xunzi,
the great Confucian—that is, the
Qin system. The Han subsequently revised and rhetorically embellished this
system, producing what Qin Hui is fond of describing as ‘Confucian on the surface, Legalist at the
core’.
In later ages, when a particular dynasty or
ruler was judged incompetent, this judgment was usually attributed to his
failure to maintain the pyramidal order. If the existing pyramid collapsed
under his rule, a new hero was then required to gather up its fragments and
construct a new pyramid—most often a
stronger one. Generally speaking, the more thoroughly the original pyramid was
shattered, the more concentrated and solid the reconstructed pyramid became.
Dynasties founded in the aftermath of popular uprisings or foreign invasions—such as the Qin–Han, the Tuoba Wei and its successor
regimes, the Sui–Tang, the Zhao Song,
the Ming, and the Manchu Qing—largely
followed this pattern. The sole exception was the Mongol Yuan, which never
departed from its steppe-centered orientation and therefore did not treat China
as the core of its rule. By contrast, the abdications of the Wei, Jin, Liu
Song, Southern Qi, Liang, and Chen dynasties, being insufficiently violent,
never fully destroyed the existing pyramid. Throughout this period, the pyramid
appeared instead as a prolonged process of decay and repair, until it was
ultimately overwhelmed by the more solid pyramid reconstructed by the Tuoba Wei
system.
The replacement of one pyramid by another
is what is called geming—literally, the removal of the ‘Mandate of Heaven’ as
articulated by the Zhou. This video examines the impact of the Zhou conception
of the Mandate of Heaven on the course of Chinese history. For an
English-language video to pursue this issue with such depth and seriousness is
already a remarkable achievement.
In my view, however, the intellectual
premise underlying this conception of the Mandate of Heaven remains the highly
unified pyramidal ideal state. Heaven is unique and supreme, yet unlike the
supreme and all-encompassing oneness imagined by later West Asian monotheisms,
it is a form of supremacy and uniqueness embedded within a larger order. The ‘Heaven’ posited by the Zhou is in fact a symbol of the pyramid’s apex. The apex is supreme and unique, but
it is not the entirety of the pyramid. The Son of Heaven, as Heaven’s representative on earth, is likewise
supreme and unique within a larger order, yet remains a part of that
order.
This introduces a latent danger to the position
of the Son of Heaven. Although the apex of the pyramid is indeed supreme and
unique, who is entitled to occupy that apex—that is, who receives the Mandate of Heaven—is uncertain. Ultimately, the doctrine of
the Mandate of Heaven is an embellishing discourse for the pyramidal ideal
state. In the early Zhou, this embellishment was conducive to maintaining the
Zhou system. But as the video points out, with the passage of time and the
aging and decay of the system, this conception could come to threaten the
legitimacy of particular rulers. Hence geming: how does the true
Son of Heaven obtain the true Mandate? Entirely by whether he can rebuild a
more orderly, more stable, and more enduring pyramid.
The entire trajectory of Chinese history
can be understood as a sequence of pyramidal transformations: the Zhou pyramid
shattered and was upgraded into the Qin pyramid; the Qin pyramid collapsed and
was revised into the Han pyramid; the Han pyramid then underwent four centuries
of gradual decay before being reorganized and upgraded by the Tuoba Wei system
into the Sui–Tang pyramid. The Sui–Tang pyramid subsequently disintegrated and
gave rise to an upgraded Zhao Song pyramid; this pyramid was later destroyed by
the Jurchen Jin and the Mongol Yuan, after which it was upgraded into the Ming
and Manchu Qing pyramids. Following the turmoil of the Republican period, the
system was further upgraded into the present PRC pyramid, characterized by a
tighter structural order and a broader scope of control.
The difference between the Zhou and the Qin
lay only in means and degree; their ultimate goal and ideal were the same. By
contrast, there is no evidence that the Shang (Yin) dynasty ever generated the
concept of a unified pyramidal ideal state. The doctrine of the Mandate of
Heaven, which functioned as the rhetorical embellishment of such a pyramidal
ideal, was without doubt a Zhou creation. It therefore follows that the Shang
(Yin)–Zhou transformation
was in fact the most profound one in Chinese history—far deeper than the Zhou–Qin transformation. The Shang (Yin)–Zhou transformation constituted a systemic
replacement, whereas the Zhou–Qin transformation
was merely a systemic upgrade. Subsequent dynasties represent a continued,
tortuous, and gradual process of upgrading this system toward the pyramidal
ideal state.
As for how such upgrading was possible, it
was closely connected to the introduction of external technologies and
influences. In early antiquity, these external inputs came primarily from the
Western Regions (Central Asia) and the steppe. In fact, both the Zhou and the
Qin originated as western frontier polities. They were therefore most deeply
shaped by influences from the Central Asia and the steppe, and were the first
to master certain technologies and to adopt more abstract modes of thought. In
their respective eras, the Zhou and the Qin did indeed achieve remarkable
accomplishments in institutional construction, far surpassing those of the
eastern polities. Between the two, it was the Zhou that displayed greater ‘creativity’, while the Qin largely followed in its footsteps, further refining
and perfecting the Zhou ideal. It was the Zhou, not the Qin, that shaped and
constrained the Chinese imagination of institutions. Mao Zedong’s statement, expressed in a poem, that “later dynasties all practiced the Qin system” is true enough; yet the fuller account is
that the Qin system itself was derived from the Zhou system.
These remarks are offered merely to supplement what the English video did not address.
