Since ancient times, there has been a saying in China: If you divide for a long time, you must be together, and if you are divided for a long time, you must divide for a long time. It seems to be a cycle. There is also a kind of cycle in the eyes of historians, they believe that it is certain that the dynasty will change from prosperity to decline, and that it must be prosperous and peaceful when the country is founded, and that when this dynasty is about to end, it must be followed by internal and external troubles.
The "cycle" mentioned in these two concepts is not an inevitable historical law, but it describes a political community, and how it gradually loses its ability to regulate as a complex system, so that it cannot face difficulties.
Let's start with the concept of separation and integration.
China is a very large region, and the natural conditions of each geographical region are different, and when they are combined to form a community, they must be able to complement each other without conflict.
When dynasties first flourished, usually after the great chaos, a new order emerged, in which the regions could be readjusted and complemented each other; Coordinating and redistributing resources among regions is also an important task for the new regime.
The establishment of a number of new transport networks and new management systems is aimed at putting a number of conflicting areas back into one system, a process that can take a long time.
For example, after the Han Dynasty, it was not until the Tang Dynasty that a new order of mutual coordination between the north and the south was reconstructed.
The Han Dynasty was a combination of east and west, and both goods and human resources relied on several horizontal roads and vertical branch routes to unite the empire into a whole.
After the collapse of the Han Dynasty, the invasion of the northern ethnic minorities led to the north and the south, each taking its own development route. After hundreds of years in the middle, in fact, the distribution of products and population in the north and south has been different, and the Grand Canal established between the Sui and Tang dynasties is a new supporting facility that recombines the north and the south.
The relationship between the core and the periphery of each district is also different because of the new allocation of resources.
The core of the Qin and Han dynasties lies in the cooperation between Guanzhong and the Central Plains, and the same is true of the Sui and Tang dynasties. But after the Song Dynasty, the core was actually gradually moving south.
Although the Northern Song Dynasty was in the north, its wealth and resources had moved to the south, and even the southern talents had gradually increased. This southward trend continues. The territory of the Southern Song Dynasty was only half of that of the Northern Song Dynasty, but the country's financial resources not only did not decrease, but were better than those of the Northern Song Dynasty. "The warm breeze makes the tourists drunk, and Hangzhou is Bianzhou", which is a natural phenomenon.
By the Ming Dynasty, the difference between the north and the south was even more significant.
* Maintain the two direct subordinates of the north and south as the territories directly under the jurisdiction of **, and within the two direct subordinates of the north and south, no prince will be divided. But in fact, Beizhili is the periphery of Beijing, a large number of troops are stationed in these areas, but Nanzhili is where the wealth is - through the Grand Canal to the north to transport grain, is the main way of food after the establishment of Beijing, the Ming and Qing dynasties.
By the late Qing Dynasty, the coastal areas, South China and Southeast China, were the main resources supporting the state.
Divide for a long time, and divide for a long time, all depend on whether you can effectively grasp the resources of each major region.
Let's talk about boom-bust cycles.
When the dynasty first rose, it seemed that the land was full of talents; At the end of the dynasty, the talents were gone. This is not to say that there is a different distribution of talents in different periods of time, but whether talented people can be absorbed into the state's management institutions to maintain an effective management system.
The dynasties of China in all dynasties are all imperial systems, and the tendency of centralization is more serious than the last. That is, the ruling class is a hermetic group.
At the beginning of the founding of the country, the heroes will come from all sides, the composition is diverse and complex, these talents put together, and after the experience of fighting the world, they are all experienced figures, and their cooperation can indeed form a strong team.
After one or two generations, the children of heroes have become gentlemen, who only know pleasure and can't do things. The royal group itself is a very small group, and with the gradual introduction of the rules of passing on the imperial power, the talent pool from which the leader can be selected is very narrow.
The imperial power itself was unchallengeable, and the magnates, including eunuchs and favored courtiers, who were attached to the imperial power, ruled the vast state on their behalf. The longer this group continues, the less likely it is to absorb new forces.
Although China has a long-standing imperial examination system, it is theoretically possible to select the best talents in the country to enter**; However, when selecting talents from above and down, you must choose the most obedient person. Thus, although there are new people entering this small circle, after two or three generations, the new forces of this small circle are only copies of the old ones.
They will not have new ideas, nor will they have the courage to try new things. A small circle of absolute power, after two or three generations, is only a copy of the same form of character. After two or three generations, as the internal and external environment changes, new challenges will inevitably arise, and these leaders will not be able to cope with them.
Since the Qin and Han dynasties, there has been a certain interaction between the lower and upper classes of China's huge empire.
With a population of tens of millions to hundreds of millions scattered over a vast territory, it is impossible to rely entirely on state power to manage it, and it is necessary to create an environment for cooperation and coexistence. Therefore, in addition to the public power of the state, there must also be a combination of social forces to maintain the stability of social order together with the state.
In the Qin and Han dynasties, some of the so-called wealthy clans and big clans were powerful people who were attached to the political power, and the other part was the clan power formed at the local level. In China, where the people of the vast land are located, ** can not rely purely on public power to govern the common people, and the common people are in a group, which is also helpful to the rule of the country - * as long as the big clans in each place are controlled, the big clans will manage their own members.
The "big clan" here is not necessarily a kinship group, but it may also be a geographical group united around some prestigious figures. To use an analogy, the rammed earth building developed on the Loess Plateau in China is to ram the loose loess particles into a square, the straight one can be a wall, and the horizontal one can be used as a foundation.
The most common form is the combination of kinship and geography, where clan neighbors together form an organic whole.
The great clans and wealthy clans of the Qin and Han dynasties continued for a long time in Chinese history, and although the names were not necessarily the same, this structure always existed, which was the basic condition for a large population and region to be able to combine into a large country.
The social force formed by the aggregation of such groups can not only coordinate the balance between the rights and interests of the masses and political power, but also play a social welfare function, seeking social welfare for the masses within the group, so that the poor, widowed and lonely members can rely on it.
The complementarity and counterbalance between social and political forces is actually visible in the United States today. However, the United States does not use clans and neighborhoods as the basis for uniting social forces, but they unite many populations in a variety of ways, such as trade unions, political parties, corporations, and faiths.
The so-called modern way of combining is the same as the leader and the masses, and the same is based on interests, but the American way of combining is voluntary for individuals, making their own choices, or withdrawing from them, and the group's restraint on individuals does not constitute a rigid pressure.
The will of these grassroots social forces, and the reaction to the way the regime is governed, are important factors in the stability of the regime.
If there is not enough communication between the power groups and social forces, the exercise of public power is often not aimed at maintaining the normal operation of a political community, but to suppress the society with public power; When social forces cannot affect political forces, social forces will inevitably break through constraints and subvert political power like bursting embankments.
In the traditional Chinese dynasties, the channel of public opinion feedback was built on the imperial examination system. Moreover, since the Song Dynasty, the imperial examination system has increasingly sought a balance in the distribution of regions, and people from every small county will enter the imperial examination system, and even finally enter the first management system.
However, if there is a small circle surrounding the imperial power between the ** and the core of the imperial power, these ** feedback information will not be able to affect the sealed power center.
When there is no communication between the upper and lower levels, the whole ** is just a rigid group parasitic on the imperial power, unable to effectively manage the country, and unable to solve the problem for the people who are waiting for the word "Fu" (love and nurturing of children, which was also used to praise officials to govern civil affairs in the old days).
Between the Qin and Han dynasties and the Sui and Tang dynasties, strongman politics often appeared, and even strongmen usurped the throne and created new dynasties.
For example, during the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, each dynasty was established by a strongman, and the transfer of power was often just a change of the first ruler. The dynasty formed by this kind of change will not last long, and the common people will not be disturbed much.
However, such a change of dynasty is often only in the first place to change some new people, some of whom can feel the needs of the people, but some people are just because they are in the center of power, taking the sheep by the hand, stealing the political power, and there is no will to change the rigid ** regime.
After the Song Dynasty, usurpation almost ceased to occur, and no matter how corrupt and ineffective the core of power was, no strongman replaced it.
This phenomenon appeared partly because after the Song Dynasty, the idea of monarch and minister ethics became the authentic Confucianism, and the general scholars and doctors from the imperial examination no longer dared to risk the world's condemnation and change the day.
Only when the common people are really poor and have no recourse will they take risks and rise up, causing a huge civil upheaval. The Liukou of the Ming Dynasty and the repeated turmoil of the Qing Dynasty are examples of this.
At the end of the Qing Dynasty, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was huge, and the Hunan army rose up with the power of scholars and doctors, and actually quelled the chaos in one fell swoop.
However, Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang knew that the Qing ** was already corrupt, but they did not dare to replace them; At the end of the Qing Dynasty, there were calls for reform and reform everywhere, but none of the ministers dared to coerce and change; Even during the Boxer Rebellion, the culprit Empress Dowager Cixi had fled to Xi'an, and the officials of the southeast frontier dared to propose self-protection in the southeast, but they did not dare to ask Cixi to release Guangxu and form another regime that could carry out reform and restoration.
These two examples illustrate how powerful the power of ideology is to bind people's hearts when it becomes the authentic one.