Chapter 7 Kingdom Nightmare

Standing on the high platform, Liu Heng recalled the initial history of the Han Empire. The wars caused by the civil strife beat the land and the people of the empire over and over again. shadow?Liu Heng sighed and turned around, he was unwilling to say the negative answer. Liu Heng's father, Liu Bang, inherited the Qin system and established the Han Dynasty with the monarchy as the political system. It was completely eradicated by Liu Bang.Even more coincidentally, Liu Bang, who overthrew the royal system, was born in the grassroots, which also shows that the common people's royal thinking is not deeply rooted. At least they are more likely to accept the new political system of the imperial system than the nobles of the six countries.

The common people in the era of imperial power were at the bottom, they were often short-sighted, and all of them were utilitarians who valued profit but not name. They valued real benefits more than system, power, and status.Therefore, for the Han Empire, these ordinary people who accepted Liu Bang, their proxy in nominal referendum, would not easily become a new force against the imperial system.They like Liu Bang, because Liu Bang is the son of the people, the grassroots, and the commoner emperor. Since Liu Bang is a good man, the monarchy he chose is naturally right. Most people think so in their hearts.

In February of the fifth year of the Han Dynasty (202 BC), Liu Bang ascended the throne in Dingtao (now Dingtao, Shandong).Since Dingtao has already been designated as the capital of Liang State, and Liang Wang Pengyue is also a great hero and has strong local strength, Liu Bang intends to set the capital at Luoyang, the former capital of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty. Chang'an. In the seventh year of the Han Dynasty (200 BC), the repair work of Changle Palace in Chang'an was completed, and the minister Shu Suntong designed a set of simple but majestic etiquette for emperors and ministers for Liu Bang.Liu Bang looked at his comrades-in-arms who used to be careless in front of him now standing respectfully and tremblingly in front of him, and couldn't help but feel complacent. He thought to himself: "It turns out that being an emperor is so beautiful!"

For the first time, Liu Bang, who was born in the grassroots, realized his own uniqueness and dignity, which made him cherish the hard-won beautiful life and supreme power. However, the division of power is unavoidable, but this division is implicit - instead of nakedly distributing the power of the central government to others, but subtly giving others the right to manage the local area by entrusting heroes and usufruct rights. The first major event Liu Bang dealt with after he ascended the throne was enfeoffment of heroes.In addition to enfeoffing eight princes and kings with different surnames, including Han Xin, Yingbu, and Peng Yue, in the early years of his reign, in December of the sixth year of the Han Dynasty (201 BC), Liu Bang also enfeoffed ten princes at one time, including Xiao He, Cao Can , Xia Houying, etc., they all made great achievements in the war of destroying Qin or the war of defeating Chu.

However, offering rewards to marquises cannot satisfy their desires. After all, human beings are animals driven by interests.The heroes couldn't fill their stomachs enough, which made Liu Bang worry. He was forced to put all his eggs in one basket and created a unique monster-the dual-track system of county and country.On the one hand, the system of prefectures and counties was implemented to ensure the overall centralization of the country; on the other hand, the feudal states were enfeoffed to win the support of various forces. Liu Bang's idea is very good, but he overlooked one point. The royal system and the imperial system are originally incompatible, how can it be possible to maintain a state of mutual tolerance?The existence of princes and kings has seriously hindered the centralization of power and the unification of the country, and they themselves will prepare to rebel because they are worried about losing their status.

In any case, at that time, at least on the surface, the Han Empire became a united empire, and Liu Bang's imperial power became a limited imperial power. During Liu Bang's reign, a total of 143 meritorious officials and 11 family members with the surname Liu were conferred. This kind of indiscriminate conferment should only be an expedient measure, and he was reluctant to have his power taken away.But the group of heroes is too powerful, and they are always aggressive when they speak. Liu Bang can't admit that they are justified. So for Liu Bang, he can only think of some ways, find some reasons, and cut off some princes and kings with different surnames to alleviate the damage of this power division to his own imperial power.

There were many reasons for the enfeoffment in the early Han Dynasty. In addition to the above-mentioned reasons, some people at that time couldn't turn their minds and wanted to follow the road of the monarchy.Before Liu Bang raised his troops, all Han, Zhao, Wei, and Chu in the late Qin Dynasty were wiped out. It should be said that the common people's idea of ​​rebuilding the monarchy should also be cut off from then on. That system could no longer be implemented after the Qin Dynasty wiped out the six countries. Going against it is clearly a waste of society. resources, but some people are still obsessed with it, and they are determined to find opportunities to crack the soil and become kings.

This is the real reason that caused Liu Bang to be timid.As a ruler, what Liu Bang is most worried about is that social conflicts will be intensified and the mobs will be provoked to rebel. If there is a "Chen Sheng No. 2" figure, it will be difficult to guarantee that the Han Empire will not repeat the same mistakes as the Qin Empire. .At the beginning of the Han Dynasty, there was really no way, Liu Bang was helpless, and finally had to reluctantly set up the division of the kingdom. Liu Bang's ability to calmly accept the existence of the "institutional retrogression" of the enfeoffment system should also be related to the Han people's concept of respect.At that time, people in the Han Dynasty generally believed that the credit for destroying Qin should be mainly credited to Xiang Yu, and the credit for the Shouyi should also be credited to Chen Sheng, and Liu Bang had nothing to do with it anyway.However, public opinion is always the thing that has the greatest impact on the political situation, and the voice of the common people must not be violated. Therefore, even if Liu Bang can realize the problem of the dual-track system of the prefecture and the state, he can only smash his teeth and swallow his blood. He has no choice but to say nothing. can be said.

Throughout Liu Bang's reign, the county-state dual-track system was not denied. Liu Bang may have been complacent about the seemingly two-dimensional political system he designed from the beginning to the end.It's a pity that under the seemingly gorgeous appearance of the county-state dual-track system, there is actually a ticking time bomb hidden.Institutions are the foundation of political power. One day, the contradictions accumulated in the dual-track system of prefectures and states will break out, and the edifice of the Han Empire will surely be overthrown. Liu Bang is a dictator, so he inevitably overcorrected the local government.He was a simple-minded man of rough background, always took the rebellion of the princes and kings as an example, and mistakenly believed that only a high-pressure policy could solve the rebellion of the local kingdom.The conflict intensified, eventually leading to frequent civil strife in Liu Bang's Han Empire:

——In the sixth year of the Han Dynasty (201 BC), the Korean aristocrat Han Wangxin launched a rebellion and finally surrendered to the Huns; ——In the tenth year of the Han Dynasty (197 B.C.), Chen Xi, Marquis of Yangxia, who was Prime Minister of the State of Zhao and Prefect of Julu, and had an overview of the soldiers and horses of both Dai and Zhao, rebelled in Dai Commandery (now Yu County, Hebei Province); ——In the eleventh year of the Han Dynasty (196 BC), Han Xin, the original king of Chu and later reduced to Marquis of Huaiyin, was killed, Peng Yue, king of Liang, was killed for rebellion, and Yingbu, king of Huainan, rebelled;

——In the twelfth year of the Han Dynasty (195 BC), Liu Bang's childhood friend and Yan Wang Lu Wan rebelled and finally surrendered to the Huns. The central government in the early Han Dynasty was extremely hostile to the kingdoms in the east. It is recorded in the "Two Years of Laws · Catch the Law" in Zhangjiashan Han Bamboo Slips of Hubei Province, "One person who came from the princes to be an intermediary (spy) was (worshipped) at the first level, and there was (Again) buy 20,000 yuan." It can be seen that the central government of the Han Dynasty and the vassal states monitored each other. "Zou Qiao Shu" records that in July of the tenth year of Gaozu, a prison history named Lan in Linzi married a woman from Qi State who had moved to Chang'an. When she was about to return to Linzi with the woman from Qi State, she was arrested The officials at the pass were captured and tattooed as Chengdan (a punishment in the Qin and Han Dynasties, guarding against captives during the day and building the Great Wall at night).The central court believed that it was Lang who was helping Qi to abduct Han people, and they regarded all who came to the central as Han people, "The law prohibits those who come from the princes to lure people from other countries, so that other countries cannot take (marry) people from other countries. Although Lan came here for no reason, the Qi State that actually lured the Han people came from the princes." It can be seen that the Han Dynasty regarded the Guandong princes as enemies at that time. The local government does not trust the central government, and the central government does not trust the local government. Under such circumstances, how can conquest and rebellion not become inevitable? Although in essence, the county-state dual-track system should play a role in restricting and correcting tyrants.However, driven by an inferior national character that is extremely pursuing power, the enfeoffment system has indeed become a strong resistance to the development of the empire. In addition, the succession of the title also triggered the fratricide between monarchs and ministers, father and son, and brothers.Since the establishment of the enfeoffment system in the early Han Dynasty, there have been frequent bloody tragedies among the noble princes and kings due to title competitions, and those ministers without titles have lived in peace and stability. Although Liu Bang abolished the enfeoffment of princes and kings with different surnames in 201 BC, and later made the "White Horse Oath", agreeing that "the king is not the Liu family, and the world will fight against him", and improved the enfeoffment of princes and kings with different surnames to the enfeoffment of princes and kings with the same surname, but the kingdom The problem remains unresolved, blood relationship cannot offset the conflict of interests caused by institutional contradictions. The leftover kingdom problem will eventually become a hidden danger to the empire.