Chapter 60 One of Qin Shihuang's strategies for governing the country: governing the country by law

As I said before, whenever there is a rule, one must solve the problem of legitimacy, that is, why the ruler has the authority to rule the world. Qin Shihuang accepted the five virtues invented by Zou Yan and believed that the Zhou Dynasty was the virtue of fire, and the Qin Dynasty was ordered by heaven to replace the Zhou Dynasty, which should be the virtue of water. In fact, Qin State once considered itself Jinde.According to "Historical Records", during the reign of Qin Xiangong, there was a golden rain in Liyang, the capital. Qin Xiangong thought he had won Jinrui, and sacrificed to Baidi (gold is white) with great fanfare.But in the era of Qin Shihuang, Zou Yan's five virtues have always been very popular. The saying that the Zhou Dynasty is the fire virtue is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and fire is the restraint of gold, which inevitably made Qin Shihuang feel embarrassed.So he made up a story, saying that Qin Wengong went hunting and got a black dragon, which was the auspicious water virtue (water is black), and forcibly changed Qin's gold virtue to water virtue.

The first thing to demonstrate the virtue of water is to change the weekly calendar and make October every year the first month. It is necessary to briefly explain that the ancient Chinese named the months according to the order of the earthly branches, taking November as the child month, December as the ugly month, January as the Yin month, February as the Mao month, and so on until October is the month of Hai. According to the theory of yin and yang and five elements, the twelve earthly branches are assigned the attributes of the five elements, namely Hai and Zi belong to water, Yin and Mao belong to wood, Si and Wu belong to fire, Shen and You belong to metal, and Chou, Chen, Wei and Xu belong to each other. belongs to earth.

October (Haiyue), as the first water moon of the year, was naturally designated as the first month by the Qin Dynasty. The second thing is to change the color of the clothes, changing the clothes and banners to black.In the movie, the officials of the Qin Dynasty held a meeting, and it was crowded like a crowd of crows. This is the reason. The third thing is to advocate the number "six". The talismans and crowns are all six inches, the width of the carriage is six feet, the horses driving the carriage are six, and a step of six feet is used. As for the relationship between six and water, it is generally believed that this involves the theory of "Book of Changes". The eight trigrams in "Book of Changes", each hexagram has a corresponding number, which are Qianyi, Duier, Lisan, Zhensi, Xunwu, Kanliu, Genqi, and Kunba.Among them, Kan hexagram symbolizes water, so six is ​​the number of water.

So, what exactly is water virtue? In the theory of "Book of Changes", water resides in the north, symbolizing winter.Simply put, there are only two words in water virtue: "punishment" and "killing". This coincides with the strict rule of law that Qin has implemented since Shang Yang's reform. Qin's rule of law is famous for its harshness, and there is no mercy at all.According to "Han Feizi" records, King Qin Zhao fell ill, the people spontaneously bought cattle to sacrifice to the gods, and every family prayed for him.The doctor Gongsun Shu saw it, and went back to the palace to congratulate King Qin Zhao: "You are so popular that the people of the whole country are praying for you." An individual gives two armors. Prayer without command is love for me, but it is illegal. If they love me, I change the law and return them with the same love, and the rule of law cannot be established. The rule of law cannot be established. , the country is about to perish. How about punishing each of them with two sets of armor, so that they can understand what the rule of law is!"

Reading history so far, is another sigh.No matter what dynasty, if the law is enforced according to this kind of determination, how can there be a phenomenon of non-compliance and lax enforcement?King Qin Zhao did the right thing! Some people may ask, the Qin Dynasty implemented such a strict legal system, and the rulers still set an example and did not dare to go beyond the threshold. Why did it become chaotic later? That's because the laws of the Qin Dynasty, in addition to being "strict", are also very "cool", which is manifested in the following aspects. First, misdemeanor heavy punishment.The guiding ideology of the laws of the Qin Dynasty is to "remove punishment with punishment", so that people dare not commit any crimes.Therefore, even very minor crimes will be punished with extremely severe punishments.For example, if five people steal together, as long as the stolen money is worth more than one yuan, their left feet will be chopped off!For another example, A stole a thousand coins, and B knew about it, and received one coin of the stolen money, and the punishment for B was to hand over a shield to the government.And the value of a shield is at least three thousand dollars.The people mentioned above prayed for King Qin Zhao, and each was fined to hand over two sets of armor, which is a typical case of misdemeanor and heavy punishment.

Second, the punishment is cruel and varied.Taking the death penalty as an example, there are five punishments, family punishment, drowning, burial alive, dismemberment and so on.Among them, the five punishments are the most cruel: tattooing on the face first, then cutting off the nose, tongue, and feet, then whipping, beheading, and dismembering the corpse. The whole process actually includes three stages: corporal punishment, death penalty, and humiliating the corpse. Extremely. Third, there is no time limit for imprisonment.In the Qin Dynasty, if a person committed a crime and was sentenced to imprisonment, he would be sentenced to life imprisonment, lose his personal freedom for life, and serve the government.At the same time, because the law is very strict, the common people break the law frequently, coupled with the heavy punishment for misdemeanors, the penalty of paying one armor, two armors, and one shield abounds. The number of gangsters increased rapidly.According to the records of "Historical Records", there were more than 700,000 prisoners used by Qin Shihuang to build palaces and imperial tombs. If the prisoners who built the Great Wall and guarded the border were counted, there might not be less than one million.At that time, the total population of the country was about 20 million, and the number of prisoners had already accounted for more than one-tenth of the total population of the country at that time.

Fourth, disregard ethics.The laws of the Qin Dynasty were incompatible with Confucianism.Confucianism advocates that "the father hides from the son, and the son hides from the father", emphasizing human relations and emotions while enforcing the law.Qin Fa is a simple law, and even encourages "the wife should sue first if the husband is guilty", so as to obtain the opportunity to avoid consecutive sitting. This kind of harsh rule of law, in the specific historical environment where the world was initially determined and the hearts of the people were not convinced, did enable the Qin Dynasty to quickly establish a ruling order, and at the same time laid the foundation for its rapid demise.