Chapter 3 Li Kui

Li Kui (Yin Kui), also known as Li Ke, is a person who is not often mentioned in Chinese history. There is a record in "Hanshu Shihuozhi": Wei Wenhou lived from 424 to 387 BC, so Li Kui was a figure between Confucius and Mencius. His policies also showed that the feudal system in China had collapsed, and the princes in various regions organized the whole people and started production. This passage in "Hanshu Shihuozhi" mentions that small self-cultivated farmers are taxpayers and pay attention to high-precision farming. The income of each farm family is very small, or even insufficient. The government feels that its fate is closely related to the survival of the above-mentioned small self-cultivated farmers. close relationship.These factors, once passed through history, have become the constant state of China's founding for the next 2,400 years.

Li Kui's facilities also created a primitive style of planned economy.The development of society is not determined by itself; it is determined by politicians with a bird's-eye view.Why did Chinese history have such characteristics in the pre-Qin period?If we investigate the background of the day, we can at least come up with a one-sided answer. China's agriculture began in the loess belt where the Yellow River flows.The loess soil can be piled up vertically, and there are many thin tubes from bottom to top inside, so the water in the ground can soak upwards, without waiting for irrigation, and the soil is loosened. When agriculture was just emerging, the most primitive tools were used. , can also cultivate in this area.In the first millennium BC, countless primitive agricultural tribes appeared in this area at the same time.The organizer who organized them systematically was Zhou Gongdan, son of King Wen and younger brother of King Wu, who was the founder of the Zhou Dynasty.His design is based on "ritual".Therefore, there is a work "Zhou Li", and it is still said that the author is Zhou Gong.

The current version of "Zhou Li" was denounced as a fake book when it appeared around AD.For example, copper currency appeared in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, hundreds of years later than the Duke of Zhou. The "Zhou Li" already mentioned the yamen where coins were minted, and explained that the government should often inspect the market to check whether the prices are fair and whether the products meet the standards.This book also mentions that the territory directly controlled by the central government is thousands of miles away, which is called "Wang Jiqianli".In addition, every 500 square meters is one "serve", and there are nine servings in total.The princes in each server have different obligations to the central government due to the different distances from the royal capital.In fact, Zhou Duhao, near today's Xi'an, did not expand five thousand miles to each side at equal distances.With the rudimentary technology of the day, it was impossible to accurately determine its boundaries on the map, and it was also impossible to set up stakes on the ground.

"Zhou Li" also mentions the well field system, which is a source of controversy among Chinese and foreign scholars.Some people say that each of the eight families has 100 mu of land as private land, and 100 mu of it is public land, and this is evidence.Some people also call the well of the well field a rectangle instead of a square, and some people even say that the well field is entirely impossible, and it is all fabricated. Today, we observe from a long-distance and long-distance attitude that "Zhou Li" does express the essence of the administration of the day in many places, and the actual author of it is irrelevant.On the contrary, Wang Ji has a concept of Jiufu from thousands of miles away, but he can explain it clearly in just one or two sentences in the book.The crux of the matter is that China's central power has to organize tens of millions of soldiers and civilians before the technology is developed. Therefore, it has to create an ideal mathematical formula first, and then cover the past. Many places rely on understanding ability and do not wait for detailed field experience. .I have studied the materials left over from the land equalization system of the Tang Dynasty, and I have also read the financial figures of the Song Dynasty and the statistics of the Ming Dynasty. When I came back to the conclusion of the well field system, it is impossible to divide the land and cut the soil like cutting dried tofu. Given the opportunity, Chinese bureaucrats will follow the letter.But in fact, the most ideal way is usually to adapt the hypothetical geometric painting to the actual situation, and discount it according to the situation. Again, the square well is compromised and becomes a rectangle, or even a hundred acres becomes seventy or fifty acres. There are seven families and six families who are counting, and there is nothing wrong with it.In short, like Wang Ji and Jiufu, they used geometric patterns as ideal standards, and did not come up with "framework design". This is the basis of legislation, not the actual test.

The so-called "ritual" by the people of the Zhou Dynasty also has a wide interpretation.The traditional so-called "propriety is also the principle of the law", if it is explained by "backing up" (that is, the neighboring country is famine, and it is stingy to donate food), it is the so-called "impoliteness", which is not only impolite, but also unreasonable and violates the law. Basic principles of life. Taking advantage of these conditions, and through the organization of patriarchal society, the Zhou Dynasty created China's feudal system.It has some similarities with the Feudal System in the Middle Ages in Europe and the "Shogunate System" in Japan up to the last century.In principle, the royal family does not directly organize the whole people, and the financial revenue is also paid indirectly according to "public food tribute, doctor's food town, and scholar food field". For example, the organization of "the princes establish a family, the doctor has two sects, the scholars have the official, and the children" will collapse in its entirety.

After the 6th century BC, this kind of system could not be maintained, because the population surged, the currency was in circulation, the guests were active, and the mobilization of wars affected the whole people. Lu and Zheng began to "receive mu" and "make gifts", that is, to go beyond the indirect control of the past. In this way, the monarch began to collect taxes from the whole people.Zheng Guo and Jin Guo also promulgated criminal laws, which abandoned the rules of etiquette and generally controlled the whole people.The "planned economy" of Li Kui mentioned above was carried out between the 5th and 4th centuries BC, and his "teaching as best as he could" meant that he was not bound by feudalism.Shang Yang's reform in Qin State, which was carried out in 350 BC, completely wiped out feudalism, and replaced it with the "system of prefectures and counties".Once this door is opened, the monarch controls the whole people, land can be bought and sold, and bureaucrats are no longer hereditary.That's why Gu Yanwu said, "The abolition of feudalism began with the decline of Zhou, not with Qin."

From Li Kui's calculation, we can see an important historical link.There were frequent natural disasters that day, and food prices were extremely unstable. "Historical Records: Biographies of Huozhi" also said that "if the husband buys, the peasants will be sick at twenty, and the end of the ninety."Therefore, it can be seen that when the rice was expensive, the stone was worth 90 copper coins, and when it was cheap, it was as low as 20 yuan, a difference of four and a half times, even if the par price was still more than two and a half times different.Therefore, the government's policy is always "equal", that is, to "do no harm to the people but persuasion to the farmers".However, food production is important after all, so farming is the "primary industry", and everything else becomes the "final industry".This is the origin of the traditional agricultural policy and low-level equality.Furthermore, the circulation of currency also takes the circulation of food as its primary mission.Peng Xinwei's "History of Chinese Currency", said that there are only two major systems of currency in the history of the world. One is that the Greek and Romans used precious metals as a tool for merchants to trade in bulk, and the other is China's base metal currency, which was widely used in the early days. folk.And because the price of grain fluctuates greatly, merchants may not be able to have or not, and they can also "buy on their backs". This also explains the origin of traditional China's discrimination against merchants.

Judging from the above situation, China's founding of the country was very different from that of the West at the beginning, and the key point was that it had a different focus on technology.From feudalism to counties in the pre-Qin period, politicians relied on human intelligence to form a huge organization. This is the attitude of American jurist Herrlee G. Greel who insisted that China had a super state in the 20th century before AD.However, the prefecture and county system also pioneered bureaucratic politics.Before the Christian era, the emperor sent bureaucrats to collect taxes from tens of millions of people to accept lawsuits and criminal cases, which was politically premature beyond the times.Therefore, it is more difficult to give up the intermediate design, so that general government orders have a high-sounding top, and the bottom has no name. .But the biggest problem is that when Western Europe and Japan have presided over the state affairs in the spirit of commercial organizations, China still has hundreds of millions of soldiers and civilians who cannot be managed numerically.Today we re-read a passage of Li Kui's "Teaching with the Best Effort", and we can only say that his vision is wide, not that his vision is deep.It covers a large number of farmers with simple numbers, and criticizes from a modern perspective, although it is premature, it is still a primitive organization.