Qin Dynasty Unification:Historical Regression and Modern Lessons

In our history textbooks, reforms like the Shang Yang reforms, the reforms of Li Kui, the reforms of Hu Huqi Wang Anshi, and the Wushu reforms are mostly depicted positively. Let’s set aside the failed reforms and focus on those considered successful; they all have significant pitfalls.

Take the Shang Yang reforms, which are fundamental to the rise of the Qin state. Looking back, what was the reason for its success? It can be summarized in eight words: “Strengthen the army, weaken the people, wage war nationwide.” The core purposes of the reforms, whether it was the military merit system, the household registration system, the collective punishment system, or the county system, were twofold. One was to strengthen the centralized power of the monarch, completely abolishing the nobility’s feudal privileges that limited the monarch’s authority. The other was to suppress thought and behavior, weakening and stupefying the populace to the extent that they could not resist in thought or action.

The entire country became a high-speed war machine. The development of the state relied entirely on continuous external expansion.

In the book of Shang Yang’s thoughts, “The Book of Lord Shang,” chapters on destroying merchants and weakening the people are prominently featured. This explains why, for over two thousand years, it was banned, becoming central to the imperial canon. History books teach us how Shang Yang was a sage, but they don’t tell you that to implement the new laws, he executed over 700 opponents in a single day by the Wei River, staining the water red.

His fundamental approach to reform was not rationality but creating terror. This model, when examined closely, looks familiar, doesn’t it? Isn’t it just fascist militarism? Whether it was Mussolini’s Italy, the Emperor’s Japan, or Hitler’s Germany, it was the same template. Using the entire nation’s strength, they initially achieved great success through extreme internal oppression and external warfare.

But when the state’s resources could no longer sustain the war or it faced internal and external crises, it often collapsed spectacularly.

What was the fundamental strength of the Qin state? When a country completely disregards the welfare of its people, cultural development, and historical heritage, using all its strength for the ruler’s domination and waging war to destroy enemies, this rogue mentality is hard to contend with. If every commoner, like the Qin people, could only change their fate by beheading enemies on the battlefield, this barbaric force might win, but it doesn’t represent progress, justice, or civilization.

It’s simply the familiar pattern of the backward defeating the advanced, the barbaric defeating the civilized in the age of cold weapons. So, unequivocally, the Shang Yang reforms were the earliest and most successful example of fascist militarism in China.

It had a twin in the West—Sparta. Its so-called prosperity and military strength benefited only one person and had nothing to do with the common people. This highly centralized, aggressive reform driven by wild expansion might achieve temporary brilliance but was destined to fail because its core was anti-humanity and couldn’t gain widespread support.

The second point I want to make is that the Qin Dynasty’s unification was a major regression in Chinese history. If you know a bit about pre-Qin history, you might wonder: Since the Shang Yang reforms quickly made Qin successful, why didn’t the six states in Shandong copy it? Who would refuse success?

The fundamental reason is that the foundation of Huaxia civilization in the pre-Qin era was the feudal system and Liuyu culture, which were incompatible with Qin’s militaristic system of waging total war. The feudal system underpinned the Zhou Dynasty’s 800 years of rule, based on two core aspects.

The first was the ruling philosophy of cultured people. The Huaxia people expanded their civilization through forceful colonization but also spread their culture over hundreds of years, relying not solely on slaughter but on advanced agricultural civilization and Liuyu culture to conquer surrounding so-called barbarians.

The second was local autonomy and the separation of powers. The nobles’ powers were layered, greatly limiting royal and military authority, forming multiple local power centers that balanced and competed with each other. This local autonomy was the foundation of the competition among feudal lords, talent flow, and ideological flourishing in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods.

Why were the Chinese of that era so different from later generations? This was closely linked to the feudal system. Thus, in historical records, the six states of Shandong often referred to Qin as a “tiger and wolf nation.”

They inherently looked down on Qin and didn’t agree with its reforms. Even today, idioms related to Qin still reflect the Warring States era’s perception of Qin. These include “Zong Lian Dao Hai” and “Yi Bu Di Qin.”

These idioms come from the “Strategies of the Warring States,” which records the eloquence of Lu Zhonglian of Qi, who, out of righteousness and without any personal gain, went to persuade the feudal lords to send troops to save the besieged Zhao state.

To express his understanding of Qin’s nature, Lu Zhonglian said:

“The Qin, a country that abandons rituals and relies on military power, rules through cunning and treats its people like slaves. If it becomes the emperor and governs the world, I would rather jump into the East Sea than be a subject of such a regime.”

These idioms later became symbols of resisting tyranny and maintaining integrity in the Chinese psyche. The “Strategies of the Warring States” contains numerous references to Qin as a “tiger and wolf nation” and expressions like “the world has suffered from Qin for a long time and doesn’t want to be Qin’s people.”

The most famous battle that changed Chinese history, the Battle of Changping, was fundamentally triggered by the Korean cession of Shangdang County to Qin. The people there preferred to surrender to Zhao rather than Qin, indicating they would rather have Zhao’s passport than Qin’s.

The “Records of the Grand Historian” describes it as follows:

“Qin took Shangdang, but the people of Shangdang were unwilling to be Qin’s subjects and turned to Zhao. The world has long been unwilling to be Qin’s people.”

This sparked the Battle of Changping. If Qin were like today’s United States, would this situation occur? Would the people of Shangdang still refuse?

It is well-known that during the Warring States period, both thought and behavior were very free. People could migrate freely, akin to modern-day immigration. Where the people chose to settle best reflected their preferences. In the “Book of Lord Shang,” there’s a passage where the Qin king laments that despite Qin’s vast territory, it is sparsely populated, while Korea and Zhao, with smaller lands, have dense populations. He asks his ministers why, and they respond:

“The people suffer and abandon Qin.”

People looked down on Qin’s passport and household registration, preferring to crowd in Korea and Zhao because life in Qin was harsh and undignified for both scholars and commoners.

Such historical accounts have been repeatedly confirmed in subsequent archaeological findings. For example, the harsh laws of Qin are documented, and many cases of people fleeing Qin’s tyranny to other states are recorded.

These remarks show that even in the Warring States period, the essence of Shang Yang’s reforms, the militaristic nature of a war machine, was clearly understood by the feudal states of Shandong.

Therefore, despite the Shang Yang reforms making Qin powerful, no one praised them or wanted to emulate them. We often say that for over two thousand years, Chinese people haven’t surpassed the intellectual legacy of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods because the overall environment stifled their creativity.

By rejecting feudalism, establishing prefectures and counties, and completely eliminating the nobility, Qin quickly became strong and unified China with a fascist militaristic system similar to later times. However, this autocratic system extended, making obedience to centralized power the starting point for all actions.

For the nation and the entire people, this was not a blessing but a disaster. The rule of one family not only stifled political vitality but also the vitality of the entire nation.

Without checks and balances on power and internal competition, the world became a place where tyranny prevailed.

We now say that for an industry to prosper, monopolies must be broken, administrative measures should enforce separation, and even legislation should enforce it. Without breaking monopolies, industries fail.

But isn’t it the same for a country? The core of modern human civilization’s political system is, in fact, the division of power, political competition, and local autonomy.

When I say that Qin’s unification of China was a historical regression, some may find it hard to accept. But listen to me further.

Thirdly, unification doesn’t necessarily represent progress. We’ve long been indoctrinated to believe that division means slaughter, chaos, and humiliation, while unification means strength, prosperity, and glory. Is that really the case? Throughout the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, over 100 significant feudal states emerged, warring countless times. But even counting up to the Qin Dynasty’s unification, the total number of war casualties among the feudal states is likely far less than the population loss during one great famine.

The wisdom and cultural heritage of the Huaxia people during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods continue to shine today. Which period in modern Chinese history saw the most cultural prosperity? The Beiyang period, marked by warlord rule. Despite constant warfare among warlords, the hardships pale compared to the widespread suffering after the Chinese Communist Party’s unification.

During the darkest and most declining period of the Five Barbarians’ invasion of China, traditional civilization never truly disappeared. However, after the Mongol Yuan and Manchu Qing unified China, apart from massacres, they severed the national lifeline, caused cultural decline, and plunged the scholar-official class into collective confusion that persists to this day. Not to mention the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) unification, which uses cult-like methods to govern the country, eradicating traditional culture among social elites completely and causing more harm than slaughter.

Thus, it can be clearly stated that the unification under regimes like the Mongol Yuan, Manchu Qing, and CCP is essentially a unification based on despotism, ignorance, and backwardness. It is an example of barbarism triumphing over civilization and poisoning it, and it is undoubtedly detrimental to the nation. Such unification is worse than division.

In other words, is there no benefit to division? Just look at South Korea and North Korea, or currently, the mainland and Taiwan. The vast differences between the same ethnicity already provide clear evidence. For a disaster-prone nation, the choice of system is crucial.

A unified large prison is far worse than being divided into a paradise and a hell. For a nation to achieve long-term peace and stability, it cannot simply indulge in low-level survival notions like preferring peace under autocracy over chaos. It must not be obsessed with superficial unification and apparent strength without the guarantee of a civilized system.

Unification is just an opiate for the wild and a heartbreaker for the common people. Germany and Austria are two different countries but the same principal ethnicity. Hitler once unified them under the banner of the Third Reich’s glory. And what happened then? It brought disaster to both countries.

Looking back, was the breakup of the Soviet Union, that super empire, good or bad? It was undoubtedly a great thing. For the republics forcibly joined by it, for the former Eastern European satellite states, for the Chinese people once threatened by its nuclear arsenal, and even for world peace, it was beneficial.

The unification of such empires constantly exports violent revolution and creates ideological confrontation, plaguing nearly half the globe. Countless lives were lost in their utopian experiments, providing violent support for the spread of despotism, becoming a malignant tumor of human civilization.

Frankly speaking, the rogue human rights of the CCP, and the brutal tyrant Xi Jinping, what they call unification is merely expanding the scale of prisons and the confinement of slaves. How has this ever benefited the common people in the slightest?

Before 1949, Northeast China was built by the Japanese into Asia’s number one industrial area. Under the CCP, it has decayed beyond recognition over the decades, beyond saving. Shanghai in 1949 was the Far East’s largest international city and financial center, with no competition from Hong Kong. But under the CCP, it completely lost its vitality.

Hong Kong and Macau, painstakingly developed by the British and Portuguese over a hundred years, are now also losing their glory. So, should the CCP be allowed to ruin Taiwan as well? If they unify Taiwan, it would only mean 23 million more enslaved people.

For ordinary mainland Chinese people, what benefits do they get other than using their blood, sweat, and lives to support such a false unity? None at all. So now I want to say, certain types of unification are a major step backward in history. Can everyone understand this?