Chapter 32 6. Where is the way out?

It seems unthinkable that the imperial system relies on such a near-suicidal method as chaos to maintain its own life, but it is a fact.Actually, the empire as an institution is different from the dynasty as a regime. As a political power, no dynasty is willing to perish; but as a system, the empire must regularly and irregularly send agent groups (existing dynasties) that have deviated from its normal track to the guillotine of history, and find new agents for itself (real life) Son of Heaven). So, what is the normal trajectory of the so-called empire? The normal track of an empire is a social state that conforms to the rationality of its existence.We have pointed out in the first chapter of this book that the existence of the imperial system has its rationality.Even under certain conditions, it is a necessity.As far as the Chinese Empire is concerned, these conditions include: first, social productivity has developed to a certain level, and members of society mainly rely on iron farm implements and domestic livestock for agricultural production, and their income is slightly surplus after maintaining basic living needs; second, at that time Within the reach and control of technical conditions (cars, horses, roads), the economic and lifestyles of all regions and people are roughly the same (that is, they all reach or do not exceed the above-mentioned productivity level); Threats (such as natural disasters or the encroachment of nomadic peoples) must be defended together, so there is a need to organize into a unified country; 4. There are no natural barriers (mountains, seas, deserts, ), easy to conquer militarily, easy to rule politically, easy to stabilize economically, and easy to recognize culturally.Under these conditions, the imperial system was viable.

Therefore, the most suitable imperial system, or in other words, the "best" national state in the imperial era is: the territory is not too big or small (the traditional territory starting from Qin is appropriate), and the population is not too large or too small (20 million to 50 million Tens of millions are appropriate), the economic level is neither high nor low (it is appropriate for ordinary people to just maintain food and clothing), and the political situation is neither good nor bad (it can't be so good that it is extremely powerful, and it can't be so bad that the people are struggling to survive).The territory is too small, the population is too small, and the economic level is too low. History chooses states instead of empires.Conversely, if the territory is too large and the population is too large, the management cost of centralization will increase significantly until the empire cannot afford it; while the economic level is too high, alien forces will form that disrupt the order of the empire.Of course, the political situation is not too good.If the political situation is too good and the country has excess power, the king will resort to military aggression, aggression and expansion, which will also lead to the collapse of the dynasty.Therefore, the dynasty must control its own national state within the above-mentioned standards, or even if it does not meet the standards, it has the possibility of development.This was the state at the beginning of the establishment of the new dynasty.Therefore, as long as the policies and decisions of a new dynasty do not deviate (such as the Jin and Sui), they can always be maintained for a period of time.If you can gradually meet the standard, you will rule the world; when you just meet the standard and slightly exceed it, you will be in prosperity.Then, it will flourish and decline, unless it can control its own development.

This looks simple, but it is actually very difficult.First of all, it requires social stability, good weather, and a relatively closed environment without external shocks and disturbances, in order to meet the lower limit of the above conditions, that is, the territory will not be too small, the population will not be too small, and the economic level will not be too low. .But how can this be guaranteed, and how can everything be fulfilled?Therefore, as long as there is a disturbance (natural disaster or foreign enemy invasion), the dynasty will be in turmoil.From this point of view, the imperial system is actually very fragile.

The weakness of the imperial system lies in that it cannot withstand not only natural and man-made disasters, but also prosperity.In fact, the imperial system was designed on the premise that the level of productivity was low.According to this design, the so-called "Heavenly Land of Kings" of the empire should look like this: a small number of self-cultivating farmers, scattered in a small territory, relying on limited manpower and animal power, men and women plow and weave. , self-sufficient, maintain food and clothing, and pay no more than 10% of taxes to the country.The reason why the tax does not need to exceed 10% is because the ideal empire is not large in scale, the requirements are not high, and it can be operated at low cost; and the reason why the 10% tax is necessary is because these scattered and weak The small and insignificant yeoman is powerless to protect himself, and can only be protected by the national power of the empire, and give them rain and sunshine from above.

It can be seen that the rationality of the imperial system presupposes widespread poverty and backwardness.Precisely because of widespread poverty and backwardness, this requires not only a unified country, but also a supreme power entity or symbol of power.Once you get rich (not poor), become strong (not backward), or widen the gap between rich and poor (poverty and backwardness are not common), and the dynasty develops into a super empire (breakthrough scale), troubles will follow. The first is population growth.In ancient China, there was no family planning policy, and they didn't know what family planning was. Instead, they believed that having many children and grandchildren was a blessing.Therefore, as long as the world is peaceful, the population will increase; if the peace lasts for a long time, the population will increase sharply.This requires a corresponding increase in management personnel and institutions, but the increase in officials and yamen is not proportional to the increase in population.Because the so-called management of the empire is mainly to prevent civil uprisings, the management cost is higher when the population is densely populated than when it is sparsely populated.What's more, the number of herdsmen's officials has increased, and the number of herdsmen's officials will also increase.The number of priests has increased, and the number of supporting institutions has also increased.In fact, not to mention the growth of the civilian population, the expansion of the royal family alone caused the imperial court to suffer.These phoenix sons and grandchildren need to be granted, rewarded, assigned positions, established government offices, equipped with service personnel, and form cliques to make trouble out of nothing.These will increase the cost of management and the number of people, not to mention the fact that the bureaucratic group has a problem of self-expansion.As a result, if the population grows in an arithmetic progression, the increase in officials and bureaucracies will grow in a geometric progression.If the population increases exponentially, the consequences will be disastrous.

The second is the growth of wealth.This includes two aspects, namely national wealth and private wealth.The growth of private wealth should be a good thing in theory, but it is not.Because the growth of private wealth is not synchronous and equal.Some people have increased, while others have not; some people have increased rapidly, while others have slowed down.This will widen the gap between the rich and the poor, and those who get rich first will buy fields and land, and develop from small purchases to large-scale mergers.We know that with the growth of population, land resources will become increasingly tense; and once the merger starts, it will inevitably be a snowballing process.The result is, of course, polarizing.A small number of aristocratic landlords, bureaucratic landlords, and commoner landlords who acquired a large amount of land rents became uncontrollable tyrants of the dynasty, while those peasants who lost their land had only two ways out: either sell themselves into slavery or become tenants , farm laborers, and slaves; or become bandits, refugees, thieves, and bandits.Either way, the dynasty cannot control it.

It is even worse when the wealth of the country increases, because there is no way out.The imperial court can't use this money to buy land, can it?There are only two uses: one is extravagance, which can only lead to corruption; the other is aggression and expansion, which can only lead to war.Corruption and war were among the reasons that led to the downfall of the dynasty.Born in sorrow, died in peace, so is the dynasty. What's more, the rapid increase in population and wealth will cause a dynasty to develop rapidly from a moderate state to a super empire. The result will inevitably be a large and bloated bureaucracy, a failure of command by the central authority, and local power that cannot be lost.This is a common problem of all super empires, as the saying goes, "there are great difficulties".It is not difficult to understand why, whether it is an empire or a dynasty, the weak will inevitably collapse, and the strong will also collapse, and after the prosperity, it will surely decline.The reason is simple: Excessive combustion can only lead to premature extinguishment, and only by returning to a low-level state similar to the end of the Qin Dynasty can the imperial system regain its basis for existence.

So turmoil became inevitable or even necessary.It is true that it is not a pity that crowns fall one after another, and it is not a pity that dynasties are destroyed, but what about the killing of millions of innocent people?Thousands of cities were destroyed for no reason?What about the material civilization and spiritual civilization created for thousands of years being wiped out?What's more, our nation has paid such a heavy price only to maintain the life of the imperial system, and the direct reason is that there are too many people and wealth!This is really sad! So, is there really no way out for excess population and wealth?

Of course there is.And strictly speaking, there is no excess of population and wealth.Because we still have many things to do, many things to do, such as developing education, developing science, developing industry and commerce.But the empire was either not interested or resentful.As a result, manual workers basically have only one way of agricultural production. Once there is less land and more people, there will be dangers everywhere; mental workers basically have only one way to study and become an official. It is not surprising that the empire has an attitude of hostility, hatred, and contempt for science, industry and commerce, but the dynasty must also pay a price for this, and the failure to succeed in reform is one of them.For example, in the era of Wang Anshi, if there were multiple competitive commercial banks for loans and independent judicial civil courts to resolve economic disputes, the court only exercised macro control (such as stipulating that the interest rate should not exceed 2 cents), and the implementation of the Green Crop Law It would never have been the case back then.

But this is totally impossible.Since competing commercial banks and independent judicial civil courts could only be products of a commercial society, agricultural empires were unheard of and unthinkable.What's more, the empire simply cannot allow the existence of competing commercial banks and independent judicial civil courts.If the money is controlled by the bank, where should the household department and feudal officials be located?If the judiciary can be independent, where should the Ministry of Penalties and the Judiciary be located?The common people have become independent. If they love loans, they will pay for goods. If they don’t like loans, they will not take loans. Everything should be done according to economic laws.

Indeed, for an emperor who ruled the world alone, loyalty is far more important than efficiency, and keeping the ancestral family business is far more important than developing people's livelihood.It doesn't matter if the population is rich, and the king with achievements can use it to invade and expand;It is simply inconceivable that these funds are used for the research of natural sciences, but it is absolutely impossible to use them for the development of industry and commerce.The rationality of the imperial system presupposes widespread poverty and backwardness.Where would the empire be if it became generally richer? This is the logic of empire.That is to say, it would rather be generally poor and backward than develop the national economy and the people's livelihood, let alone develop industry and commerce.Of course, no one would say that the national economy and the people's livelihood are not important, and industry and commerce have always existed and developed.In fact, the heyday of each dynasty is also the period when its industry and commerce developed.This is true for Han, Tang, Song, and Ming.At the end of the Western Han Dynasty, Chang'an, Luoyang, Zhengzhou, Nanyang, Handan, Chengdu, and Linzi were all prosperous commercial cities. In the Ming Dynasty, there were thirty-three major commercial cities.Correspondingly, there is a sharp increase in the non-agricultural population and a large number of industrial and commercial employees.According to Wang Fu of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the number of businessmen and businesses in the Luoyang area was ten times that of farmers, and the number of businesses away from the capital was ten times that of farmers ("Qianfu Lun"); and according to the research of the Japanese scholar Mr. Kuwahara, in the late Tang Dynasty only Huang Chao killed as many as 120,000 foreign businessmen.As for the trade volume, it is naturally also considerable.For example, during the Shenzong period of the Northern Song Dynasty, the total domestic trade volume reached 320 million yuan. How can it be said that it was not prosperous? But so what?This can only mean that the end of the dynasty is coming soon.Because the imperial system did not and could not provide a new framework to accommodate this developed urban economy, let alone nurture and foster it.What's more, what these industries and commerce manufacture and sell are mainly "luxurious things", which can't really make any contribution to society except to satisfy the extravagant desire of a few wealthy families.So it's just a "sick boom".It can neither breed and produce the germ of capitalism (please refer to Mr. Gu Zhun's related discussion), nor can it make the imperial system perfect, but can only accelerate the demise of the dynasty.Therefore, when a new dynasty replaces the old dynasty, it will definitely eliminate this "sick prosperity" and return to the track of "emphasizing agriculture and suppressing business".Of course, waiting for it will be the next round of "sick prosperity" and the next round of "reign change". Apart from this, what other way out can the empire have?