Regarding the formation of the Chinese nation, the mainstream view in the past, in view of the frequent occurrence of "Xia", "Hua", "Huaxia" and "Zhuxia" as the Chinese nation called itself and others during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, it is believed that the Chinese nation was formed during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period.
However, it was precisely in the Spring and Autumn Period that the Central Plains began to appear in the mixed places of Rong Di and the invasion of Rong Di, and sometimes the situation was still very serious, which produced the practical problem of "Huayi's discrimination", and through the contrast between "Xia", "Hua", "Huaxia" and "Zhuxia" and Rong Di, it showed the strong self-consciousness of the Chinese nation, which was the presentation of national consciousness, thereforeAt this time, the Chinese nation belonged to the "conscious nation".
In the process of the development of the national community,Before the "conscious nation", there was a stage of development of the "free nation", and the Chinese nation that appeared in the Xia and Shang periods belonged to the "free nation". The reason why the Chinese nation was able to form in the Xia Dynasty was that the Xia Dynasty was a composite state structure of pluralism and integration. In terms of political entities, this composite structure included both the royal states of Xia and other vassal states; In terms of ethnic composition, there are not only the Xia tribes, but also many other tribes. The territory of the Xia Dynasty, which was dominated by the Xia king, especially its core area, the Central Plains, was the common territory of the Chinese nation at this time.
When it comes to the composite structure, "He Zun" "China" precisely shows this structural relationship - "China" is the capital city and the region of the Zhou Dynasty, and its periphery has "East Country" and "South Country", as well as "East Soil", "South Soil", "North Soil", "West Soil" and so on. In the evolution of the concept of the word "China", "He Zun" "China" is the earliest written record, and its meaning also shows the structural relationship between the three dynasties of the state. Tracing back to "China" in He Zun, whether in terms of its structural relationship or from the people's perception of the association between "Xia" and "China" in the pre-Qin, Qin and Han dynasties, it can be concluded that "the residence of Xia"—the location of the royal capital of the Xia Dynasty—was "the original China".
Some scholars have put forward the concepts of "China in the narrow sense" and "China in the broad sense": "China in the narrow sense" refers to "the Erlitou political system (Xia Dynasty) centered on the Luoyang Basin, or the earlier Taosi political system (Yaoshun political system) centered on the southern Jin Dynasty, which occupies the center of a cultural community and is the center of power of the wide royal state, and has formed a strong cultural 'magnetic field' with centripetal force and radiation force, becoming the core leader in the consensus of the surrounding areas, and is respectfully called or self-proclaimed as 'China', which is the ** of the word 'China' "China in a broad sense" includes not only "the 'world' in the 'Putianxia, Mo Fei's royal land' propagated by the Zhou people" and "the territory controlled by the multi-ethnic unified state of the Qin and Han empires", but also the "Chinese interaction circle" of prehistoric culture mentioned by Zhang Guangzhi, the prehistoric "cultural early China" proposed by Han Jianye, and the prehistoric "initial China" discussed by Li Xinwei.
The use of concepts such as "China in the narrow sense" and "China in the broad sense" is a new way of thinking. In fact, in the author's opinion, instead of this, it is better to take today's China as the starting point, and use "ancient China" when talking about ancient Chinese affairs, and "prehistoric China" when talking about things in China's prehistoric society. However, when it comes to the evolution of the meaning of the word "China" (i.e., the concept of "China"), the distinction between broad and narrow senses cannot solve the problem, and only by taking the inscription "China" in the "He Zun" inscription as a starting point and considering the relative structural relationship between the "China" in the "He Zun" and the four countries at that time can we grasp the key to solving this problem. Even in the more than 2,000 years after the Qin and Han dynasties, China in history was both unified and **. The term "China" refers to the whole country during the period of general unification, and refers to the Central Plains during the ** period, but this cannot be attributed to the difference between the broad and narrow senses of the concept of "China".
Zhang Guangzhi regarded the "interaction circle" of Chinese prehistoric culture, which began to form 6,000 years ago, as the prehistoric foundation for "the formation of China's historical civilization unified by the Qin and Han empires", which is far-sighted. However, he refers to the Chinese prehistoric cultural interaction circle as "the original China", which, in the author's opinion, is only figurative at best, and "metaphor" and "is" cannot be compared.
In terms of conceptual logic, there is a big difference between concepts such as "Chinese prehistoric culture" and "prehistoric China", "Chinese prehistoric culture" refers to the culture of the prehistoric era that occurred on the land of today's China, while "prehistoric China" means that there was a "China" in the prehistoric era, and this "China" actually crossed the concept of "China" in the Western Zhou Dynasty and directly connected with the concept of "China" in the Han, Tang, Ming and Qing dynasties, which is incomprehensible and illogical. Unless "prehistoric China" is defined as the situation of today's land in the prehistoric period (i.e., the aforementioned "prehistoric China", "ancient China" and the like), but in this way, isn't the so-called "prehistoric China" and "Chinese prehistoric culture" the same? Why go to great lengths to demonstrate how "prehistoric China" came to be.
When we take the "China" in He Zun of the Western Zhou Dynasty as the starting point to discuss or analyze "why China", there are two premises: one is that there must be a "state" marked by the capital, and there must be a state society; The second is that it is necessary to form a structural relationship with the national capital as the center and the "four soils" being subordinate to each other.
In the prehistoric culture of China 6,000 years ago, there was no national capital and state at all, so how could "China" come from? On the issue of "original China", there are those who advocate the "Tao Temple Theory" and those who advocate the "Erlitou Theory". In this regard, in the sense that the Erlitou site is the royal capital of the Xia Dynasty, the author supports the "Erlitou theory".
However, Mr. Xu Hong, who put forward the "Erlitou Theory," is not thorough on this issue. Why? Mr. Xu Hong's talk about "why China" is also due to the nature of the Erlitou site as the capital of the kingdom with extensive royal power. The "kingdom" mentioned by Mr. Xu Hong belongs to the "kingdom" in the model of "state-kingdom (dynastic state)-empire" mentioned by the author, and we are consistent in this regard. The state structure of the three dynastic stages with the kingdom as the core is a pluralistic and integrated composite state structure, as the two major parts of the composite system - the kingdom and the vassal states, the kingdom is the "state of the state" within the dynastic state, and the vassal state is the "state within the state" within the dynastic state. However, Mr. Xu Hong only talks about "the earliest China" and "why China" in terms of archaeology, and in the personality of his academic views, he does not advocate giving a conclusion about whether the king of Erlitou was "surnamed Xia" or "surnamed Shang" (i.e., whether it was the capital of Xia or Shang).
As far as pure archaeology is concerned, Mr. Xu Hong's academic tendency is beyond reproach, and this academic personality is also worthy of respect, but based on the available evidence, the author thinks that it is most reasonable and convincing to infer the second and third phases of the Erlitou Wangdu site as the Xia capital ruins from the late middle to late Xia Dynasty. Only when the royal capital of Erlitou is associated with the summer capital, we use the ruins of Erlitou to explain "the earliest China" and "why China", which is more thorough and logical. Of course, because the relics of the second and third phases of Erlitou, which were the royal capital, are not the relics of the early royal capital of the Xia Dynasty, if the early royal capital of the Xia Dynasty is used to talk about the so-called "earliest China", the ruins of the royal capital of Erlitou are not the most thorough.
As for why Tao Temple has belonged to the national society and cannot be regarded as "the original China" (or "the earliest China"), it is mainly because the Tao Temple period was still in a state of "ten thousand states", and it has not yet formed a pattern of "world-dynasty" centered on the capital of the world, and has not formed a dynastic state combining "** and "four soils".
The author has argued that Taosi is the capital of the Duyi country, and can be linked to the capital of Di Yao, Di Yao has a dual identity - the monarch of Tang Yao and the leader of the Yao Shun Yu Nationality Alliance, and Tang Yao's capital was once the seat of the leader of the Yao Shun Yu Nationality Alliance. Therefore, it is undeniable that in the era of Tang Yao and Yu Shun, the people of Taosi Duyi could form a cosmology centered on Taosi, that is, the concept of "heaven and earth" centered on Yaodu.
However, on the one hand, the alliance of clan-states was unstable, and with the change of the leader of the alliance from Yao to Shun, the center of the alliance also shifted; On the other hand, and more importantly, the state-to-state relationship between the clan-state alliances in the era of all nations was not a relationship within a state, and could not be connected with the concept of "within the state", the center of the dynastic state, and thus with the original meaning of the word "China".
The three-generation dynastic state is different, it has an overall structure of "pluralism and unity", although this overall structure is composite, but only in the structure of pluralism and unity, its capital is regarded as "within the state". Of course, from the fact that Taosi, which is the capital of Yao, was once the location of the leader of the alliance of clans and states in the pattern of "all nations", we can also vividly say that Taosi Yaodu is on the way to "original China".
In short, if we compare the evolution of the concept of "China" before the Qin and Han dynasties with the formation process of the Chinese nation, we will find that the initial emergence of the concept of "China" in the pre-Qin period was inseparable from the "pluralistic and integrated composite dynastic state structure". The "Xia, the people of China" mentioned in the "Shuowen" is to associate the word "China" with the emergence of the Xia Dynasty state and the formation of the Chinese nation. In other words, only in the composite state structure of the Xia and Shang dynasties, the dynasty and the "world", and the political center of the dynasty were both the same as the so-called "Tuzhong" and "Guozhong" (the center of the dynastic state).
From the pre-Qin period to the Qin and Han dynasties to the modern era, the concept of the word "China" has undergone such an evolutionary process: from referring only to the national capitals of the Xia Dynasty, the Shang Dynasty, and the Western Zhou Dynasty and their locations "Guozhong" and "Tuzhong", it has expanded to the direct rule of the Zhou kings, and then expanded to the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, mainly referring to the Xia (Chinese) countries and the Chinese nation in the Central Plains, and finally extended to refer to the successive dynasties (unified multi-ethnic states) with the Central Plains as the core since the Qin and Han dynasties. It has become the designation of a modern, unitary, multi-ethnic state.
February** Dynamic Incentive Program