Chapter 12 History

Interviewer: AA Time: June 5, 2003 After reading your "The Law of Blood Pay: The Game of Survival in Chinese History", I remembered a passage by Huang Jiwei in "Southern Weekend".He said that you tell historical stories with great interest, but there is a clear academic structure hidden behind it, and many new concepts have been created at the same time.This intention was manifested more strongly.In telling historical stories, you construct a new framework for interpreting Chinese history.After the five-stage theory was widely discredited, efforts to explore a new framework began.Not to mention the various theories imported from the West, created by the Chinese themselves. In the 1980s, there was a theory of ultra-stable structures. In the past two years, the banner of "middle-level theory" has appeared. What is your framework for "macrohistory"?

I don't have a complete and rigorous theory, but when I read history, I often think of a metaphor from my predecessors, which somewhat serves as an analytical framework. In 1874, Li Hongzhang used "a change unseen in thousands of years" to describe China's situation under the impact of Western powers: the scope of the environment has changed, the opponent has changed, and the means of the game have also changed.Li Hongzhang's "changing situation" theory is widely known, but he is not the inventor of this metaphor.About a hundred years before Li Hongzhang, the historian Zhao Yi's "Notes on the Twenty-Two Histories" had the title "The Bureau of Commoners and Generals in the Early Han Dynasty". Zhao Yi said: "The Qin and Han Dynasties were a great change in the world," he said, Before the Qin and Han Dynasties, it was a "feudal princes" society, and the kings and officials were hereditary.Qin destroyed the six kingdoms and created a "unified situation". Afterwards, commoners could become emperors, and rogues could become generals after meritorious deeds. The feudal situation changed drastically.Zhao Yi also used terms such as a foregone conclusion and a new outcome.

Going forward, it describes that Liu Bei visited the thatched cottage three times and heard a song written by Zhuge Liang: "The sky is like a round cover, the land is like a chess board, the world is divided into black and white, and they fight for honor and disgrace..." The chess game has been used as a metaphor for the world.Zhu Xi, a great Confucian in the Song Dynasty, also said something like this: "The truth between heaven and earth has a fixed end and a popular end." (Zhu Ziyu Lei Vol. 65) Zhu Xi already used the interactive relationship within the "set" to define things.

Applying the metaphor of "game", we can analyze the main body of the game, the rules of the game, the result of the game, the calculation of the interests of all parties, the strategies of all parties, the understanding of the situation by all parties, etc., etc. I find this an instructive and inclusive framework. If we borrow the naming ideas of "macro", "micro", and "meso", can your framework be called "general view" framework?How deep is the framework of situation view in the study of traditional Chinese historiography?How does this approach differ from contemporary Western game theory?

The term "view of the situation" is very appropriate, and the framework of the situation and the history of the situation are good labels.However, the predecessors of Chinese historians did not raise the "view of the situation" to the level of historical research methods. They only used this tool and showed a way to analyze problems, but they were not conscious enough. When it comes to Western game theory, I only know a thing or two.Among them, the most important concepts such as "Nash Equilibrium" must be introduced into the framework of "situation view", otherwise it will be difficult to explain the formation of stereotypes and the stability and changes of the situation.However, the "view of the situation" also involves rich Chinese concepts and thoughts, such as the concept of "fixed situation".Whether a sunspot in Go is a master hand or a loser, crazy or cowardly, its nature can only be judged by the interrelationship of each piece and the response it triggers, which is the so-called "decided game".Similar concepts and profound thoughts, I don't know if there is anything that can be corresponded in game theory.

In addition, Western scholars have combined game theory and evolution theory to analyze problems. The strategy analysis plus survival of the fittest makes the whole framework more complete and more suitable for analyzing historical evolution. In fact, it does not matter where a method comes from, what is important is that it can help us recognize the truth.Western scholars have created many sharp analytical tools, and our predecessors have also created many words that reveal the truth.For example, the "fa" of legalists is similar to the rules in game theory; "shu" is similar to the strategies in game theory; "potential" is very expressive and explanatory, but I don't know how to translate it into a concept in game theory.These ancient words can help us understand and describe China's long history and complex society. After all, these words themselves grew up on this land. At the same time, they also intervene in the cognitive process of history creators and affect their Choice and decision.

In the field of philosophy of history, there are some concepts that are very familiar to everyone, such as productivity, production relations, ideology, class, property rights system and so on.Where do these concepts fit within the framework of "Perspectives"?What is the position of the violence and violent groups you particularly emphasized?How do you integrate these ideological achievements of predecessors into the framework of "situation view"? The history of "juguan" has not yet formed a complete and rigorous system. Perhaps through the efforts and accumulation of scholars from Zhu Xi to Zhao Yi, to Li Hongzhang, and later scholars, they have understood and digested the wisdom contained in Chinese-related vocabulary, coupled with the absorption of Western knowledge. , this system can gradually improve.Now it's hard for me to pinpoint exactly where those concepts are, but I have some intuitions that come from analogies.

For example, how are small farmers formed?According to a historical record of the Yi nationality in the Guangxu period of the Qing Dynasty, the ruler beat the slaves to cultivate the land with a whip, and if the whip was too severe, they would flee or rebel.With less whipping, the grain produced was not enough to feed the slaves themselves.Therefore, the ruler changed the method and allocated half of the land to them, allowing them to support themselves and spend half of the time working for the master, and got the best of both worlds. We can think of this story as a game of violent owners versus agricultural producers.Property rights can be understood as a means to mobilize production enthusiasm and as a strategy for slave owners to stimulate slave labor.However, once this strategy is adopted, the slave owner is no longer a slave owner, but a serf owner; and the slave is no longer a slave, but a serf with certain personal and property rights.The master can no longer take away the products of the private farm for free, which can be understood as the basic rules followed by both parties.Rules, strategies, property rights systems, production relations, and incentive mechanisms are all one thing here, and they are endogenous and spontaneous things, which are the result of the interaction between producers and rulers.A change in strategy or rules also means a change in the nature of the subject, or a change in class: both slaves and slave owners have disappeared, and they have acquired new identities in new interactive relationships.This is the so-called "fix".

You can continue to tell the story.In the well field system, the common people were lazy in the public fields, and the rulers could not manage them. As a result, the public fields were overgrown with weeds, which were far worse than the crops in the "private plots".As a result of both losses, a more efficient system was forced out. The "initial tax per mu" was adopted, the land was divided into single farms, the labor rent was changed to land rent in kind or the national tax on imperial grain, and serfs became self-employed farmers. They paid taxes directly to the government. A new bureau was created, and the old bureau of enfeoffment system disintegrated.

Productivity refers to the game relationship between the human species, the natural environment and other species.This is another big picture.If laborers do not take good care of the crops, the crops will fail or even fail, and the groups that depend on the crops will die. In our dialogue, you mentioned many subjects of historical activities, using the analogy of a chess game, that is, many chess players.You mentioned agricultural producers, including slaves, serfs, and individual farmers, and you mentioned rulers, the so-called masters, slave owners, and serf owners, as well as countries, emperors, princes, and Western powers. Bureau, changing situation, how to settle the situation in the end?How many kinds of foregone conclusions are there in Chinese history?

The division of finality depends on what we are discussing.When discussing the game between humans and other species, there are so-called hunting and gathering eras, animal husbandry eras, and agricultural eras. The agricultural era can be divided into different stages such as the slash-and-burn era and fertilization and irrigation. These divisions are all good.The Stone Age, Bronze Age, Black Iron Age, etc. can be regarded as the division of game tools or weapon materials, and there is nothing wrong with this.The question is, when we discuss the history of China, what is the basic relationship that determines the survival and decline of the human species on this land?What led to thousands of miles of people, ten rooms and nine empty?Once the problem is determined, the division method cannot be arbitrary. Chinese history shows that the basic relationship that determines the rise and fall of the world is the relationship between violent groups and productive forces.Violence is out of control, levies and extortions are rampant, bandits are everywhere, and bandits are rampant. The Chinese Empire is very characteristic in its internal and external relations.In terms of the relationship between violent groups and production groups, the imperial system has established a basic balanced relationship, which is the relationship between the royal aristocracy and its bureaucratic agency groups and individual farmers, that is, the relationship between officials and gangsters.In terms of the relationship between violent groups, the Qin Empire won the violent competition, annexed six countries, abolished feudalism, established a defense system against nomadic invasions, and created a violent monopoly system.The imperial system created by the Qin and Han Dynasties is the biggest foregone conclusion in Chinese history. Li Hongzhang's so-called change of situation actually refers to the change of violent competitors.The Western powers easily defeated the Chinese Empire, breaking the balance of thousands of years, and the violence in the West is under the control of the bourgeoisie, a production group, which completely represents another internal relationship pattern. The empire cannot assimilate the nomads. The same assimilation of opponents who are more advanced than themselves.This is the depth of the change.Sun Yat-sen learned from the West, held high the banner of the Republic of China, and took the people's control of violence as his ideal for building a country. However, what he actually established was a party-state system, which was a variant of an empire. It was a transitional system that relied on authoritarian administrative power to catch up with Western powers. foregone conclusion. Before the empire, there was the feudal system of the Western Zhou Dynasty. Agricultural producers were attached to violent masters such as princes, nobles, and doctors. The violent owners, large and small, were also related by blood and obeyed the orders of the emperor of Zhou. This is another pattern.There is another set of relations between violent groups and their relations with production groups. In short, to examine Chinese history with the framework of the general situation, we must examine the various capabilities of historical actors.Productivity is of course very important, but neither is violence or destructive power.The most violent has the final say. This is a meta-rule, a rule that makes rules.Without taking into account the gains and losses of the violent owners, it is impossible to tell clearly about reforms, restructuring, or changes in production relations.How can one understand the overall situation by posing the moves of one chess player alone? According to your view on the basic relationship, the law of blood reward just reveals the secret of the relationship between the violent group and the production group.People know this kind of relationship vaguely in their hearts, but the law of blood reward expresses this vague feeling clearly, and it can be discussed and even calculated. The law of blood reward is about to calculate the familiar ruling relationship: why the rulers have the final say, why they make laws and regulations, why it is cost-effective for producers to bow their heads, and why the rulers change the law and system.The law of blood reward can explain the role of violent means in the game relationship, and can also calculate the limitations of this means.