What this book is going to talk about is the changing process of China's territory in history, so it is first necessary to clarify the meaning of "China in history". Is "China in history" the same as today's China?of course not.Because if there is no difference between the two, their boundaries will not change much, just talk about the status quo.But this is not the case. The word "China" was first seen in the early years of the Western Zhou Dynasty, and it was widely used in the Spring and Autumn Period. "Guo" (traditional characters for "Guo") is similar to the word "or", referring to cities and towns.Before the Spring and Autumn Period, there were thousands of large and small countries, so the "country" (capital) where the emperor lived was called "China", that is, the country in the central position or the center of all countries.Later, the country in the central area will be referred to as "China", that is, the country in the central area.At first, this central area was limited to the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River today, that is, the area directly under Zhou Tianzi and the states of Jin, Zheng, Song, Lu, and Wei among the vassals, while the surrounding areas or other vassal states could not be counted as China.By the Qin and Han Dynasties, the original vassal states had been included in the unified country, and these regions could all be called "China".Obviously, with the formation of a unified country, the expansion of territory and the development of economy and culture, the concept of "China" is constantly changing and expanding.Generally speaking, once a dynasty of the Central Plains is established, its main ruled area can be called China, while the outlying areas it ruled and outside the ruled area are Rong, Di, Man, and Barbarians, it is not China.

Just because the concept of China is changing and its scope is not fixed, it has been vague and inaccurate for a long historical period.Even within the Central Plains dynasty, people can regard the relatively remote and remote areas as non-Chinese.Since there is no clear standard, people are often just based on habits, so not only are there different sayings in different periods, but they are also different in the same era.Some areas have been included in the territory of the Central Plains Dynasty, and their economy and culture have improved to a certain extent. They think they can join China, but in the eyes of the old China, they are not yet qualified to be called China.Later they were recognized as China, and there were relatively backward areas that were considered non-China.For example, in the Western Han Dynasty, the Han-inhabited areas in the Sichuan Basin already regarded themselves as China to the surrounding ethnic minorities, but in the eyes of people in the Guanzhong Basin and the lower reaches of the Yellow River, Sichuan may not yet have the qualifications to be called China.Today's Jiangxi and Hunan had already officially established prefectures and counties at that time, and they were part of the territory of the Han Dynasty, but they had not yet been regarded as China.By the Ming Dynasty, Hunan and Jiangxi could of course be called China, but today's Yunnan and Guizhou areas are still regarded as non-China.

China is also a cultural concept, which generally refers to the Han (Huaxia) cultural area.Under special circumstances, China became synonymous with dynastic legality.For example, after the Western Jin Dynasty, although the regimes of the Eastern Jin Dynasty and the Southern Dynasties had left the traditional central areas, they both regarded themselves as the legal successors of the Western Jin Dynasty and regarded themselves as the real China. slut).However, the regime in the north believed that it destroyed the Western Jin Dynasty and seized this traditional Chinese region, and of course it became China, while the Eastern Jin Dynasty and the Southern Dynasty were just "daoyi" (barbarians on the island) in a corner.This dispute over China was not resolved until the reunification of the Sui Dynasty.The Sui Dynasty inherited the legal system of the Northern Dynasty, and naturally recognized the Northern Dynasty as China; but it could not deny the Chinese tradition of the Southern Dynasty, not to mention that the Southern Dynasty had also been included in its own territory.Therefore, the Sui Dynasty gave both sides an equal status and recognized them as China. When the history of the previous dynasty was compiled in the early Tang Dynasty, the South and the North were juxtaposed, thus the name Southern and Northern Dynasties came into being.

Beginning in the late Ming Dynasty, Westerners who came to China generally referred to China as China, China, or the Chinese Empire, rather than Ming Dynasty or Qing Dynasty.After the Opium War, China began to be used as a synonym for the country or the Qing Dynasty, especially in international exchanges.But people's concept is still quite vague, even contradictory.The same is true for an outstanding scholar and thinker like Wei Yuan (1794-1857 AD).In his writings, the term China sometimes refers to the entire territory of the Qing Dynasty, which is consistent with today's concept, but sometimes it only refers to the traditional scope, that is, the 18 provinces in the interior, excluding Mongolia, Tibet, Xinjiang, Northeast China and Taiwan .

By the late Qing Dynasty, the concept of China as a country had been clarified, but the official name of the Qing Dynasty was still Qing, Daqing or Daqing State.The Qing Dynasty also used China in its foreign exchanges or formal treaties, and it often contained a traditional mentality, that is, it focused on the literal meaning of the word "China"-the center, the center, and the country in the world.For the same term, Westerners only understand it as a country, that is, China, which has no special meaning of respect; but the Qing Dynasty understood it as Central Empire, and was happy to accept it as a respectful title.

After the establishment of the Republic of China in 1912, China became its official abbreviation and became synonymous with the country.China also has a clear geographical scope - the entire territory of the Republic of China. Therefore, today when we study history and discuss historical issues, China should have our specific meaning, instead of using the vague and inconsistent concepts of people at that time.What we call China should neither be equated with the Central Plains dynasties such as Shang, Zhou, Qin, Han, Jin, Sui, Tang, Song, Yuan, and Ming, nor should it be equated with the Han nationality or the Central Plains region, but must include what we have defined All regimes and nationalities within the specified geographical range.

So, can we just use the territory of the People's Republic of China today as the scope?Obviously inappropriate.Because due to imperialist aggression and plunder over the past 100 years, China has seized more than 1 million square kilometers of land, and the independence of Outer Mongolia (now Mongolia) has also reduced China's territory by 1.56 million square kilometers.Today's Chinese territory can no longer include the largest territory of the Qing Dynasty in the 18th and 19th centuries, and cannot reflect the reality at that time.Therefore, when we talk about China in history, we should take China's historical evolution into a unified and final feudal empire—the largest stable territory achieved by the Qing Dynasty as the scope.Specifically, it is today's China plus the area east of Lake Balkhash and the Pamirs, the Mongolian Plateau and the south of the Outer Xing'an Mountains.Most of the areas within this range were under the direct rule of the Central Plains dynasties; some were under the jurisdiction of the Central Plains dynasties successively; some were once established by local ethnic groups or non-Han nationalities, and these ethnic groups have become the big family of the Chinese nation a member of

It should be pointed out that we choose this range not because of its vastness, but because it can more comprehensively reflect the results of China's territorial development.In fact, this range is not the largest territory in Chinese history. For example, the western border of the Tang Dynasty once reached the shore of the Aral Sea, the northern border of the Yuan Dynasty reached as far as the Arctic Ocean, the northern part of North Korea was once the counties of the Han Dynasty, and the northern part of Vietnam It was once a chief envoy (province) in the early Ming Dynasty. The territorial changes we are going to discuss take such a historical China as the basic scope.