Did the ancient Chinese have a concept of state or not

Here we need to distinguish between the two ancient Chinese concepts of "world" and "country."

The so-called "world" was the boundary that people could explore as far as their transportation capacity allowed. Due to the technological limitations of ancient times, the maximum extent of what China called the world was an area surrounded by the Pacific Ocean, the desert, the mountains (the Himalayas), and the Gobi.

This was the stage for the peoples of the East, and the basic concept of the world.

Because of Confucius's words, "As such, if people from afar are not convinced, then they will come to us by cultivating their culture and virtue. If they come, they will be at peace." The Chinese people became a free nation based on cultural identity. The frontier people could "enter China" and be treated as "Hua Zhi" (华之).

So, Yue Fei, as the title suggests, was of course serving his country (the Song court).

The next question is whether or not to include the nomadic regimes of the Song Dynasty as part of China.

If you look at it from the perspective of the ancients, it should be that if they agree with the Confucian order and are willing to move into the borders of the country, then they are the children of China. For example, the Baiyue.

If you don't want to move, then join the tribute system ...... (Song is more awkward because he's the one who pays the annual tribute ......)

If you don't want to, then I'm sorry, you're a barbarian. Historically, the civilization of the Central Plains has always been overwhelmingly dominant over the periphery, so even if the Han dynasty was destroyed, the rulers of the border people could not help but embrace the Confucian order - it was comfortable, after all.

There are actually benefits to this, the Chinese people will feel that my Heavenly Kingdom has been strong since ancient times, and if it isn't, then it's opened the wrong way and must be corrected.

Well, let's get back to the point, from the perspective of the geographic "world" stage mentioned in the previous article:

In the era of the Qin-Han, Tang, and Qing dynasties, China = the world. Everywhere else was a borderland and needed to be cultivated to come to it.

In the divisive era of the Three Kingdoms, North and South Dynasties, Song, and Ming. The concept of state (regime) became more and more prominent.

And the Chinese people*** and the country shaped by modern wars, counting all the ethnic groups radiated by the Chinese culture within the Chinese nation, naturally what the ancients called "the world".

Roughly speaking, in the long years from the Qin and Han Dynasties to the Tang Dynasty, all Chinese dynasties basically adhered to the concept of China = the world. This was partly due to underdeveloped transportation, and partly because the dynasties in the central plains did have an overwhelming military and cultural advantage over neighboring ethnic regimes.

In the Song dynasty, the concept of national boundaries came to the fore as the Song army was unable to reach the vast territories of the Sheng Tang. The Song literati were faced with a neighboring Liao that was on par with their own and even had to pay annual tribute. They were in dire need of a cultural narrative that could explain their orthodoxy in China. At this time, the nation-state became the salvation of the world, the science of science, but also in this environment to grow out.

But the inertia of the thinking of the heavenly kingdom has not disappeared, as can be seen in the legendary "Daming Mixed One Map", even in the Ming Dynasty, the concept of China is still a big country in the center of the boundless world. China has never been a kingdom equal to its neighbors.