This video demonstrates a better understanding of Chinese history than Qin Hui does. The Shang (Yin)–Zhou transition was more fundamental and more profound than the Zhou–Qin transition.
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 transition as the most fundamental transformation 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 Handynasty, 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.
By contrast, the Zhou system profoundly shaped and constrained the Chinese imagination of civilization, state form, and social structure. A unified pyramidal structure became the sole frame of reference through which these issues were understood. Even today, most Chinese find it difficult to comprehend social identities without rank, gradations, or official titles, or to imagine a dispersed and pluralistic form of statehood. Faced with a world of many coexisting nations, they may acquiesce verbally but remain unconvinced at heart. Thus, in recent years, with only an increase in national prosperity, their geopolitical imagination has shrunk to a binary vision of China versus the United States, as though no other countries truly existed. Even this apparent Sino-American parity is, in their eyes, merely a temporary transitional moment akin to the Chu–Han contention, destined to give way sooner or later to China’s sweeping unification of the world. Only such a return to all-under-one rule is regarded as the ideal order.
This impoverished imagination concerning the world, the state, and society has 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 realized. Confucianism, Daoism, 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 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 transition was in fact the most profound transformation in Chinese history—far deeper than the Zhou–Qin transition. The Shang (Yin)–Zhou transition constituted a systemic replacement, whereas the Zhou–Qin transition 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.
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