Examples of Feudal Ideas Holding Back Chinese Society

After the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, Emperor Qin Shi Huang established the Qin Dynasty, the first great unified feudal dynasty in Chinese history. In order to confine people's thoughts, the Qin Dynasty adopted an extremely cruel method, which was to burn books and bury scholars.

The burning of books and burying of scholars were two major measures taken by Qin Shi Huang after he unified the six kingdoms in order to control thought and culture. In the 34th year of Emperor Qin's reign, a senior court official, Chun Yu Yue, objected to the "county system" in force at the time and demanded that his children be divided according to the ancient system. Li Si, the prime minister of Qin Shi Huang, refuted this and argued that "Confucian students" should be forbidden to criticize the present and the past, and to slander the government with their private studies. Emperor Qin Shi Huang adopted Li Si's suggestion and ordered to burn the historical records of other countries other than the Book of Qin, and the private collection of poems and books not belonging to the Doctor's Hall was also to be handed over and burned; those who dared to talk about poems and books were to be executed, and those who praised the past and talked about the present policy were to be exterminated; private study was prohibited, and those who wished to study the decrees had to take the officials as their teachers. This measure aroused the discontent of many scholars. The following year, many Fangshi (people who practiced gongfu and alchemy) and Confucian students attacked Qin Shi Huang. Emperor Qin Shi Huang sent his men to investigate and buried more than 460 of them alive in a big pit. History calls these things "burning books and burying Confucian scholars".

Burning the books and burying the Confucian scholars exposed the tyranny of Qin's government, as well as the growing social conflicts and centrifugal disunity within the ruling class at the time. Qin Shi Huang wanted to take harsh measures to consolidate his rule, but in the end it did not achieve the desired purpose. From the result of burning books and burying scholars, we can see that the use of state power to enforce the unification of ideas would only confine closed minds, destroy the development of academic culture, and provoke a general revolt among the people. The burning of books and burying of scholars could be said to have hastened the end of the Qin dynasty.

After the Qin Dynasty, a more powerful dynasty emerged in China, the Han Dynasty. One of the policies of feudal ideological domination practiced by Emperor Wu of Han was to depose the hundred schools and revere only the Confucians.

At the time of the Qin and Han dynasties, Confucianism, which had been devastated by Qin Shi Wang's policy of burning books and burying scholars, gradually reared its head, and some Confucian students took part in the anti-Qin struggle after the revolts of Chen Sheng and Wu Guang. Huidi four years to abolish the "hostage book law", and further promote the revival of the doctrine of the sons, yin and yang, Confucianism, ink, name, law, Taoism six more active, of which Confucianism, Taoism and the two have a greater impact.

At the beginning of the Han Dynasty, as the social economy was severely damaged, the main task facing the ruling class was to restore production and stabilize the feudal order. Therefore, politically, they advocated the rule by doing nothing, and economically, they practiced light labor. Ideologically, the doctrines of Huang Lao, which advocated tranquility, inactivity and the science of punishment, were emphasized. However, the political and ideological struggles between Confucianism and Taoism were quite intense. At the time of Emperor Wu's accession to the throne, the social economy had been greatly restored and developed. Relying on the wealth accumulated in the Wen and Jing dynasties, Emperor Wu made great efforts to realize his ambitions. Meanwhile, as the landlord class and its state power became stronger, the oppression and exploitation of the peasants gradually increased, and the conflicts between the peasants and the landlord class gradually intensified. Therefore, it had become an urgent need for the feudal rulers to further strengthen the authoritarian centralized system politically and economically. Under such circumstances, Huang Lao's thought, which advocated tranquility and inaction, could no longer satisfy the above political needs, and was even more contradictory to Emperor Wu of Han's good and great achievements; while Confucianism's Spring and Autumn Unification Thought, the idea of benevolence and righteousness, and the ethical concepts of rulers and ministers were obviously in line with the situation and the tasks faced by Emperor Wu of Han. Thus, in the field of thought, Confucianism finally replaced the dominance of Taoism.

The Han emperor's "exclusive respect for Confucianism and the dismissal of all schools of thought" had its own characteristics. He respected Confucianism, has absorbed the Legalism, Taoism, Yin-Yang and other different schools of thought, and Confucius and Mencius as the representative of the pre-Qin Confucianism is different. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty combined Confucianism with criminal law and formed the ruling tactics of "the king and the Tao", which had a far-reaching influence on the later generations. Since then, Confucianism has become the orthodoxy of the feudal era in China.

Since the "depose the hundred schools, revere only Confucianism", became a mode of ideology, the later generations is nothing more than it to tinker with it, it dominated China for more than two thousand years. Feudal ideology is essentially Confucianism, which still influences China's politics, economy, culture, education, life, law and other levels in the real world. However, the opposite is true, without the hundred schools of thought, a single mode of thought, creating a political and legal culture - that is, authoritarianism. Han Wu Di in the ideological and cultural sector, the first "dismissed the hundred schools of thought, exclusive respect for Confucianism" policy, established the orthodoxy of Confucianism and the dominant position, so that the authoritarian "unification" of ideas as a mainstream ideology has become stereotypes, and this idea can certainly enhance the cohesion between the nation, but at the same time, it is not the same thing. This idea can certainly enhance the cohesion between the nationalities, but at the same time, it also pushes the authoritarian centralization to the peak of the extreme.

Let's talk about the more familiar eight-legged essay. Since the creation of the authoritarian centralized system by Emperor Qin Shi Huang, Chinese rulers of all dynasties have tried to strengthen this system. By the Ming Dynasty, the rulers were no longer satisfied with ruling the economy, politics, the military, and, of course, the minds of the people. The eight-legged essay arose under such historical conditions and was used by the later Qing dynasty.

The eight-legged essay was the imperial examination system used in the Ming Dynasty to select officials. The exams were only allowed to be written within the scope of the Four Books and Five Classics, and the style of writing was strictly limited to the eight-legged essay, so that the candidates could not give expression to their personal opinions. The rulers of the Ming Dynasty used the "eight-legged essay" to confine intellectuals. Many of those who succeeded in the examination became loyal servants of the emperor. More and more readers read the Four Books and Five Classics in order to become an official, "not hearing the affairs of the world, and only reading the books of the sages." Some of the talents selected by the Eight Scholarships will only read the books to death and know nothing else. You can imagine the consequences of asking such people to manage the people.

Finally, let's talk about the bloodiest of them all, the literal prison.

The word jail is a prison of injustice in which the reactionary rulers, in order to prevent and suppress the resistance of the intellectuals, intentionally search for words and phrases from the works and fabricate the charges. The prison of words has existed since ancient times, but it was most serious in the Qing Dynasty.

The early Qing Dynasty repeatedly revived the prison of words, totaling more than a hundred times, and the punishment was extremely harsh, making the intellectuals at risk and at a loss. Under the rule of cultural authoritarianism, many intellectuals did not dare to get involved in politics, but could only bury their heads in the ancient books. At that time, an old minister called Liang Shizheng, summed up the experience of such a world: "not to handwriting with people, that is, occasionally useless manuscripts, but also will be burned".

The word prison of the Qing Dynasty was a product of the unprecedented strengthening of feudal authoritarianism. Its fundamental purpose is to establish the absolute authority of monarchical autocracy and Manchu aristocratic rule in the field of ideology and culture. This literal prison had extremely serious social consequences, affecting the progress of Chinese society and the development of science and culture. When history entered the 18th century, western countries had successively broken the chains of feudalism and embarked on the road of capitalism, with rapid development in politics, economy, science and technology. But we, due to the special historical circumstances and the reality of all kinds of reasons, still stubbornly closed the door of communication with the West, and brutally implement the policy of cultural authoritarianism, the use of the extreme means of the word prison, eliminating heresy, confinement of thought, the control of speech, the maintenance of feudalism, resulting in the backwardness of the whole society, widening the gap with the West, and impeding the progress and development of the Chinese society. This ultimately led to the formation of China's semi-feudal and semi-colonial social status.

From ancient times to the present, the authoritarian rule that confines people's thoughts has gone through a process from none to some, from simple to complex. Compared to burning books and burying scholars, the rulers' tactics have become more and more sophisticated and hidden. We also cannot help but be impressed by the ingenuity of our ancestors. However, what we have to see is that both the burning of books and burying of scholars, which was even shorter-lived than the Qin Dynasty, and the feudal thinking, which has ruled the realm of Chinese thought for more than 2 000 years, have been destroyed or eliminated in the end. Freedom of thought is already a basic right of every citizen. It is evident that the people's thoughts cannot be blocked.