Chapter 2 Section 2 What is the Territory?

The territory mentioned in this book is basically equivalent to the modern territory.However, due to different historical conditions, its specific meanings are not exactly the same.The so-called territory refers to the range reached by the boundary of a country or political entity, while territory refers to the area under the sovereignty of a country, including a country's land, rivers, lakes, inland seas, territorial seas, and their subsoil and subsoil. and above (airspace). The main differences between the two are: Territory is based on clear sovereignty, but the realm referred to by territory does not necessarily have very complete sovereignty.For example, in history, in addition to formal administrative regions with clear sovereignty, the dynasties of the Central Plains often had various affiliated, guardianship or autonomous regions such as vassal states, vassal states, and Jimi (ji mi machine fans) units.The status and role of dynasties in these regions vary greatly. Some can have complete sovereignty, which is the same as the formal political region; some can only partially control, or cannot control stably; It is no different; it is not easy to determine the extent of the territory according to the standard of complete sovereignty.

Territories generally only refer to the surface land and water surfaces, unlike territories that extend to their subsoil, subsoil and air above them.This is due to the lack of practical significance of such extensions under the condition of underdeveloped science and technology and productive forces, so it is impossible for people to have a sense of sovereignty over these extensions.For example, without any aircraft, it is impossible to enter the airspace of other countries, and there is no need to worry about the airspace of one's own country being violated by other countries.Under the conditions that the underground mineral deposits have not been fully utilized and the mining technology is quite backward, there is no possibility that the subsoil of the country will be counted by other countries. Of course, there is no need to clarify the ownership of the subsoil.

Territories generally have clear boundaries. Even in some undecided and disputed areas, the disputed parties always have their own boundaries.Territorial boundaries, however, were often unclear, even then.Due to sparse population, inconvenient transportation, backward means of production, or being in a state of nomadism or migration, a regime often does not know where its borders are, and neighboring regimes do not realize the need to draw boundaries.There are also some regimes whose borders are uninhabited lands such as mountains, jungles, deserts, and tundra, completely isolated from other regimes. It is difficult to judge where the boundaries of these borders are.

Territory owners generally have a clear sense of territory, but border owners do not necessarily have such a sense of sovereignty, and often decide where their territory belongs to according to their own standards.For quite a long time, the rulers of the Central Plains dynasty and scholars who believed in Confucianism believed that: China is the center of the world and the center of civilization, and the emperor of China is the supreme ruler who rules the world and owns everything; Under it, is it the land of the king.” ("Book of Songs Xiaoya Beishan") Therefore, the territory of the dynasty is not where it should actually go, but where the emperor accepts, or where people are eligible to be the emperor's subjects.People who are called "Yi", "Di", "Rong", and "Man" are the objects of the so-called "emperor's disobedience" and are not qualified to be the emperor's subjects, so they cannot be counted as "Chinese". It cannot be regarded as the territory of "China", but can only be "externalization".There is often such a situation: the imperial court at that time had already controlled these regimes or governed these regions, but the rulers insisted that they were "not connected to China" and "not owned by our dynasty", and did not include them when enumerating their own territory. count.

Some people use cultural standards to judge the scope of the territory, thinking that only areas that have accepted Han culture or Confucian culture can be counted as the territory of the Central Plains dynasty, otherwise they cannot be counted.This completely confuses concepts.In history, North Korea and Vietnam have many similarities with the Han culture area due to their long-term influence of Chinese culture. However, Tibet is very different from the Han culture area because the local ethnic groups have always lived together and foreign cultures are not easy to introduce.Therefore, in the feudal era, there were indeed some people who could not forget the history that Korea and Vietnam were once part of the Central Plains dynasty, but regarded Tibet as a foreign country.But the fact is that Korea and Vietnam have already become independent countries, and Tibet has always been a part of the Central Plains Dynasty since the 13th century.Therefore, we also need to make a concrete analysis of what the people said at that time, and we cannot simply copy it, let alone think that places that were not recognized by the people at that time were definitely not the territory of this regime.

Territory or country refers to the country, and its premise is the existence of the country. Naturally, there is no territory or country in the time and area where the country does not exist.Territory does not necessarily refer to a country. For some regional and national political entities that have appeared in Chinese history, and even some tribes or tribal groups, the geographical range they actually occupy and control can be called territory. Because of these differences, we continue to use the traditional term "territory" in this book, rather than the current "territory".