An inventory of the sinners who have subjugated the country in the past dynasties, Lao Zhu’s number

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"Heavenly Dao started talking nonsense again. The Qin Dynasty died due to the tyranny of Ying Zheng, the extravagance of Qin II, and the insidiousness of Zhao Gao. What does it have to do with tyranny?"

After Liu Bang took a big sip of wine, he began to point out the country again and said:

"The system of our Han Dynasty is similar to that of the Qin Dynasty. Why don't we see people in our Han Dynasty rebelling?"

"In the final analysis, it was Ying Zheng and Qin II who failed too much as emperors, leading to boiling public dissatisfaction."

"Ovary, do you think what I said is right or wrong?"

Zhang Liang saw Liu Bang asking questions. After thinking for a moment, he still shook his head and said:

"Your Majesty, Qin fell to tyranny!"

"The harm of the system is far greater than the emperor's immorality. Even if Qin II is a virtuous emperor, under the rule of tyranny, the people will still rise up and eventually overthrow the Qin Dynasty."

Liu Bang was a little stunned when he saw Zhang Liang actually refuted him.

In order to regain his face, Liu Bang looked at Chen Ping again and asked:

"Chen Ping, what do you think?"

"Forehead..."

Chen Ping was a little hesitant. Logically speaking, he should start flattering Liu Bang at this time, but heAfter thinking for a while, he replied:

"Your Majesty, I feel that both Qin Shihuang and Qin II were at fault, but in the final analysis, there is something wrong with Qin's laws."

Liu Bang's old face suddenly turned slightly red, and he shouted dissatisfied:

"You always say that Qin Dynasty fell due to tyranny, but I would like to ask you, why are we, the Han Dynasty, safe and sound, while the Qin Dynasty is in flames of war?"

Zhang Liang took the initiative to stand up this time and explained for Liu Bang:

"Your Majesty, have you ever remembered the three chapters of the agreement?"

"Although we have inherited the system of Great Qin, Mr. Xiao has made improvements in terms of laws."

"Although Master Xiao's Nine Chapter Code adopted most of the Qin Dynasty's systems, it abolished the extremely harsh torture and cumbersome corvee in the Qin Code."

"This change alone is enough to make His Majesty's benevolence deeply rooted in the hearts of the people."

"Harsh government is more fierce than tigers and more harmful than people. Your majesty's reputation for kindness spreads throughout the world, and the people naturally support your majesty, thus making the Han Dynasty stable and normal."

Liu Bang heard this, thought about it carefully, and finally said nothing.

After all, Liu Bang had also read a little of Xiao He's Nine Chapters Law, which indeed abolished many tortures.

【Next, let’s begin to take stock of the last sinner of the Qin Dynasty, the chief culprit of the country’s downfall, Shang Jun Shang Yang】

【Shang Yang was the starting point of Qin's great power, but he was also the end of Qin's collapse.】

【The Qin State has grown from a small, remote and weak country to a powerful country that defeated the other six countries. This was due to Shang Yang's various reforms of the Qin State and the hard work of the monarchs of the past dynasties.】

【Shang Yang is a representative figure of Legalism among various schools of thought. His goal is to strengthen the country, but the core of his reform ideas is that to strengthen the country, it is necessary to weaken the people and weaken the power of the common people in order to maintain the country's absolute rule and ensure that it is controlled by the common people. Centralization and autocracy ultimately achieve the goal of stabilizing political power.】

【Shang Yang's reforms indeed strengthened Qin's centralization, stabilized social order, and greatly improved productivity.】

【However, as a disciple of Legalism, Shang Yang's core thought was still Han Feizi's theory of"light on benevolence and heavy on punishment"】

【In the eyes of Legalists, the common people can be the tools of farming, weapons of war, and the flesh and blood of political power, but they are not living people.】

【Legalism advocates governing the country according to law, and even calls out that princes who break the law are as guilty as the common people. However, this does not mean that Legalism in the pre-Qin period was for the sake of the people. Legalism is not a democratic school. On the contrary, Legalism is the most supportive of autocracy. a school of thought】

【In the eyes of Legalists, the so-called law only serves one person, and this person is the monarch. Princes who break the law are equally guilty as the common people, but the monarch will not break the law.】

【These laws are formulated to enable the monarch to better maintain his rule. Therefore, the core concept of Legalism is that the monarch is supreme and everything is centered on the monarch.】

【After Shang Yang's version of the law, some Qin people once praised this set of laws as fair and strict, and it was the law that the Qin people yearned for.】

【How did Shang Yang do it? He directly arrested the man and imprisoned him, because in the Qin Code, no one was allowed to arbitrarily discuss the law. Whether it was insulting or praising, it was unacceptable to Shang Yang. Only the monarch and others could criticize the law. Not qualified!】

【Although the core of Legalism is the monarch, Legalism is divided into different factions. Shang Yang's philosophy belongs to the legal system. The people of Qin are restrained by laws, so that all the people of Qin work continuously under the constraints of the laws, making Qin The country continues to become stronger, and his most important proposition is that the country is strong but the people are weak】

【In other words, Shang Yang's purpose is to make the country rich and powerful, and then annex other vassal states. But if he wants the country to be rich and powerful, he must make Baixin poor and weak.】

【Different from the Spring and Autumn Period, during the Warring States Period, the world had no benevolent wars, annexed other countries, and eventually dominated the world with violence and tyranny that replaced the kingly benevolence and justice of the Emperor of Zhou in the past. Therefore, all the vassal states used foreign wars and military expansion as the ultimate goal of all reforms.】

【Shang Yang put forward the idea of ​​weakening the people to strengthen the country. The purpose was to strengthen centralization, improve agricultural production efficiency and population growth rate, and ultimately provide Qin with a steady stream of war support to participate in the melee between princes and strive for hegemony in the world.】

【The policy of weakening the people formulated by Shang Yang also had a strong militarist ideology common during the Warring States Period. His policy towards the people had only one idea: ordinary people could only be people who farmed and fought. In other words, the people essentially had no human rights and were just agricultural tools. and weapons, an asset that can be used arbitrarily by the state power until death】

【The essence of weakening the people is to force the people, whether it is psychological identity or labor production, active or passive, to participate in social activities that support foreign wars. The main means of the policy of weakening the people is the six skills of controlling the people.】

【The so-called six skills of controlling the people are to weaken the people, fool the people, tire the people, humiliate the people, impoverish the people, and abuse the people. 】