Chapter 2 preface

In the last book, I described the power to create unspoken rules, which is a low-cost ability to harm, and in the hands of officials is the legal right to harm.Later, I continued to pursue the traces of this ability, and pursued the rules hidden in the depths of various rules.In the process of investigating, I saw some things that had never been named by the predecessors, and drafted some names, such as Gray Prison, Baiyuan, Hidden Identity, Liu Jin Qianliu, etc., and wrote a special introduction article.In the final stage of this round of investigation, I encountered deeper rules, rules that determine rules.

The last few articles of this book, which propose concepts such as blood rewards and meta-rules, represent the depth of my ability.The so-called blood reward, that is, the reward for bloodshed and desperate efforts, embodies the exchange relationship between life and survival resources.From the late Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China, there were far more people eating this bowl of rice than industrial workers.The value of blood reward depends on what is being fought for, this is the "law of blood reward".This principle is very simple, but it can lead to many surprising conclusions.If some factors are introduced and deduced layer by layer, it can also explain other concepts in the book and become the basic logic throughout the book.Therefore, I took "The Law of Blood Pay" as the title of the book.

The concept of "meta-rule" was put forward later than the "law of blood reward", and it is also more in-depth.This concept touches on the relationship between life, survival resources and resource allocation rules.The original words in the article are: "The establishment of all rules, in the final analysis, follow a fundamental rule: the most violent has the final say. This is a meta-rule, the rule that determines the rules." Such a brief point can only be considered as an exploration. The prick of a needle.However, as soon as the needle came out, I felt my heart constrict.The whole body twisted and deformed accordingly.The articles I wrote before suddenly had different meanings, and the structure of the book I had originally imagined also changed.

From the perspective of survival competition, those living individuals or groups invest their own or others' lives and use various strategies to compete for survival resources.Competition creates a system of rules for resource allocation, and the real position in the system determines the nature of individuals or groups.According to this view, the articles in this book can be divided into five categories. The first category: officials, legal and violent proxy groups.Their possession of subsistence resources, the nature and expansion strategy of the group.There are three articles of this kind: 1. Liu Jin's undercurrent, 2. The hidden identity of the county magistrate, and 3. A brief study of the gray prison.

The second category: civilians, agricultural, industrial and commercial production groups.Their adaptations to the environment, survival strategies and outcomes.There are four articles of this type: 1. Common people use hidden weapons, 2. Selling heroes, 3. Hard-working companies, 4. The value of foreign flags. The third category: "Thieves", illegal groups that rely on violence to make a living.Including three articles: 1. The journey of the land tyrant's fortune, 2. I recognized a small species, 3. The victory of the white members. The fourth category: Violence in cultural dreams: What dreams did Jin Yong make up for us.

The fifth category: synthesis.Calculation logic of violent competition - the conversion of life and survival resources, changes in conditions lead to changes in results, and the decisive role of violence in rules.There are three articles of this type: 1. Bandit Change: The Law of Blood Remuneration and Its Inference, 2. A Study on the Value of Life, and 3. The Secret of Switching between Formal Rules and Unspoken Rules. The catalog of this book is arranged according to the above method, but the relatively boring comprehensive category is mentioned to the front, so that readers can overlook the overall situation as soon as they come up.The so-called overall situation is actually "whatever you hit refers to where you hit".The writing of these articles has its own original intention, and the gap between them is more than three years. The structure was ratified and pieced together later.

Compared with the book, I think this book has gone deeper and the scope of excavation has also expanded.However, the excavation in this book does not feel systematic and complete, as if describing the spots on the whole leopard.This is all due to lack of skill and impetuous advancement.I am full of curiosity about the whole picture of Chinese history, and I can't help but do all kinds of imagination. Three years ago, I put together a sketch based on the spots I saw: "A Reading Method of General History of China".This sketch is a personal temporary work hypothesis, and as I get to know the meta-rules and the destructive forces that implicate productivity, I have seen its inadequacies.Years from now, this sketch should be drawn with more precision and less guesswork.But I was reluctant to lose the overall perspective, so I temporarily attached the sketch to the book as a postscript.

There are a few other articles, which are interesting to read, and they are also included as miscellaneous compilations. The word "meta-rules" I first saw in Jeffrey Brennan and James M. Buchanan's "The Reason of Rules: Constitutional Economics". Call those rules that determine or select rules, rules at a higher and more abstract level.This distinction made my eyes light up. The thickest English reference book in my family is "English-Chinese Ci Hai", and I can't find this word in it.Probably invented not long ago, not yet popular.According to the usual translation of the prefix meta-, the word can be translated as "meta-rule".Yuan means initial, first and fundamental.

What is the specific content of meta-rules?In Chapter 7 of The Rationale, Brennan and Mr. Buchanan talk about justice, about the breadth and strength of consent, and about the majority principle.As citizens living in a democratic constitutional country, it is certainly true that they said so, but in the eyes of a distant reader like me, the sentences were awkward and full of contradictions, making it almost impossible to read.Chinese history tells me clearly and powerfully: the truth is simply not the case.They are wrong.Their statement is correct only after adding harsh restrictions. I have paid attention to the formulation process of the "Law of the Ming Dynasty", and I have also noticed how the higher-level regulations "Dagao" in the early Ming Dynasty were formulated, how they were implemented, how they were lost and revived, and how they were revoked.When the "Law of the Ming Dynasty" was formulated, several great Confucian scholars referred to the laws of the Tang Dynasty, revised them one by one, and drafted them one by one. Zhu Yuanzhang commented, revised, and revised one by one, and finally established it as the law of the world.But the emperor himself didn't follow it, and compiled a set of harsh punishments and harsh laws "Da Gao" with a strong personal touch.After Zhu Yuanzhang's death, his grandson came to the throne, abandoned the "Da Gao", and was defeated by his uncle and seized the throne.The new emperor came to power and restored the "Da Gao".In all this back and forth, the rule of decision and choice of law became clear: the most violent will prevail.In the frequent reforms in the late Qing Dynasty, this meta-rule was clearly revealed again: the winner of violent competition has the final say, no matter whether the winner is a foreigner or a woman.

So where is justice?Where is the majority agreement?Can it be said that justice is in the heart of the Confucian who drafted the law, and in the heart of the emperor who approved the draft law?The emperor won the world, which means he has the support of the majority, and the reason why the majority support him is because he represents justice? This kind of answer has turned a corner, and it is no longer aimed at the rules and procedures followed by the rule-making.Moreover, the answer after turning the corner remains a question.Genghis Khan's iron cavalry trampled on the Eurasian continent, taking life and death, and doing whatever he wanted, just because he had mastered the strongest violence, which had nothing to do with justice and consent in the conventional sense.Genghis Khan and his descendants legislated everywhere, which fully embodies the meta-rule in human history: the winner of violent competition has the final say.

Furthermore, what is justice?How is justice determined?Confucian teachings are given the orthodox status of declaring justice, which is itself the choice of the most violent. After conquering the country, Zhu Yuanzhang once reviewed the Confucian classics, and he read a sentence from Mencius: "The king treats his ministers like dirt, and the ministers regard him like a bandit."There is nothing wrong with this statement emphasizing the reciprocity of justice in social relations.However, Zhu Yuanzhang is just a monarch who "regards his ministers like dirt". He said angrily: "If this old man lives to this day, he must be dealt with severely!" Those who remonstrate with this are considered disrespectful.Later, the emperor ordered Confucian officials to reedit "Mencius" and delete 85 articles, all of which were words emphasizing that the people are more important than the monarch.The imperial examinations in the Ming Dynasty used the revised "Mencius Jiewen". Going further, at the source of the Chinese Empire, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty adopted Dong Zhongshu’s suggestion, deposed a hundred schools of thought, and only respected Confucianism, which also reflected the right of the most violent to choose the concept of justice.Carefully read Dong Zhongshu’s Three Strategies for Heaven and Man. The basic logic of his persuasion to the emperor to respect Confucianism is to emphasize that Confucianism is in line with the fundamental interests of the royal family. Such a choice is beneficial to the emperor and the world. Otherwise, it will repeat the mistakes of the Qin Dynasty, etc. . Even though Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty made the decision to respect Confucianism exclusively, in actual practice, his grandson Emperor Xuandi of the Han Dynasty also admonished his son very clearly: "The Han family has its own system. Zhou Zheng?" Still regard the Confucian kingly way as a secondary ruling means and decoration, and do not obey wholeheartedly. Perhaps there is no need to look for historical evidence at all.Simple logic can tell us that when there is a dispute, if it is cost-effective to physically eliminate the opponent, then as long as you draw out the knife and ask the opponent whether he wants to die or die, any dispute will not be difficult to resolve, and any opinion will not be difficult to unify .Violence can override all rules, but not vice versa. The more general truth implied by this logic is: when selecting rules, the party that has the ability to harm the opponent outweighs the gain has the veto power.Death is the most complete loss, so the most violent has the highest veto power. In short, logic and historical experience together tell us: the most violent has the final say, and this is the meta-rule that determines various rules.The choice of the most violent person reflects the pursuit of maximizing self-interest, not the pursuit of justice.The most violent can even choose and modify the concept of justice itself.Of course, civilians are not unimportant.Over a long period of time, the choice and countermeasures of the common people, from enthusiastic support to obedience, sabotage and laziness to rebellion, can determine the cost and benefits of the choice of the victor in violent competition, determine the rise and fall of the chooser, and thus indirectly affect the ruler's understanding of laws and regulations. The choice of justice indirectly affects the concept of justice and the ruler's choice of justice concept. Zen monks said that enlightenment has to go through three stages: first, seeing mountains as mountains, and seeing water as water.In the second stage, mountains are not mountains, and water is not water.In the third stage, the mountain is still a mountain, and the water is still water.After years of trying, I seem to have entered a half-baked phase of seeing what isn't. For example, on the imperial map of social rights, county magistrates occupy one mu of land, commoners occupy one point of land, and slaves occupy one centimeter of land.It can also be said the other way around, those who occupy one mu of land are county magistrates, those who occupy one acre of land are commoners, those who occupy one per cent are slaves, and so on.Mountains are mountains, water is water, and it is clear. However, the county magistrate quietly expanded the boundaries of their rights, reducing the actual rights of the common people to two or three percent, and the relationship between parents, officials and the people gradually shifted to a master-slave relationship.At this time, the parent officials are no longer parents, and the people are no longer the people.So, what should the people who are actually less than 20% or 30% good be called?People or servants?In the series of gradual changes in purity, where is the critical point of sudden changes in nature?These kinds of questions often give me a hard time. We know that there are huge differences in the ability and will of people, and that even within the same person, ability and determination are constantly changing.The ruthless county magistrate may compress the rights of some common people to less than one centimeter, which is not as good as the statutory slaves; while the cunning slaves may expand the actual power to one or two acres of land, surpassing ordinary county magistrates.The so-called "seven-rank official in front of the prime minister's gate" describes the actual identity of the house slave who guards the prime minister's door. If one considers that the actors are not only some individuals, but also social groups such as families, groups, parties, and classes, the actual situation is more complicated and diverse, and "horizontally, it looks like a mountain, and the side becomes a peak, and the distance is different."The intricate and varied real landforms are already so complicated, and the observation angle and distance have added another layer of change.Therefore, the small hills may be higher than the three mountains and five mountains on the imperial map, and the flow of a dark ditch may exceed the large rivers on the imperial map.Looking around, mountains are not mountains, and water is not water. So, please forgive me for asking a question regardless of logic: What kind of mountain is the mountain that is not a mountain?What kind of water should it be called if it is not water? It is said that the Eskimos living in the Arctic have a detailed distinction on white.In our eyes, the world is a vast expanse of whiteness, but in their eyes, there are rich layers and colors.They can use a rich vocabulary to describe differences that we ignore, such as white in the sun and white in the shade.They can see things we don't see because they have a language and a name for it.The other way around, they had those languages ​​and names because they saw something we didn't pay attention to.This is a mutually reinforcing process.Language and naming are both products and tools of cognition. The Confucian concept of norms can help us see many things clearly, but it also obscures many things.From the late Qing Dynasty to the present, Western thoughts flooded into China, providing a new cognitive framework and nomenclature system. While opening up new horizons, it also inevitably left new blind spots.We have to respect and learn from the above-mentioned naming system that embodies a huge amount of human wisdom, but we can't be perfunctory and lazy and rely on the predecessors to eat ready-made meals. In the past one or two years, the self-expression and self-naming in my mother tongue have given me great inspiration many times. With the guidance and help of the wisdom of the ancestors, I have borrowed or transformed some words from the folk, and even invented some words. Those unnamed mountains and snowfields.The language of the motherland is a treasure trove.If the pioneers wanted to walk in the snow and look for food, they had to look carefully, force their words, and try to understand the relationship between those things.The results of seeing, speaking and understanding have accumulated into the vocabulary and narrative of the mother tongue, which condenses the wisdom of the Chinese people.I hope that after soaking in this kind of wisdom, I will understand the truth of things like a practitioner, and reach the mature state of "seeing mountains or mountains, water or water". As we build our nation, we are trying to understand our environment and the geological formations under our feet, and we need to continue to guess and describe these structures on the basis of those who have gone before.We are compelled to look back in history to understand the context of current issues.In the effort of retrospect and understanding, a conceptual system that is more in line with the long experience of large civilizations will gradually emerge.In my imagination, what I have been doing is to prepare the steel and bricks for this self-understanding and self-describing concept system. Readers are welcome to criticize and advise.My e-mail is: [email protected]