Almost unsurprisingly, after a brief period of "booming", all Chinese dynasties fell into a long quagmire of corruption and could not extricate themselves, and finally could not save themselves, leading to the collapse of the dynasty. So in this period of time, who should pay for the trend of the world, for a long time, and for a long time, it must be together.
To discuss this topic, we have to start with the origin of the feudal dynasty, Qin Shi Huang unified China for more than 2,000 years, so that the people of this land for the first time have a concept, a unified and powerful country. **'s desire for pleasure is unrestrained, and the people have only one life left, so under the blessing of natural and man-made disasters, uprisings are most likely to break out, and it is also a battle of life and death. There are few strokes in the history books that define the people of the uprising as opposites, but the light brought by these people shines on future generations.
In order to prevent the country from falling apart again, Qin Shi Huang adopted the county system, which replaced the feudal system of the Shang and Zhou dynasties. Thus, from the level of the political system, the concentration of power is completed. Later dynasties not only inherited the concept of unification of China, but also strengthened the sense of peak brought by imperial power, and at the same time buried the scourge of extinction.
The basic characteristic of imperial power ** is that the emperor does not exist for the state, on the contrary, the state exists for the emperor. Here is the most basic principle, why does the emperor enjoy endless rights without fulfilling his obligations?The monarchy system is "to return the benefits of the world to oneself, and the harm of the world to others". In fact, whether incompetence is spiritual or material, Chinese feudal society is a "universal slavery", only the emperor is the most powerful, and others, including the prime minister, are his slaves.
In feudal society, what clothes the common people wore and what they said were strictly controlled. In the era of Zhu Yuanzhang, Shen Wansan was rich enough to rival the country, and when Zhu Yuanzhang had no money, he funded the construction of one-third of the Nanjing City Wall. However, Zhu Yuanzhang only exiled him on trumped-up charges, confiscated his family property, and finally died in Yunnan.
In this context, power is controlled over everything, and the people only tremble when they see **, and the fear that has been extended from generation to generation makes everyone serve one person.
However, power cannot be effectively given to others, and giving power to others is equivalent to luring wolves into the house.
The most typical incident is that Yan Wang Hao is vain and disrupts the country, although he is the king of a country, but he has a fatal weakness - greedy for false fame. He always wants to spread his fame all over the world, and even does not hesitate to do some ridiculous things in order to get praise and boasting from others. One day, he held a banquet in the palace and invited many courtiers and guests to attend. At the banquet, he announced to the crowd a surprising decision: he wanted to give up the throne to the prime minister Zizhi in recognition of his loyalty and merits. The news was like a bolt from the blue, shocking the guests and courtiers in the hall. They all admonished Yan Wang Xu, persuading him to think twice, but Yan Wang Xu insisted on making this decision. After Zizhi heard the news, he was very worried, he didn't know if Yan Wang's decision was sincere. So, he found King Yan, kowtowed and asked, "King, are you really willing to give up the throne to me?"Yan Wang Hao nodded affirmatively and said, "Yes, I have ordered my son to live in the Qi Kingdom in order to give you the throne. After hearing this answer, Zizhi was very moved. He decided to do his best to assist Yan Wang Hao in governing the country and make Yan more powerful and prosperous. However, things didn't go as smoothly as they thought. There was ** within the Yan Kingdom, and many courtiers and people expressed their dissatisfaction with Yan Wang's decision. They believed that this decision violated the traditions and rules of the Yan Kingdom, and that it was an insult and contempt for the Yan King to let a courtier inherit the throne. At this time, the State of Qi took the opportunity to attack. Due to the dissatisfaction within the Yan State and the **, the Qi ** team easily occupied the capital of the Yan State. Yan Wang and Zizhi were forced to flee, and were eventually caught up and killed by the Qi army on the road.
This story teaches us that the pursuit of fame only leads to chaos and disaster.
Wang Mang, who has the name of a traverser in the market, usurped the throne by virtue, but moved the interests of the scholars and died, Wang Mang's usurpation marked the end of the Western Han Dynasty, and he also became an important figure in history. However, his usurpation did not bring long-term stability and prosperity. On the contrary, because some of his reform measures touched the interests of the scholars at the time, they led to social unrest and political instability. After Wang Mang usurped the throne, he carried out a series of reforms in order to implement his own political ideas. One of the most important is the reform of the land system. He tried to reduce the burden on farmers and improve social fairness by restricting the privatization of land. However, this reform was strongly opposed by the scholars at the time, who owned a large amount of land and interests.
In addition, Wang Mang also carried out some other social reforms, such as the reform of the monetary system and the reform of the bureaucratic system. Although these reforms benefited the people at that time to a certain extent, they were not supported and recognized by the scholars. As Wang Mang's reforms failed to gain the support of the scholars, he began to take a more assertive stance to maintain his rule. He began to suppress and ** the gentry, which made the social contradictions more acute and the political situation more tense. Eventually, Wang Mang's reign was overthrown in 23 AD, and the Western Han Dynasty was restored. Although Wang Mang made some beneficial reforms during his reign, his reign did not bring long-term stability and prosperity. On the contrary, his rule eventually led to social upheaval and political instability as his reforms failed to gain the support and approval of the nobles.
Power cannot be restrained by morality, it cannot be restrained by prestige, power can only be restrained by power. Power inevitably corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
The separation of powers proposed by Montesquieu is the most advanced method of human civilization, and corruption is the root of human nature, which can only be suppressed by external forces.