First, the centralization of authority was established; Before that, there were many enfeoffment countries in China, each country had its own monarch or king, and the central Shang or Zhou had limited control over the vassal countries; Wars often occurred between vassal States, which greatly affected economic development; Qin Shihuang abolished the enfeoffment system and established a multi-level management grass-roots structure such as county, county, township, pavilion and Li directly managed by the central government; This management structure has lasted for more than two thousand years and is still continuing.
Second, unify writing and currency. In the past, countries used different languages, and the documents exchanged with each other were often not understood by each other, which was very inconvenient for national culture and communication. Qin Shihuang's forced unification into writing, as the only normative culture in China, has been in use for more than two thousand years and is still in use today. Different currencies are used in different regions, such as round, knife, shovel, shell, tortoise shell or jade piece. Qin Shihuang unified the currency into outer copper coins, which remained in use until the Qing Dynasty more than 2,000 years later.
Third, unified measurement. What are weights and measures? Before Qin Shihuang, there were various units of measurement everywhere. For example, if you want to buy a foot of cloth, you don't even know what a foot means in other places, or a catty of rice is not called a catty here, but another unit; Qin Shihuang stipulated a unified unit of length, called minutes, inches, feet and feet. These names are still in use; The unit of measuring tool volume is called closing, lifting and bucket; The unit of weight (balance) is called baht, two pounds and stone, and these units are still in use today. Thai baht is because the weight of copper coins is measured in Thai baht. For example, half a pair of copper coins is called 5 baht, and later "1 baht" is called "1 coin". Or 10 yuan = 1 two.
Four, the construction of chidao, dredging rivers and channels. That is, the highway connecting counties in the country (equivalent to the current national highway and provincial highway). It has greatly strengthened the links between various places.
5. Build the Great Wall. Originally, there were some Great Walls between countries, but the Great Wall in the north was incomplete. After reunification, he ordered the original Great Wall between countries to be demolished, and then the Great Wall in the northern part of Qin, Zhao and Yan countries was connected to prevent the Huns from invading the south. Left us with the world-famous Great Wall of Wan Li.
Sixth, open up the frontier. When the Central Plains countries were fighting with each other and had no time to look north, the Huns took the opportunity to invade the south and attack the northern border areas of Qin, Zhao and Yan. After Qin Shihuang annexed the six countries, he sent hundreds of thousands of troops to the northern expedition, defeated the Xiongnu and stabilized the northern frontier; Baiyue, who marched south to Lingnan, incorporated Guangdong and Guangxi into Chinese territory.
The above are some brief summaries of Qin Shihuang's work; These things never happened before him, originated from him and took more than two thousand years; After him, all emperors made achievements in governing the country under his institutional framework. The great achievements they created largely benefited from the foundation laid for them by Qin Shihuang. How much work does it take to complete so many institutional and cultural changes and countless construction projects without the previous ones? Moreover, it was only 1 1 year from Qin Shihuang's annexation to his death. In this short period of 1 1 year, Qin Shihuang completed such a huge work at an unimaginable speed, which laid the foundation for thousands of years of feudal society in China. Qin Shihuang was not only a king with great talent and great strategy, but also an efficient leader. It can be said that in the history of China, no other emperor or saint can do it except Qin Shihuang.
Look at other wise emperors in history, such as Emperor Gaozu, Emperor Wudi, Emperor Taizong, Song Taizu, Genghis Khan, Zhu Yuanzhang, Kangxi, Qianlong and so on. Which of their "great achievements" can be compared with Qin Shihuang? What substantial things have they left for our Chinese nation, and what "software" have they left that can be used for thousands of years? In this respect, Qin Shihuang is undoubtedly the greatest king who has made the greatest contribution to the Chinese nation in the history of China.
However, Qin Shihuang's position in people's minds is far less than that of other emperors. Why? Because Qin Shihuang was given the title of the number one tyrant. This title of "tyrant" not only defiled the peerless brilliance of his life, but even became the villain in legends and dramas. The status of such a greatest king is often surpassed by others. However, is the real Qin Shihuang really a tyrant as people think?
People's understanding and analysis of historical figures are mostly based on historical records, which are very one-sided; The viewpoints and mentality of the editors of historical materials often affect those who read this period of history. If the historical records are untrue, it will bring people wrong conclusions, even concepts that are contrary to the historical situation. As a historical figure, Qin Shihuang also faced such a situation; Our understanding of Qin Shihuang comes from the records and descriptions in the annals, which forms his image and views on him. More people get it from legends, romances and dramas. People get the image of Qin Shihuang from these channels, which can be summed up as Qin Shihuang in A Qin: cruel, greedy, ungrateful, suspicious, headstrong, arbitrary, killing innocent people without blinking an eye ... All the characteristics of a tyrant are put on his head, and nothing he does is a bad thing: unifying the six countries is considered greed; The establishment of centralization is arbitrary; No one mentioned the good things of building roads, dredging canals and repairing water conservancy; Originally, the Great Wall was built to protect the lives and property of the people in the north, but as a result, an absurd myth that Meng Jiangnu cried down the Great Wall for 800 miles was fabricated. ...
There are basically many records about Qin Shihuang's actions in history books, but some unfounded or unwarranted events are attached to his head; Coupled with the rendering and expansion of romance, novels and dramas, he was labeled as "the first tyrant in the world"; Because this impression has a deep influence on people, it has been deeply rooted in people's hearts, so that anyone who says that Qin Shihuang is not very cruel (dare not say that he is not violent) will be considered as distorting history, being questioned and even being attacked. These people who insist that Qin Shihuang is the "number one tyrant" never seem to doubt the correctness of their deep-rooted ideas.
Why did Qin Shihuang leave such an impression on people? This paper analyzes the times he lived in and what he did. What he did was criticized and influenced, mainly from four aspects: (1) The war of annexing six countries caused considerable casualties; (2) In the process of implementing the unified system reform and cultural unification, some high-pressure policies were adopted; (3) Large-scale capital construction of the country has recruited a considerable number of people to serve the corvee; (4) In the war, a considerable number of people were recruited for military service in order to expand the territory and defend the frontier.
Of the above four items, the second item seems to be no other difficulty, but it is actually the most difficult, which has the greatest influence and the most far-reaching significance on the history of China for more than two thousand years. Abolish local separatism, implement county, county and township management institutions below the central government, divide each region of the country, arrange the appointment of officials at all levels, and stipulate their functions and powers and the management procedures and methods between the upper and lower levels; What a huge and complicated task it will be to complete the unprecedented layout and arrangement of all parts of the country. In the process of unifying words and weights and measures, the workload is also quite huge. For example, if the unified use of Chinese characters is stipulated, samples of standard text styles must be distributed to all localities, and a special person is responsible for publicity and promotion. At that time, there was neither printing nor paper. Bamboo slips and silk books are spread around in the way of engraving, and the difficulty can be imagined in the case of inconvenient transportation and backward means of transportation. For unified measurement, standard ruler, standard barrel, lifting measuring tool and standard scale must be made and distributed to all parts of the country. How much to do in such a big country and such a famous place, how to arrange its use and promotion, all need careful consideration, because the manufacturing capacity at that time could not be compared with that now, and how to achieve the effect with the minimum cost requires considerable ability and wisdom. It took Qin Shihuang only eleven years to complete this historic work, so that the achievements of these works have been enjoyed by our Chinese nation for more than two thousand years. But it is this work that makes him the number one tyrant in the eyes of Chinese people after him. Why? Because he wants to unify the writing, he will be strongly opposed by the literati of the six countries; In order to complete the unification of the characters in the shortest time, he took tough measures and high-handed policies, and took extreme actions to refuse to implement and hinder others' implementation; The famous incident of "burning books to bury Confucianism" in history happened under such circumstances. Because of the tough action in the cultural field, Confucian scholars have been offended; In the following thousands of years, China's cultural field was almost dominated by Confucian children. Books, literary dramas and romantic novels in history are basically written by Confucian scholars. It is conceivable that the Qin Shihuang described in these people's books is like. At present, the evidence of cruelty to Qin Shihuang by people who study history is mostly quoted from Sima Qian's Historical Records and other "official history"; As a scholar, Sima Qian and Qin Shihuang did not live in the same era, and the historical materials in the book also came from the records and legends of predecessors, and were also influenced by the mentality of previous scholars. Inevitably, there are inaccuracies in the book. Palace A recorded in many books does not say that it is more than 300 miles wide; However, various historical books, stories, plays and poems have been expanded, imagined and developed. A palace site recently discovered by archaeology has a front yard of more than 80,000 square meters, with a total area of only over 600,000 square meters, which is not as big as the current Forbidden City (720,000 square meters), and it is also a unfinished project that was stopped in the middle of construction. In addition, Qin Jun trapped and killed more than 400,000 captured Zhao troops in the Changping Campaign recorded in various historical books, which is a question that can be scrutinized. Zhao participated in the campaign with a total of 450,000 troops. It is impossible to leave no one guarding the city when going out to attack. In addition, 600,000 Qin Jun lost more than half in the battle, while more than 400,000 Zhao troops were able to maintain the original number of more than 400,000, which was unimaginable for the powerful Qin Jun at that time. And there is a ridiculous ending, that is, 400,000 Zhao, who achieved half of the body count and had a good record, was captured by the remaining 300,000 Qin Jun.
Assuming that Zhao Jun was defeated by more than half and the remaining 65,438+10,000 people were captured and killed, such an outcome seems more tenable; The record of killing 400,000 prisoners of war in these history books deepened people's impression of Qin Jun's brutality. Because he offended the scholars, all kinds of historical materials coming out of their hands not only described him as a devil-like tyrant, but also vilified his image and described a great figure of his own nation as a wretched and weak image.
"The accuracy of the peak, the length of the eye, the sincerity of the bird, and the sincerity of the voice of the wolf." The Qin Shihuang they described not only has complete facial features and figure, but also can infer from these descriptions that he suffers from severe bronchitis and rickets, accompanied by physical and psychological abnormalities. . . . . . Is the king in the history of our nation like the one described in the history books?
As for the authenticity of the historical records, living more than two thousand years after him, we can't directly confirm the authenticity of the historical records. It is not a good idea to use other historical materials as the basis. And almost all historical records and the legendary Qin Shihuang are described as a complete tyrant. Therefore, it is impossible to make a correct inference only with the help of historical materials. From the analysis of other things related to Qin Shihuang recorded in historical materials, we can draw a completely different conclusion from Qin Shihuang recorded in historical materials.
First, Qin Shihuang was strong and had high martial arts.
Whether he is handsome or not is uncertain, but he is strong. First, the memorials he reads and instructs every day are carved with bamboo slips. The bamboo slips sent from all over the country weigh at least several hundred kilograms every day, but he is still reading the memorial and giving instructions at the age of fifty. The second is the matter of "seeing the poor dagger". Jing Ke is a killer selected by Yan Wan Li, and his martial arts must be unusual; As a result, in the case of taking the initiative to launch a surprise attack, Qin Shihuang was not injured, and he was also fighting with Qin Shihuang after pulling out his sword. This one-in-a-million player is no match for Qin Shihuang at all. After several moves, he was defeated by Qin Shihuang's sword. It can be seen that Qin Shihuang's martial arts are high. As for his greatness, there are many places to describe his greatness. One of them is that in this incident, Qin Wuyang, who went with Jing Ke, originally died with the heart of death, but when he saw the greatness of Qin Shihuang, he was scared out of his wits.
Second, Qin Shihuang was broad-minded, sincere, good at employing people and brave in change.
Qin Shihuang's men gathered many first-class military strategists and politicians. There are Wang Jian, Wang Ben, Liao Wei and Li Si. Most of them are not from Qin, but they all serve Qin wholeheartedly. The role of Qin Shihuang is to give full play to their role, listen to their advice and be brave in correcting mistakes. For example, when Chu State was destroyed, it began to misuse Li Xin. After the failure, he immediately changed course, invited Wang Jian to go out and delivered all the soldiers in the country to Wang Jian. As a result, he won. They can serve Qin for such a long time and accomplish so many undertakings in a short time, which is inseparable from Qin Shihuang's broad mind and sincerity to people.
Third, the richest people in China have a broad and tolerant heart.
Unlike Alexander and Rome in Europe at that time, he only focused on conquest, and then only enslaved the conquered countries and nations; After Qin Shihuang conquered the six countries, he immediately began to build roads, dredge canals and develop agriculture in the former six countries, treating the people of the former six countries and the people of the former Qin State equally. It laid the foundation for the integration of these people to form the Han nationality.
Fourth, large-scale corvee was forced by the situation at that time.
At that time, the Central Plains had just been unified, and the original aristocratic forces in various places were still very strong. If the traffic and links between the central areas are not maintained, the country will be divided again at any time. Therefore, we must improve the traffic and contact between the central area and other counties as soon as possible, so we must build roads as soon as possible.
Due to years of war, the agricultural facilities in the first few countries have been greatly damaged, or they have been in disrepair for a long time because of war; Agricultural production must be resumed as soon as possible after reunification; Therefore, it takes considerable manpower to dredge rivers and repair canals, which is beneficial to waterway transportation and agricultural irrigation.
The Great Wall was built to protect people's lives and property on the northern border, and its purpose was to reduce people's burden. Because the Huns are nomadic people, their cavalry activities are very extensive. Without the Great Wall, many troops will be needed to defend them, which will add a great burden to the people. Qin Shihuang didn't create the Great Wall, he just connected the original Great Wall in the northern part of Qin, Zhao and Yan, but the history books blamed Qin Shihuang for all the suffering caused by the Great Wall, which is not true.
The most condemned and attacked thing in history books is that he used more than 700,000 people to build a 300-mile-long giant palace-Epang Palace. This unfinished palace is not as grand and huge as some historical books and literati describe, and it is exaggerated. The huge mausoleum really consumes a lot of manpower and material resources. Added a lot of burden to the people; Consumed a lot of manpower and financial resources of the country.
Compared with other emperors, Qin Shihuang was not a tyrant.
This is the most sensitive issue. If this concept can be established, then our concept of thousands of years will be overthrown. Excluding the influence of historical man-made ideas, we can analyze Qin Shihuang's behavior from the following events to see if he is a tyrant.
First of all, we can see that Qin Jun was killed from the demographic changes at that time. According to various historical data analysis, before Qin annexed the six countries, the total population of the seven countries was between 20 million and 30 million, while the population after Qin's reunification was about 20 million; After such a large-scale war, the population of the whole country has not decreased significantly; In the process of changing other dynasties, some data of population decline are as follows: from the Western Han Dynasty to the Eastern Han Dynasty, the population decreased from 59 million to 27 million; Eastern Han Dynasty-Three Kingdoms-Western Jin Dynasty, the population decreased from 59 million to more than 8 million; From Sui Dynasty to Tang Dynasty, the population decreased from 46 million to more than 20 million, and from Southern Song Dynasty to Jin Dynasty to Yuan Dynasty, the population decreased from 654.38 billion to 23 million. From the Yuan Dynasty to the Ming Dynasty, the population decreased from 74 million to 6 1 10,000; In the Ming Dynasty-Manchu, the population decreased from more than 70 million to more than 20 million; In contrast, the proportion of people killed in the Qin Dynasty's war to unify China was quite low. Neither the official history nor unofficial history mentioned Qin Jun's mass slaughter of cities and civilians, nor did I see the description of the barren fields and the dilapidated cities after the war. It shows that Qin Shihuang's army is not an army that likes to kill.
Secondly, Qin Shihuang buried thousands of terracotta warriors and horses in his mausoleum. This shows that Qin Shihuang cherished human life. In the past, it was common for kings to be buried with the living. Not only kings but also nobles are often buried with many people. As the emperor who owned the world at that time, Qin Shihuang could have been buried with some living people, and the number of prisoners of war captured year after year should be quite large; But he didn't do it. He arranged so many people, spent so much effort, and made thousands of clay figurines to replace the living people commonly used in the past, setting an example for future generations and preventing the living from being buried.
The third is to be kind to the noble descendants of the former six countries. Some nobles did not kill them after being captured, but moved them to live near Xianyang, which was convenient for management and prevented them from splitting the country again. This is a very friendly way; But also did not kill other noble descendants and soldiers of the six countries. Wei Bao at that time, for example, and even Xiang Liang and Xiang Yu, descendants of Xiang Liang, the general of Chu State who destroyed 200,000 Qin Jun, were not killed. Do you think that a king who can be so tolerant can be a "tyrant"?
The fourth is the "burning books to bury Confucianism" incident. If the writing and culture at that time were not unified, not only the country could be divided at any time, but even the Han nationality could not be formed; So unifying the characters was the most urgent task at that time. In order to unify the written language in the whole country as soon as possible, maybe he had a hunch that God didn't give him much time. To finish so much work in such a short time, he had to take some high-handed measures to force his policies and plans to be completed in his lifetime. In the work of text unification, it was strongly opposed by scholars from the former six countries (mainly Confucian scholars), and their opposition seriously delayed the cultural unification of Qin Shihuang; After many unsuccessful efforts, 460 Confucian scholars were executed, which set an example for others and enabled his plan to be completed in his eleven-year life. Imagine that if Qin Shihuang did not complete the unification of characters and grammar in the 1 1 year after reunification, his son would not be able to complete it even when he died; How many generations will it take to unify the characters? Therefore, it is necessary for him to take this action, and it is also a decision that he has to make in a helpless situation. This action has played a positive role in the unification of China culture. In this process, 460 people were killed in order to achieve the maximum deterrent effect with the least cost, which can not explain that Qin Shihuang was addicted to murder; Compared with other emperors in history (except those who killed Genghis Khan and Meng Yuan), such as Emperor Gaozu Liu Bang, Emperor Wudi, Zhu Yuanzhang and Judy, and the literary inquisition in the Qing Dynasty, which emperor didn't kill more than 460 people? Especially in the process of "leaving hair headless", the shaving order of the Qing dynasty killed tens of thousands of people; Even the "wise" Emperor Taizong killed more than 460 people. Compared with these kings, he seems to be unworthy of the title of "tyrant", and the hat of "the first tyrant in the world" should not be buckled on his head.