Chapter 103 Section 14 The Cultural Background of the Holocaust

People often compare Zhu Yuanzhang's massacre with Liu Bang's killing of heroes. In fact, there are essential differences between the two. The founding heroes killed by Liu Bang were mainly kings with different surnames.At the beginning of the Han Dynasty, a total of seven kings with different surnames were granted. They had land, people, and armored soldiers. They were semi-independent kingdoms within the Han Empire.Just as Jian (jian) Bozan said: "This kind of worship is nothing more than the recognition of the occupation of the Allied Army. In fact, the above-mentioned people are named Yiwang, but they are not named Yiwang." ("History of Qin and Han Dynasties") 》) Among the seven people, five were executed and one survived. Wu Rui, the king of Changsha, was later demoted to Marquis.The killing of them was actually a continuation of Han Gaozu's struggle to unify the country.

In the early Han Dynasty, there were a total of 137 marquises who were enfeoffed, and only two of them were executed for conspiracy, one was Chen Xi, Marquis of Yangxia, and the other was Han Xin, Marquis of Huaiyin.Chen Xi rebelled openly in September of the tenth year of Emperor Gaozu of the Han Dynasty and proclaimed himself King. In the twelfth year of Emperor Gaozu of the Han Dynasty, he was chased and beheaded in Lingqiu by the Fan Kuai army.It can be seen that the execution of Chen Xi was a counter-insurgency war, and it cannot be counted as the list of killing heroes.Han Xin was the only one who was punished before Han Gaozu's death.Including the five people who lost their titles due to crimes after Liu Bang's death, a total of six people were dealt with in the first generation of princes, accounting for 4.3% of the total number of princes in Han Gaozu's dynasty.Even if the condemned princes and kings with different surnames are included, those who were punished and lost their titles due to crimes accounted for only 7.7% of the meritorious officials in the Han Gaozu Dynasty.However, there are 69 meritorious officials of the Ming Taizu dynasty recorded in the "History of Ming Dynasty" list of heroes, and a total of 32 were killed by Ming Taizu.If you add Chang Mao, the founder of the state who offended and demoted to death in the garrison, Liu Ji, the sincere uncle who was poisoned to death by Hu Weiyong under the order of Zhu Yuanzhang, and Xu Da, the Duke of Wei who died soon because of the gift of steamed geese by the emperor Taizu of the Ming Dynasty, there are thirty-five people. Accounted for 57.25% of the heroes in the early Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Yuanzhang's massacre was, of course, barbaric, base and despicable.However, it is strange that in the traditional official history, there are not many people who severely criticize Zhu Yuanzhang's move. Such a brutal massacre has its own logic in Chinese culture.Zhu Yuanzhang's establishment of this big prison and his execution of this killer is entirely based on the strategic tradition of "excessive defense" in Chinese politics. The Chinese are a suspicious nation.Difficulty in cooperation is a long-standing root of the Chinese people. There has never been a spontaneously established autonomous city-state in China. This is regarded by scholars as a strong evidence that Chinese people are not used to equal cooperation.When foreign observers arrive in China, the first thing that catches their attention is the high city walls scattered throughout the country, which they regard as a symptom of the lack of mutual trust among the Chinese.Before written records, the Chinese must have experienced countless generations of mutual deception, betrayal, framing and internal strife. Premature intelligence and too rich history destroyed the ability of the ancestors to trust each other and left a deep impression on them. Painful memories of mutual harm.

The memory of being deceived accumulated in the blood from generation to generation made our ancestors' suspicion ability develop to the extreme, and the creepy idiom "cut the weeds and wipe out the roots" appeared in Chinese.After a dynasty is wiped out, the first thing the new emperor does is to do everything possible to track down the descendants of the previous emperor, and he must kill them all cleanly.The psychology of mutual defense and mutual suspicion has developed to the extreme, and has almost become a group psychological barrier of this nation. Because they always use the worst ideas to speculate on each other's psychology, they form a psychological resonance effect of frightening each other, forcing people to use The paranoid state of mind takes extreme measures to eliminate the fears it has created for itself.

Even Tang Taizong Li Shimin, the most humane, tolerant, rational, and popular in Chinese history, was the same executioner.After winning the battle with his brother for the throne, in order to ensure the safety of his throne, he killed all the innocent children of his elder brother Jiancheng and younger brother Yuanji.Of course, this is almost routine in Chinese history and is generally not worth making a fuss about.Therefore, the tens of thousands of words only used this sentence to briefly mention this matter: "Jianchengzi Anlu Wang Chengdao, Hedong Wang Chengde, Wu'an Wang Chengxun, Runan Wang Chengming, Julu Wang Chengyi, Yuanjizi Liangjun Wang Chengye, Yuyang Wang Chengluan, Wang Chengju of Puan, Wang Chengyu of Jiangxia, and Wang Chengdu of Yiyang were all killed, and they are still absolutely belonged to."

In a certain sense, the strong tradition of unification in Chinese history is the result of the poor cooperation of the Chinese people.The Chinese are accustomed to establishing the order of superiority and inferiority through force, that is to say, the relationship between suppression and obedience is formed within the group through violence.The first condition for the formation of a super-large group is the emergence of a super-tough authority.To maintain the stability of the group, it is necessary to effectively eliminate challenges to authority.Therefore, Zhu Yuanzhang's slaughter of heroes is considered to be a response to the self-protection of China's authoritative political system. Although it is bloody and cheap, it has not been harshly condemned by traditional historical views, nor has it affected Zhu Yuanzhang's generation of heroes in the eyes of traditional historians. On the contrary, it has become an integral part of Zhu Yuanzhang's grand plan-if stability is the highest political goal, this move is the most reliable means to achieve this goal.

Therefore, in the face of such a crazy massacre, the entire Ming Dynasty was like a pool of stagnant water, and could only accept it.In the face of Zhu Yuanzhang's absurd and flimsy accusations, the massacred remained incomprehensibly silent.Almost no one wrote a letter to protest, and no one took any drastic countermeasures.Those who were implicated died peacefully, while those who escaped by chance secretly rejoiced that they had taken their lives for nothing.