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Why was ancient China keen on war?

Why was ancient China keen on war?

Since ancient times, ancient China had the most frequent wars. But do you know why this is? And which of these dynasties were keen on war?

In primitive society, tribes struggled with tribes, then tribal alliances struggled with tribal alliances, and in slave society, the new noble regime struggled with the old regime. Feudal society either "clear the side of the king" or "for the welfare of the people", the excuse is so grand. But the reality is that "the people are suffering; the people are suffering".

During the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods, although the Zhou Emperor was the ****lord of the world, he already existed in name only. One by one, the ruling kingdoms gradually upgraded their own titles, directly hollowing out the Zhou Tien Zi. During the hundreds of years of melee, various small states were either annexed or weakened. Therefore, the state of Qin had long been cognizant of this shortcoming, and after Qin unified the six states, it no longer set up a system of secession, but centralized power, and set up a system of counties and counties at the local level. This model had a great influence on later generations.

Liu Bang, the founder of Han Dynasty, did the opposite, which led to the Seven Kings' Rebellion in the later generations, and it took a lot of time for the court to pacify the rebellion, which eventually led to the county system which preserved the stable results. It was only on the basis of stabilizing the internal situation that the victory in the external war of elimination was achieved.

The Tang Dynasty, although in the early stages of the effective containment of local forces, but later the clan division of the court dealt a fatal blow, and from then on the world was plunged into a chaotic war, more than the Spring and Autumn and Warring States period more severe, the world and the collapse into many small countries. It was not until the Song Dynasty that the centralization of power was achieved internally by the release of military power from the cup of wine, but due to the powerlessness of the localities, they seldom won in foreign wars and were always bullied by foreigners. This shows that both extremes can have unfavorable effects.

The powers that be in the Ming Dynasty seemed to recognize this problem, so the East and West factories, the Brocade Guards, sprang up in an attempt to use white terror to achieve lasting peace and stability under the sun. However, it was used by the evil forces, resulting in many wrongful convictions and a lack of people's livelihood. It is also sad that Emperor Jianwen was unable to rule in a lasting way because that was not the direction of his rule, he was just experimenting. Formally he was ousted by his own uncle Zhu Di, but from the whole history of Ming Dynasty, he was ousted by eunuchs.

After that, successive rulers of the Ming Dynasty followed Zhu Yuanzhang's strategy of ruling by terror until the end of the Ming Dynasty. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the officials forced the people to rebel, and there were constant wars of all kinds of uprisings, which dealt a serious blow to the notice of the Ming Dynasty. In particular, Li Zicheng directly led to the demise of the ruling center of the Ming Dynasty.

The world without a master, the Qing soldiers took advantage of the weakness to enter the customs, China began the long two hundred and sixty years of Qing rule. The rule of the Qing dynasty preserved certain traditional habits of the Manchus on the one hand, and continued with the help of Han civilization on the other. During the two hundred years of rule, the Manchus and the Han Chinese strove for an integrated development. But after all, it was the Manchus who were really in charge, so it was they who made the decisions on major foreign and domestic strategies.

The end of the Qing dynasty saw the implementation of a closed-door policy of not communicating with the outside world. This was by no means out of self-preservation, but a kind of psychological advantage with the heavenly kingdom. But as a result the Chinese nation paid a terrible price and at the same time overthrew the rule of the Qing Dynasty. This should be considered the only reign in Chinese history, through all the dynasties, that has been broken by visitors from afar.

In summary, ancient Chinese history has always been a constant war. It seems to be a law of history: if it's a long time to unite, it's a long time to divide. But no matter whether it is a division or peace, the people are the biggest victims of war!