Chapter 2 "When divided for a long time, we must unite, and when we unite for a long time, we must divide." Whose "general trend" is it?

Almost every Chinese boy knows the history of his country from the very beginning.When I was in the third grade of primary school, I picked up a book with yellowed edges and traditional Chinese characters from the old bookshelf of the neighbor's house.After reading the scroll, the first line of Mr. Luo Guanzhong stunned the 11-year-old me: "Talking about the general trend of the world, long-term division must unite, and long-term unity must divide." It wasn't until more than 30 years later that I, who had buried my head in the pile of books for a long time, suddenly raised my head and wanted to ask Mr. Luo a few questions: Why must the general trend of the world be "divided for a long time must be united, and a long time must be divided for a long time"?Why can't we separate and not reunite?Why is it necessary to divide again after being united? Is it "the general trend of China" or "the general trend of the world" that "divided for a long time must unite, and united for a long time must divide"?

These are of course very challenging academic questions. Wakeman, the president of the American Historical Society and an expert on Chinese history, even regards the last question as the "point of difference" between Western history and Eastern history. Both China and Europe evolved from a tribal system to a city-state system in the early days, and the Spring and Autumn and Warring States in the East were at the same time as ancient Greece in the West.When Confucius traveled around the world, Pythagoras was teaching geometry in southern Italy; when Mencius was born, Aristotle was a 12-year-old boy.In 360 BC, the first important centralization reform took place in the East, the Shang Yang Reform, and in the West, the Alexander Empire emerged in 356 BC.When Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty (156-81 BC) experimented with a centralized system, Caesar in the West (102-44 BC) also replaced the republic with a highly centralized monarchy.From the 2nd century BC to the 3rd century AD, the Han Dynasty and the Roman Empire emerged in the Eastern and Western worlds with twin peaks and a unified Han Dynasty.In 184 AD, the Han Empire fell into civil strife, and then entered the period of the Three Kingdoms, Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties for nearly 400 years, and the Roman Empire also fell apart under foreign aggression.After that, the history of East and West suddenly began a "great divergence".China was reunified in AD 589 and has not been divided for long since.And Europe entered the dark Middle Ages, experienced a long period of feudalism, and was never unified again. Although the euro appeared in 2000 and realized "unification" in the sense of currency, after the financial crisis in 2008, the euro The survival and waste has become a topic of divergent opinions.Wakeman's question is precisely: "Why did Chinese history diverge from European history after the collapse of the world's first empires -- Rome and the Han Dynasty --?"

This seems to be an unanswered historical question that is difficult to have a standard answer. You can give an explanation from the perspectives of geographical conditions, national psychology, religious language, and chance.The answer given by Wakeman is very concise, but in my opinion it is as precise as a scalpel. He said, "Unification is a kind of Chinese culture". The unified culture has won historical glory for China. In the book "Historical Studies", the British historian Toynbee called China "the only society that has continued to this day". According to his statistics, there have been 21 societies in human history. Among them, Chinese society is the most complete sample of civilization characteristics.And this achievement is derived from the "unified culture".

The thing that Chinese people are most afraid of, least willing, most disgusting, and most intolerable is "split".Unification is a fateful Chinese culture with ultimate significance, and it is the boundary to examine all governance technologies, although unification itself cannot guarantee political and economic development, and even Toynbee cannot confirm that unification is an "end in itself" , or "a means to achieve the goal", but he firmly believes that: "The successful rise of the unified country has finally ended the 'troubled times'. The generation who have personally experienced this process are naturally very yearning and grateful for the unified country."

Any choice has a price, and unification is no exception.If you disassemble this combination of Chinese characters, "unification" means "return to the general", and "one" means "uniform". Behind this word stand three daunting "monsters": centralization and dictatorship ,autocratic.These seem to be two sides of the same coin and you have no choice.