Why the "Hundred Schools of Thought" ultimately created a strong imperial power

China from the Qin Dynasty began to burn books and bury Confucianism from top to bottom, completely abandoned the warring states era of a hundred schools of thought, a hundred flowers blossomed cultural traditions, and turned to step by step to limit cultural freedom, control the people's thinking; Han Dynasty and began to strike down the hundred schools of thought to respect Confucianism alone to promote Confucianism, emphasizing the unity of thought, and promote the orthodox concepts. To the world's turning point in the 15th century, due to the Mongolian nomads into the central plains of China's orthodox cultural impact and in order to the needs of the long-lasting stability of the feudal dynasty, the Ming dynasty to maintain and restore a variety of old cultures, to strengthen the centralization of power and the emperor's autocratic system, which is an important manifestation of the implementation of the eight shares in the whole country to take the scholar, and the requirements of the imperial examination and basically Confucianism that set, and thereafter, the Qing dynasty of the control of the culture on the After that, the Qing Dynasty's control of culture reached a peak, and the whole country was in total disarray for a while. In short, the development process of the feudal era in China was, on the whole, a process of constantly restricting cultural freedom and establishing an orthodox culture. By the time we reached the historical juncture of the world's great turnaround, our nation's traditional culture was already out of step with the emerging capitalist economy, and was actually acting as a growing impediment to the new world economic and technological wave.

The orthodox Confucian culture of the time had developed into an extremely ignorant and backward one, which strongly promoted the status and authority of the emperor and treated him as a kind of myth, believing that the emperor was the son of heaven who governed the people on behalf of heaven. This kind of hierarchical imperial autocratic ruling system makes the destiny of a country will be completely due to a mediocre emperor and fall into collapse, in the background conditions of the culture of loyalty to the emperor to cultivate the officials in addition to the requirements of the higher-ups to do things is really nothing, so once the emperor made a mistake, through this absolute obedience to the bureaucratic system will be spread to the national level of the harm, but the European a Pope or the But a pope in Europe or an emperor in the Roman Empire could never do that to the whole of Europe. A Chinese emperor's prohibition of the sea made the nation's overseas contacts almost extinct, and this would hardly have happened in Europe. Although the Roman Pope and the Chinese Confucians shared the same distaste for middlemen and usurers, there was no central government in Europe at the time that could effectively prevent the growth of commerce and overseas trading activities, and no ruler could determine the rise and fall of a nation by his own activities, as the mythical Chinese emperors were able to do. The fact is that there were people in Europe at that time who were plundering and expelling traders and businessmen, but the multicultural centers of power in Europe dictated that there would always be some national or local power that would be willing to tolerate traders and businessmen's extreme practices. According to historical sources, oppressed merchants, bankrupt Flemish weavers, persecuted Huguenots, and unemployed Italian sailors were always able to take their expertise with them to other lands. A German local ruler who overtaxed passing merchants and travelers would find that the trade routes were quickly diverted elsewhere, and his revenues would be wiped out. A king who was in debt would find it difficult to borrow when war was again threatened and funds were urgently needed to equip troops and fleets. In Europe merchants, bankers (evolved from usurers), and craftsmen were important in the state, not insignificant members of society, as they were in China at the time, where they were not only insignificant but also discriminated against by the orthodox culture. This reality of a country or region without an emperor and a bureaucracy cultivated in the context of the orthodox culture's reverence and myths made it possible for most countries or regions in Europe to establish a gradual and varying degree of ****biological relationship with the emerging capitalist commodity economy, providing not only a stable but also a vibrant competitive order within the country and a non-arbitrary dictatorship in line with the emerging capitalist economy. economy and a non-arbitrary and arbitrary legal system. Absolute authoritarian imperial rule and decentralization of power were also very different in terms of the content of cultural dissemination, which was crucial to the development of a country or region. in the fifteenth century, both China and Europe possessed printing technology, and the printing presses in China were mainly used to print some orthodox cultural works that the emperors recognized as beneficial to the rule of the country, thus clamping down on the minds of the people to a greater extent and making the people more ignorant and conservative. The printing press in Europe, on the other hand, besides printing some bibles and political treatises in their own languages, were mainly used to disseminate some scientific discoveries and practical technologies, which greatly promoted the development of European culture and technology, and made the people more adventurous and exploratory, which obviously contributed to the rise of the country's global competitive power. This obviously contributed to the rise of the country's global competitiveness.

On the other hand, the orthodox Confucian culture at that time was extremely averse to middlemen and usurers, and ranked the social status of practitioners as scholars, peasants, industrialists, and businessmen, with craftsmen and tradesmen at the end of the list, which developed into the official culture that is still very prevalent in China today. Although the Ming dynasty created the world's largest and most advanced imperial navy, built ironworks, dug canals, and restored the Great Wall for the sake of national strength, at that time the Ming dynasty lacked the motivation to make these activities sustainable, and a large portion of the emperor's income was used for various kinds of spending, and merchants, even if they got rich, used the proceeds to buy land and to develop examination education to encourage the next generation to participate in the Imperial Examination, instead of expanding production. This made the industrial and commercial activities lose the follow-up power of development, that is, the sustainable basis. Europe at that time, the government in the interests of businessmen and industrialists are closely linked, businessmen in the country occupies a very important position, the government encourages industrial and commercial activities in peacetime, wartime government to protect the interests of businessmen from a variety of perspectives, of course, businessmen and industrialists are also in full support of the government's various activities, they are a kind of interdependence between them, and there is no superiority and inferiority, for example: the British Royal Navy in the For example, the British Royal Navy respected British merchants in peacetime and protected their trade in wartime; on the other hand, British merchants collected all kinds of geographic data and financed all kinds of exploration activities for the Royal Navy in peacetime, and provided the Royal Navy with a lot of money and intelligence in wartime; this harmonious relationship between merchants and the army or the government was very favorable to the development and expansion of the whole country. In contrast, most of the government officials in China, who were trained by Confucianism and the imperial examination system, were the executors of orders from their superiors, who were conformist, rigid, conservative, resistant to change, stifled innovation, and extremely averse to industrial and commercial activities. China's unique official-oriented culture on the one hand, making the community's talents are flooded into the government sector rather than the industrial and commercial sectors, so that the industrial and commercial sectors have lost the first-class human resources and thus difficult to obtain a favorable competitive position in the international competition; on the other hand, in the atmosphere of the official-oriented culture of the growth of the officials will be hindered in every way all sorts of industrial and commercial activities, and businessmen and entrepreneurs do not have official support is very difficult to flourish. It is very difficult for merchants and entrepreneurs to prosper without official support. The Ming dynasty this kind of official and business antagonism of the pedantic political environment and the kind of competition, adventure and entrepreneurial spirit prevails in Europe at that time the political environment is in sharp contrast, Europe at that time in the countries of the competition and business interests under the impetus of the scientific and technological knowledge continues to develop while the Ming dynasty in China is still in the same place in the circle, sadly, this situation until now and then changed rather than completely get changed. Here too, the opening of a new era of Western domination by Portugal, a small Western country with such a limited population and resources, can be satisfactorily explained. When Portugal established its military superiority and naval supremacy over the East, the Americas and Africa on the basis of scientific and technological development, was it still anything new for it to extend its hand so far and grab so much? Once the empire had gained significant benefits, the desire to attempt to gain even more accelerated the process of expansion.

Lastly, according to China's orthodox culture at the time, it was more concerned with etiquette and morality than with martial arts, and from an early age it instilled in people the idea of honoring etiquette, such as when Confucius said in his "Analects of Confucius" (论语?). Zihan", Confucius said, "Heaven has not yet lost the Si-wen, and the people of Kuang are as good as I am". The overall view was that the future of war was sad, and that the Book of War was anti-war and a necessity, and that the armed forces were only needed for fear of barbaric attack and internal insurrection. And those civil officials trained on the basis of Confucian culture who dominated the Chinese regime largely resented the military. Whereas in Europe the government, the army, and the merchants and traders were three in one and supported each other, in China they were three distinct parts that were opposed to each other. Europe's foreign expansion of businessmen are generally for the lead, followed by the army's force of conquest and then by the businessmen will be the spoils of war into taxes and profits for the greater military invasion, at the same time the businessmen are also in the new occupied areas to set up industrial and commercial enterprises in order to further plunder the occupied areas, the whole process is from the economic point of view of the operation, that is to say, never do business that loses money. China, on the contrary, due to the usual influence of etiquette and morality that robbery or massacre is extremely immoral, especially the merchant into the mix is even more intolerable, merchants are pariahs! In fact, the seven overseas expeditions of the mighty Ming Dynasty navy in the early 15th century were nothing but a useless display of braggadocio, which eventually had to be stopped due to lack of funds. I would like to emphasize here that China's cultural tradition of being civilized made it possible for China to have the most powerful and advanced imperial navy in the world without doing any burning, killing, pillaging or colonizing foreign countries, which is in stark contrast to the West. Portuguese, Spaniards, Dutch, British, French invasion of the Indian Ocean is a bloody massacre for the beginning and the end of brutal colonial rule. From the perspective of China's cultural background, even if China becomes powerful in the future, it will not pose a threat to other countries. The Chinese people are peace-loving, and they emphasize benevolence, righteousness and morality, which is fundamentally different from the cultural background of the Western world. And there is also a fundamental difference with Japan, in 1640 the Portuguese sent a mission to Japan to protest against the expulsion of foreigners, almost all the members of the mission were killed, and China in this kind of thing obviously than Japan seems to be much more generous, not only there is no massacre of foreigners for no reason, and will be Macao leased to the Portuguese as a transit point for one of their merchants, obviously showing the Chinese sympathy for the weak cultural traditions. The cultural tradition of Chinese sympathy for the weak, I think China's national strength at that time or can deal with Portugal. In short, China's inherent non-war culture and dislike of merchants made China lose the lasting impetus for foreign expansion, and such overseas voyages that benefited nothing or cost a great deal but benefited very little certainly would not last long. In contrast, the overseas expansion of any European country or region was based on the highest principle of commercial interest, which means that the wealth spent on any overseas expansion or adventure was to be compensated exponentially by bloody plunder and unequal trade, and it was only driven by huge profits that made this intention of overseas development sustainable. Of course, I am not here to advocate for risk-taking outlaws or groups, but rather to show that the remarkable contribution of European captains, crews, merchants, soldiers, and explorers was that they had the ships and the firepower to fulfill their ambitions, and that they came from an environment where competition, risk-taking, and entrepreneurial spirit were prevalent, which is exactly what China did not have. It's easy to see how China's powerful navy declined so quickly, not because of geography, but because of the cultural environment in which it operated.

Four, Conclusion

First look, the 15th and 16th centuries, China due to geographic disadvantages (land around some of the strongest enemies in the prying eyes and the central economic zone is easy to carry out large-scale military operations) led to give up the Navy will focus on the land to the border guards and thus lost the opportunity to synchronize with the world or ahead of the opportunity, in fact, from the deeper point of view of the Chinese decline The fundamental reason is that its traditional culture adapted to the feudal society has been incompatible with the emerging capitalist economy, due to the inheritance of culture and a high degree of stability, even if the later vibrant Manchu people replaced the decadent Ming Dynasty, but also failed to stop the gradual decline of China's relative trend. The main mechanism is that culture influences people's concepts and ideas, thus forming a political environment that serves a specific cultural background, which in turn strengthens the culture on which it is based, and so on, step by step, constantly reinforcing the upward development.

The complexity of Europe's geography was a very important factor in its development in the new era, to a much greater extent than in China. This complex and discontinuous geography has created a fragmented political landscape that is difficult to change, and the absence of a single, unified authority that commands all countries and regions has created a virtually competitive environment for all European countries and regions. In order to achieve higher and better power than their rivals and thus survive and thrive in this environment of the law of the jungle, these countries have always put their interests at the forefront, resulting in a competitive, adventurous and entrepreneurial cultural environment. This dynamic cultural environment led to increasing commercial and colonial competition among nations, and although the process of rapid development under such competition could be greatly slowed down by a major European war or internal strife, the European powers almost never gave up their quest for more profit, and it was not long before another round of trade expansion, exploration and colonization would begin again. If any empire that gained a competitive advantage did not use its acquired position to accelerate its growth, others would eventually take its place. The advantage of this increasing commercial and colonial competition in Europe was that it was accompanied by the development of scientific and technological knowledge, which was undoubtedly a by-product of the arms race and competition for overseas trade. Because a country's need to gain a competitive advantage at the time necessitated ever greater demands on science and technology, the development of science and technology was fostered and encouraged in every way. In the final analysis, the main reason for this development power to endure is that Europe has a kind of breaking through the darkness of the Middle Ages after the formation of a kind of positive, free cultural traditions, while this kind of cultural traditions in China in more than 2,000 years of feudalism has been blocked step by step and worn out, from the Spring and Autumn and Warring States period of a hundred schools of thought, a hundred flowers blossomed and evolved gradually into the Qing dynasty of the family of a single, ten thousand horses all mute. This new culture formed in Europe after the Renaissance is fundamentally different from the orthodox culture of the feudal era, which encourages exploration and controversy, allows all kinds of experiments to be carried out freely, attaches importance to practice rather than abstract theories, pursues rationalism rather than the authoritarianism of the time, defies the regulations of the dignitaries, arbitrariness and traditional folklore, but sadly these are all the same period of China's orthodox culture completely strangled away!

Very much so.

It is obvious that in the case of the more advanced European countries have occupied all the top rungs of the ladder of world power, it is very difficult for other countries to climb up again. This difficulty is comprehensive, the backward countries not only have to exclude interference and aggression of foreign powers, but also have to cultivate a general developmental environment that can enable them to continue to develop and derive from their own advanced European equipment and technology, and to develop their own culture. cultural environment. This meant a radical change in the traditional culture that had been inherited for thousands of years, which proved to be a very long and painful process. China's modern decline and suffered a hundred years of humiliation to remind us: any restriction of cultural freedom is not to be, in the culture of conservatism will be very harmful, and ultimately will make a country's cultural environment into a stalemate, thus fundamentally destroying a country to seek long-term development of the power of the foundations.