After the short-term unification of the Qin Dynasty and several subsequent wars, the unprecedented scale of the Western Han Empire was finally consolidated. By the beginning of the AD, the empire’s territory stretched from Lake Balkhash and the Pamir Plateau in the west, to the northern part of the Korean Peninsula in the east, from Yinshan Mountain and Liaohe River in the north, to the central part of Vietnam in the south to the present, and set up a hundred and one hundred million square kilometers of territory. There are three counties and states (first-level administrative districts) and more than 1,500 counties, roads, and hou states (second-level administrative districts), directly governing a population of 60 million. This range is much larger than the Kyushu in Yugong.
Continuation of the Kyushu Concept
The footprints of the Han people, according to clear records, have reached Central Asia, West Asia, the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, Japan, Southeast Asia, and South Asia, and the scope of trade exchanges is even greater. The blueprint of great unification has already become a reality, and the existence of “Kyushu” is also a well-known fact. Grapes, alfalfa, acrobatics, and music from the Western Regions are not just royal treasures like Zhuyu, and foreign messengers and merchants can be seen from time to time in Chang’an. According to the military service system of the Han Dynasty, most of the counties and states had people who participated in the war against the Xiongnu and Dawan and the garrison on the border. The detailed reports of the envoys returning from foreign missions and the documents and archives of the Duhufu that governs the various countries in the Western Regions enable scholars and historians to leave accurate records. The historical materials related to the Western Regions in “Historical Records” and “Han Shu” are still relatively detailed and reliable even with today’s perspective.
But all this has not weakened the original unified view with the Central Plains as the center and the Huaxia (Han nationality) as the backbone, but it has been strengthened. Because through these activities, people have become convinced that there is no more powerful, richer, more civilized country than China outside China. If the monarchs and people of other countries do not declare themselves subject to China, pay tribute and accept rewards, they can only be outside the Chinese voice religion and willingly become barbarians.
After the Eastern Han Dynasty, a large number of ethnic groups in the northwest and even Central Asia moved inward, and the ethnic groups in the Northeast also entered the Yellow River Basin one after another, and some even became the masters of the Central Plains. But in the face of the dominant Chinese culture, these military conquerors all became cultural conquerors. The leaders of these ethnic groups also became the “descendants of Yan and Huang” who were appointed by the sky, and even these ethnic groups themselves gradually merged into the Huaxia (Han nationality).
The developed writing and papermaking and printing technologies have made the records of the rulers of the Central Plains wishful thinking about the frontier areas and foreign countries circulated for a long time, and the recorded objects either have no writing or the historical materials have long been lost. Therefore, in a certain year, a certain country in the twenty-four histories In a certain month, a subject was awarded a title, a certain country paid tribute to the dynasty in a certain year and a certain month, and a certain country received a reward in a certain year and a certain month. In the eyes of many people, it has naturally become a symbol of the prestige of the Chinese Empire.
It is not surprising why, until the beginning of the 18th century, the West had already completed the great geographical discovery, and the European powers had already dominated the sea and made the East their next target. At the time of “Complete Map”, he also thought that “its story is absurd and unrecognizable”, but because “the people of its country are full of middle-earth”, it is “inherent in its land”; finally the existence of Europe is recognized. That is to say, if there are not so many Westerners in China, even if Matteo Ricci’s world map is drawn clearly, the historians will turn a blind eye.
This is not surprising, why until the late 19th century, obviously because the strong ships and guns of the foreigners were no match for the foreigners, they had to sign humiliating treaties to satisfy the greed of the foreign powers, but the official documents of the Qing Dynasty had to shamelessly write : “The Great Emperor of the Qing Dynasty is kind enough to approve the Yiyi…”; just like the emperor of the Celestial Dynasty who is the master of the world. Ministers and scholars who are proficient in Confucian classics naturally thought of the situation in the Spring and Autumn Period when “Nanyi and Beidi were connected, and China was inexhaustible”. Therefore, it is imperative to distinguish between “Yi” and “Xia”. Most of them didn’t even know where so many barbarians came from. What are they going to do? A minister who cared about the current affairs, the country and the people finally found a wonderful way to deal with the barbarians. He wrote to the emperor and suggested that the Qing army should use long bamboo poles as weapons; because after careful observation, he found that the barbarians walked with straight legs They obviously don’t have joints, so as long as they are knocked to the ground with a long bamboo pole, they can’t get up again. Wouldn’t it be easy to kill them?
If there is only Chinese in the world
In the fifty-eighth year of Qianlong in the Qing Dynasty (1793), George Macartney, an envoy sent by King George III of the United Kingdom, came to China. After a series of negotiations, the two sides finally reached an agreement on the etiquette of his audience with Qianlong. Emperor Qianlong was in the heat. He was summoned in the Wanshu Garden of the River Resort. If it is Qianlong’s “special decree”, let him convey to the king of England: King Zier, who is far away in the ocean, is infatuated with Hua, and the special envoy, Gongjie Biaozhang, . . I read the table, the words are sincere, and I see the sincerity of your king’s obedience, and I am deeply commended. ． . . In the list of the King of Er, I urge you to send a person from the kingdom of Er to live in the Celestial Dynasty and take care of the business of the kingdom of Er. ． ． ． If Yun admires the celestial dynasty and wants to observe, study, teach and transform it, then the celestial dynasty has its own rituals and methods, which are different from those in your country; the people left in your country can learn and learn, and your country has its own customs and systems, and can never imitate China. . Even learning is useless. The Celestial Dynasty cares about the four seas, but they make great efforts to manage government affairs, and there are rare treasures that are not valuable. This time, the king of Er has brought in all the things, remembering their sincere offerings, and instructed the yamen to receive them. In fact, the Dewei of the Celestial Dynasty is far away, the king of all countries, and all kinds of precious things, all of which are in the collection of ladders and flights. Of course, it is never expensive, and there is no need to make objects in Seoul.
Although this strange article seems absurd today, it was a proud record of Emperor Qianlong at the time: “Yingyi” came from thousands of miles to be loyal and sent envoys to pay tribute; After “severe refutation”, he obeyed. Therefore, not only was it recorded in the history of the country by the historian, but also the border officials were ordered to transcribe this edict so that it could be properly followed. Fortunately, Qianlong died decades earlier, and he did not witness the “respect” expressed by the British king with guns and the “rewards” made by the descendants of Aixinjueluo with their land and sovereignty.
If there are no western languages such as English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, etc. in the world, or if some natural disaster has destroyed all the historical materials recorded in these words, there will definitely be a group of historians based on the above edict and the “Qing Shilu”, The “Donghua Lu” and other official records of the Qing Dynasty established the fact that at the end of the 18th century, the United Kingdom paid tribute to the Qing Dynasty as a subject, as evidence that the prestige of the Qing Empire had crossed the Eurasian continent and the English Channel. And it can be further deduced that the United Kingdom must have been troubled both internally and externally at that time, and its national power was weakened, so it had to seek the asylum of the Qing Dynasty, and only traveled thousands of miles to surrender.
This is of course a child’s play assumption, but if the countries and nations that have had relations with the Central Plains Dynasty in China in history have their own written records, and they have all been preserved to this day, I am afraid that some of the Four Barbarians in the Twenty-Four Histories, Some chapters in foreign biographies, this chronicle, and biographies have to be rewritten, and some high theories of historiography based on the classics will inevitably become jokes like the above.
The value of the Great Wall
On the one hand, the traditional view of the world regards all countries and regions in the world as “king’s land”, but on the other hand, “the world” is limited to the territory of the Central Plains Dynasty, or even the central area of the Central Plains Dynasty. Under the domination and influence of this contradictory understanding, the Great Wall, which was only part of the northern frontier defense of the Central Plains dynasty, has been highly appraised.
There are probably very few Chinese people today who don’t know the Great Wall, but not many people really know the Great Wall.
There is a temple of Meng Jiangnu in Shanhaiguan. It is said that Meng Jiangnu came here to find her husband and cried down the Great Wall built by Qin Shihuang. There are many other historic sites on the Great Wall north of Beijing linked to the Yang family of the Northern Song Dynasty. The Ming Great Wall, which starts from Shanhaiguan in the east and reaches Jiayuguan in the west, is often added to the head of Qin Shihuang in a confused way; countless tourists will stand on Badaling and admire this “miracle of two thousand years”. In fact, these are all jokes made by the common people, literati and gentlemen who make up textbooks.
Because the Qin Great Wall was actually two or three hundred miles north of Shanhaiguan, Meng Jiangnu not only couldn’t cry down the Great Wall in Shanhaiguan, she couldn’t even see the shadow of the Great Wall. Before the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, the army had only reached the southern suburbs of today’s Beijing, and it was absolutely impossible for a regular army like Yang Jiajiang to cross the Youzhou City of Nanjing in the Liao Kingdom and move to the north of it. The Great Wall between Shanhaiguan and Jiayuguan was built in the Ming Dynasty and had nothing to do with Qin Shihuang. A section of the Great Wall in Badaling has a history of five or six hundred years at most, and there is no shadow of more than two thousand years ago.
In recent years, the value of the Great Wall has returned to the most modern standards, because it is said to be the only structure on Earth that an American astronaut in space could see with the naked eye. Recently there has been news that this report is wrong, which is not the case. In fact, even if it is seen by astronauts, it does not necessarily increase the value of the Great Wall. Because today’s Great Wall is no longer a building that runs through thousands of miles, many places have been ruined, and even disappeared. A considerable part of the remnant of the Great Wall is only loess accumulation, which is indistinguishable from the surrounding wilderness. There are not many buildings on the earth that are much more obvious than the Great Wall, why did they not enter the astronaut’s eyes? If there is such a thing, it can only be attributed to a series of accidental factors: for example, the sky above the Great Wall is not covered by clouds and fog, the light is just right, the astronaut is just observing, and he knows in advance that there is a Great Wall on Earth. As long as one of them is missing, I am afraid there will be no such result.
If the astronaut did not see the Great Wall, but something from another country, would the value of the Great Wall be reduced or cancelled? It seems that there is nothing to worry about. The Great Wall is the Great Wall, and its value exists objectively.
There is no doubt that the Great Wall is a miracle in the history of Chinese and even human architecture. Under extremely poor material conditions, our ancestors completed such a huge project with the most primitive and simple tools, showing their wisdom, strength and determination. But to say that the Great Wall is a common symbol of the Chinese nation and to praise its great role in Chinese history goes against historical facts.
From the states of Qin, Zhao and Yan during the Warring States Period to the construction of the Great Wall at the end of the Ming Dynasty, it has always been a means for the farming peoples in the Central Plains to deal with the nomadic peoples in the north. Not to mention how many corpses were buried along the Great Wall and how much property was spent, in terms of military functions, how could the Great Wall achieve the original purpose of the rulers of the Central Plains? In fact, once the Central Plains Dynasty lost its military strength, the Great Wall would be useless. After the death of Qin Shihuang, the Huns crossed the Great Wall and occupied the Hetao area. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the Qing troops entered and exited the Great Wall as if they were no one, and there were few examples of actual armed confrontation along the Great Wall.
Although the Great Wall has somewhat restrained the invasion and destruction of the southern nomads by the northern nomads, it also restricted the exchanges and integration between ethnic groups and fixed the boundaries of agriculture and animal husbandry. Therefore, the Ming Dynasty, which built the Great Wall the most times, the largest amount of engineering, and the highest quality in history, was the most conservative and inactive dynasty in the northwest and north. With the final completion of the Great Wall, the forces of the Ming Dynasty never went beyond Jiayuguan. Conversely, a regime capable of uniting both agricultural and pastoral nations would not need and would never build the Great Wall. In the Qing Dynasty, the inside and outside of the Great Wall were unified, and the remaining Great Wall was initially used as a checkpoint between regions, but was completely abandoned later. This is an extremely important page in Chinese history.
The patriotism of the people of the Qin Dynasty, the Han Dynasty, and the Ming Dynasty can only be bounded by the Great Wall, because outside the Great Wall is not a whole-hearted country, but the territory of another regime or nation. However, the patriotism of the people of the Tang Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty will never be restricted by the Great Wall, because the outside of the Great Wall is also their country. In China in the 1990s, the people of all ethnic groups inside and outside the Great Wall had already been integrated into an inseparable whole. How can we understand the Great Wall from the narrow national standpoint of some Central Plains dynasties in history? How can it be used to symbolize the Chinese nation?
It is self-evident whether building and defending the Great Wall will make a great contribution to Chinese history, or unifying the north and south of the Great Wall to make a great contribution to Chinese history. However, since the Han Dynasty, the Great Wall has been regarded as the boundary of “the reason why Heaven restricts Hu and Han” (God used to separate Hu and Han people), and the “world” is limited to the Great Wall; whether the lingering charm still exists in some modern Chinese people’s Deep in your mind? This is worth our consideration.
Descendants of Yan and Huang
It is said that Emperor Yan and Huangdi are our two common ancestors, and of course the common ancestors of Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao and all Chinese in the world. In recent years, the use of “Descendants of Yan and Huang” has become more and more frequent and wider and wider. It has been expanded by literati and scholars to all sectors of society and has entered the conversations and official documents of government officials. It has greatly replaced the “Chinese nation” or “China” the momentum of the word “people”. This cannot but arouse the unease of those with a little knowledge of history.
So far, although the Xia cultural site has seen reports of excavations, it still needs to be identified and recognized by experts. No physical evidence can be found in the era of Huangdi and Yandi, which was earlier than the Xia Dynasty. According to the analysis of existing historical knowledge, Huangdi and Yandi were only two of the many tribal leaders at that time. Although they were one of the most powerful leaders, their scope of activities and influence were still limited. Generally speaking, it is impossible to surpass the later Xia and Shang. Even from the written records, we can only regard them as legendary figures. When Sima Qian wrote the “Records of the Grand Historian”, he could not find any reliable historical materials, and only adopted the theory of “Spring and Autumn” and “Mandarin”. If there is no new historical data or physical evidence to discover, we probably cannot be more intelligent than Sima Qian!
According to the records of “Historical Records”, our two ancestors turned out to be a pair of enemies. Emperor Yan was originally the Son of Heaven, but his strength declined and he could not rule the lords; while the Yellow Emperor used both civil and military, both soft and hard, and won the support of the feudal lords. So the Yellow Emperor concentrated his forces and used the jackals, tigers and leopards to fight three battles with Emperor Yan and defeat him. Emperor Yan was also very aware of current affairs. The combined tribe of Yan and Huang, headed by the Yellow Emperor, ruled the Yellow River basin and produced countless descendants of Yan and Huang.
However, from the records of the “Historical Records”, there were also many princes at that time, and they were obviously only the subjects of the Yellow Emperor and the Yan Emperor, not the family. Could it be that these princes are extinct? Or did they all move out of China? Otherwise, a considerable number of people in China today are their descendants, not from the Yan and Huang lineage.
To take a step back, even if the members of the early Huaxia people were descendants of Yanhuang, there are still a large number of non-Huaxia tribes recorded in the history books. Some of these tribes were defeated by the Huaxia tribe and were forcibly absorbed, but they were not physically eliminated, and they would also have children. Archaeological excavations have proved that thousands of Neolithic cultural sites across the country can be divided into various types. In recent years, archaeological discoveries in the Yangtze River Basin, Yanshan Mountains, Northeast China, and Sichuan Basin have further proved the diversity of early Chinese cultures. Until the Spring and Autumn Period, there were still many non-Chinese tribes in the Central Plains, not to mention the areas outside the Central Plains. Only a few of these tribes moved out of today’s China, and most of them gradually merged with the Huaxia people. It can be said that by the time of Qin Shi Huang’s unification, the Huaxia people were already the product of the great fusion of ethnic groups, and the pure descendants of Yan and Huang were probably in the minority.
In the process of assimilation of other ethnic groups, the Huaxia and later Hans also have to use force, but they have a positive tradition of not paying too much attention to blood relations. Any foreigner can become a member of the Han nationality as long as they identify with the Han nationality and accept the Han nationality culture, regardless of their bloodline and whether they have ever been married to the Han nationality. Entrusting a heavy responsibility is no different from appointing Han officials. Therefore, although conflicts and wars between the Han nationality and other nationalities have been quite frequent in history, there has never been a movement of the kind to check the blood ancestry within the Han nationality.
Most of the Jews living in the world were discriminated against and persecuted, but the Jews who came to China lived a peaceful life for a long time and were treated equally by the Han people, so that they gradually lost the mentality of maintaining their national characteristics and finally disappeared from the Han people. This is a powerful example.
Since the Qin and Han dynasties, the non-Huaxia ethnic groups who entered the Yellow River Basin from the north include at least the Xiongnu, Wuhuan, Xianbei, Qiang, Di, Jie, Turkic, Gaoli, Huihe, Khitan, Dangxiang, Jurchen, Mongolian, Uyghur, Hui, and Manchu. Some come from distant Central Asia and West Asia. Some of these ethnic groups have moved back to their original places or moved outside China, but a considerable number of them have joined the Han people, and some entire ethnic groups have disappeared among the Han people. In the south, with the southward migration of the Han people, some of the barbarians, barbarians, Yue, Ba, Ji, Liao, slang, etc., which were originally numerous and diverse, have completely disappeared, and the residential areas of some descendants have been greatly reduced. Most of their settlements have become Han settlements. In fact, a considerable part of the Han people in the south are their descendants. Therefore, among the one billion Han people today, the authentic descendants of Yan and Huang are “minorities.” Even Han people, if they only recognize Yandi and Huangdi, their two ancestors, they are a little sorry for their own ancestors.
What’s more, there are fifty-six ethnic groups in today’s China. Among the fifty-five non-Han ethnic groups, such as Russia, Tajik, Uzbek, etc., cannot be related to the two emperors of Yan and Huang. offspring”? There are Malay elements in the ancestors of Taiwan and some southeastern islands. How can the concept of descendants of Yan and Huang be abused?
There is probably no absolute pure-blood nation in the world; if there is, it will surely degenerate and die. The Huaxia people have grown from one of the oldest ethnic groups in the world to today, the most populous ethnic group in the world, not just by relying on the greatness of their ancestors or the good bloodlines, but by absorbing a large number of other ethnic groups and condensing the various ethnic groups. Essence. In the same way, the great strength of the Chinese nation comes from the various ethnic groups that make up her, from the creativity and common cohesion of each ethnic group.
Before and after the Revolution of 1911, the publications of the revolutionary party and the independent provinces used the Yellow Emperor’s year for a time. On the one hand, it is an expression of opposition to the monarchy, and on the other hand, it reflects a narrow national sentiment. Just as the slogans such as “expel the Tartars” and “racial revolution” once mentioned by the revolutionaries were quickly replaced by the “five ethnic republic” platform, the Yellow Emperor’s Chronicle soon ended its historical mission.
However, the changes in national psychology formed over thousands of years are not as easy as changing the age. The formation and consolidation of the common national feelings of the Chinese nation will also take time. However, if we are freed from the shackles of the traditional view of the world, do not regard the concepts and emotions of the Han nationality as the common features of all ethnic groups in China, and do not confine ourselves to the traditional dynasties of the Central Plains when observing history, then we will not be able to deal with the “descendants of Yan and Huang”. This kind of argument can have scientific and rational understanding.
Excerpted from The View of Heaven in the Past, Unity and Divide: Inspirations from Chinese History, Commercial Press, 2013 edition.
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