The Hidden Cards of History:Lecture on Chinese History by Yi Zhongtian (Text Version - Part 2)

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Teacher Yi Zhongtian continues to explore how Chinese civilization evolved from a matrilineal clan society into the unique model of a unified family and state, and compares the differences with Western civilization in terms of blood relations, property rights, contracts, and law. The article also points out that Chinese civilization does not have a religious belief system like the West but maintains social order and core values through ancestor worship.

Author ｜ Yi Zhongtian

For ease of reading, the editors of this website have made appropriate modifications without deviating from the original meaning! It is also declared that this article only represents the author’s views, and this website merely presents it to help readers gain a comprehensive understanding of historical truths!

The Origins and Characteristics of Matrilineal Clan Society

We know that the earliest human societies were clan societies, and the earliest clan society was a matrilineal clan society. Why was it a matrilineal clan society? Because children were born to their mothers, so naturally, they belonged to the mother. Moreover, in primitive times, there was no marriage system. A woman could have sexual relations with any man she wanted, but the choice of partner was up to the woman. It was a good era for women. Women could choose whoever they wanted, right? So, it was unclear who the father of the child was. It is said that this is still unclear now.

The other day, I heard a joke about two middle school students chatting on a bus, discussing whether it is better to be a girl or a boy. The boy said there is no advantage to being a girl because a child born to a girl doesn’t take the father’s surname. The girl replied, saying that even though a child born to a boy takes the father’s surname, it’s not certain if the child actually belongs to him.

In primitive societies, a woman giving birth to a child really did not know who the father was. So, it was a matrilineal clan society. However, as the productivity of this society developed, driven by social productivity—meaning that scientific and technological inventions were primarily by men—because in that society, women stayed at home to bear and raise children while men went out to hunt, fight, and steal.

More and more wealth was created by men. When the wealth of society became sufficient, the concept of property rights emerged. Men needed to solve the issue of property ownership. What exactly was this thing that belonged to someone? If I cultivated a hundred acres of land, hunted ten wild boars, invented the bow and arrow, and captured many prisoners to make slaves, after I die and pass this to someone, if he doesn’t know whether he was born to me, he won’t work. What to do if he doesn’t work? He had to start clarifying men’s rights. To clarify men’s rights in primitive society, the only way was to sanctify and mystify men’s role in reproduction, which led to totem worship.

All totem worships worldwide are invariably male. A woman had a dream, for example, seeing Venus enter or the ancestor of the Shang people, an old grandmother, who ate a bird’s egg and gave birth to a child, the mysterious bird. The logo on the wing of the Eastern Airlines plane is the mysterious bird. If I ate a mysterious bird’s egg and gave birth to a child, it is called totem worship. It is all to sanctify men’s role.

So, what was the result of this? The emergence of totem worship marked the eve of civilization. At this point, our nation and other nations of the world began to diverge. Other nations, such as the Greeks, turned witchcraft into science. For example, in India, they turned scientific witchcraft into religion. For example, in Egypt, they turned totems into gods. The Egyptian god Horus was the totem of the Egyptians, who turned it into the sun god and claimed that the Pharaoh was the son of the sun god. This is the path taken by other nations.

The Family-State Unified Model of Chinese Civilization

And what did we become? Ancestors. This is the crucial difference between Chinese civilization and other civilizations. Other civilizations turned totem worship into religion, while our totem worship turned into ancestor worship. In fact, if we look at the character for ancestor, the earliest character was “儿且”, where “且” represented the male genitalia. The male genitalia was made into an object, a model, called the “spirit tablet” or “ancestor tablet.” Originally, it was a symbol engraved on the male genitalia. Later, a house was built on top, called a clan temple. The result of ancestor worship is the unity of family and state. Our nation has a very important issue: when the Chinese nation entered the civilized era, it did not disband clan organizations and establish a new state like the Greek nation. We went straight from family to state, called the unity of family and state.

Therefore, you see our system; later systems, the monarch is the father, called the “father of the ruler”; officials and citizens are the sons, called officials and subjects. The relationship between ruler and subjects is the father-son relationship. During the Ming Dynasty, there was a famous honest official called Hai Rui. Everyone should know that Hai Rui criticized the emperor, and he submitted a memorial criticizing the emperor. The emperor ordered Hai Rui to be imprisoned and tried by the three judicial bodies—the Supreme Court, the Ministry of Justice, and the Inspection Office. The three bodies could not determine a charge for Hai Rui because the law did not specify the crime of criticizing the emperor. They eventually determined the charge to be “criticizing the father.” Criticizing the father is a crime, so Hai Rui was convicted according to the crime of criticizing the father. Thus, the relationship between ruler and subjects is like a father-son relationship.

Units and units, such as the University of Science and Technology of China and Tsinghua University are brother institutions, Anhui Province and Henan Province are brother provinces, Hefei City and Bengbu City are brother cities, the Education Bureau and Cultural Bureau are brother units, all are brothers. Local officials are called “parent officials,” and the military is called “soldier brothers.” The entire interpersonal relationship in China is maintained by blood relations. Why is it maintained by blood relations? Because it is the unity of family and state. Why do we have the unity of family and state? Because we inherited ancestor worship from totem worship, this is the root of Chinese civilization!

Thus, when our nation deals with interpersonal relationships, it is based on blood relations. In dealing with interpersonal relationships, Chinese people turn non-blood relationships into generalized blood relations. For example, calling each other brothers and sisters, friends and comrades, in Haikou they call each other brothers and sisters. We are a civilization of family and state unity. In this respect, it is very different from Westerners.

How is it different? Simply put, time is running out. To put it simply, Greeks destroyed the clan blood relations. This is according to Engels. Why did the Greeks destroy the clan blood relations? Because Greece practiced a commodity economy. The Greek way of economic life was market economy and commodity economy. Market economy and commodity economy have a feature called clear property rights. How clear are property rights? Clear to the individual. All property ultimately belongs to individuals, which is complete, thorough, and true private ownership.

Our nation has never had such a system. Our property rights are divided into families. In traditional Chinese society, people could never say that the property is mine; they could only say it belongs to our family. If there are many brothers and sisters, the family must be divided. After the division, it is not divided to individuals, but to small families. In this kind of system, is it public ownership or private ownership? It is unclear. Because family ownership is private to other families but public to family members. For members of our family, everyone has a share.

I can ask a question to everyone: did women in the old society have the right to dispose of family property? They did not. All family property was disposed of by male members. But women could have a small amount of property, called “private money.” The concept of private money implies that other money is public money, right? Logically speaking, now, mainly men hide private money. In ancient times, women had private money, very little, mostly public money. So, we are unclear about property rights. The Greeks, on the other hand, were very clear about property rights. Once property was divided clearly, it led to a series of relationships and issues. When property was divided among individuals, they became independent individuals. Because they had property, they became autonomous individuals. At the same time, it meant they had two things: one called independent personality and one called free will.

Why is my personality independent? Because I have money. So please don’t mock money. Having money is a good thing. With money, no matter how little, as long as it is enough to support oneself, one has independent personality. You can disregard others’ opinions, right? You don’t have to be obsequious. It is said that Lu Xun’s bones were the hardest, and he never softened his tone even when he ate others’ food. I can responsibly tell you that Lu Xun didn’t have to eat others’ food every meal. Lu Xun’s income was very high a hundred years ago; he made a lot of money as a writer. Today, he would definitely be on the list of wealthy Chinese writers. He was independent, and with independent personality comes free will. He could freely dispose of everything, including his property, body, thoughts, and speech. He had freedom of thought, speech, body, and property. Everything came from his economic independence.

Differences Between Chinese and Western Civilizations

But at the same time, this raises a question. When everyone in society is an individual with free will, how do they coexist? You are independent, I am independent; you are free, I am free. Then today we need to sit together for a meeting, work together, build society together, and conduct scientific research together. How do we come together? How do we manage our relationships?

In China, it’s straightforward—relations are managed through kinship. We are father and son, ruler and subject, brothers, husband and wife—these relationships define how we interact. Westerners approach it differently. Westerners came up with something called contracts. As a commercial people, contracts are crucial for them. A sound and complete market economy and commodity economy rely on two things: clear property rights and public buying and selling. To achieve public buying and selling, contracts must be signed. Ancient Greeks thought, since we can use contracts to manage property relations, we should also use them to manage interpersonal relationships.

How to manage? All citizens sign a treaty or contract to specify what is permissible and what is not in society. If someone does something forbidden, they should face certain penalties. This shared contract is called law. In the West, law is also known as social contract or public agreement. In economic life, if two parties sign a contract, they are equal; the breaching party is punished, right? This means everyone is equal before the contract, which is known as equality before the contract. Now that we have signed a social contract, this contract is called law. Therefore, everyone is also equal before the law, which is known as equality before the law. In this way, Westerners use contracts to regulate interpersonal relationships.

This is a crucial difference between Chinese and Western cultures. Chinese people manage social relationships through kinship, while Westerners use contractual relationships. For example, marriage. What is marriage in traditional Chinese society? It is a relationship of personal dependency. “A wife brought by marriage, a horse bought—ride and whip as I please.” So in China, hitting one’s wife was not illegal. In traditional society, it was said that if a wife complained about being beaten to the court, she could not file a complaint. Conversely, fearing one’s wife was a joke. Think about it—our traditions even have jokes about Jia Zheng in “Dream of the Red Chamber” being afraid of his wife. Fearing one’s wife is laughable; is there a joke about fearing one’s husband? Fearing one’s husband is not laughable. It is simply male superiority and female inferiority—nothing funny about it.

The West does not operate this way. In Western societies, marriage is a contractual relationship. For instance, in Western weddings, a clergy member, such as a priest or pastor, officiates. They ask the groom, “Do you love Mary? Do you vow to stay with her for life, regardless of her youth or aging, health or illness, wealth or poverty?” Joji must say “I do.” The clergy then asks, “Are you sure?” Joji must confirm. Then the clergy says, “You may now place the ring.” Next, the clergy asks the bride, “Mary, do you love Joji? Are you willing to be with him?” Mary responds, “I do.” The clergy asks, “Are you sure?” Mary confirms. The clergy then says, “You may now place the ring.” After the rings are exchanged, the clergy asks the guests, “Is there any objection? Anyone opposed?” If there are no objections, the clergy says, “You may now kiss.”

This process is akin to signing a contract. First, legally speaking, a contract’s validity is based on two conditions. First, the contract must be legal. You cannot sign an illegal contract. For example, if I sign a contract with Lu Jinbo, saying I want him to kill someone I hate, offering two million, with a one million deposit and the rest after completion, and he does the job but I refuse to pay, can he sue me? No, because it’s an illegal contract.

The second condition is that the contract must reflect the true intentions of both parties. If someone is coerced into signing, it is not valid. Western marriages are contractual, so they must have a ceremony to sign the contract. The clergy, representing God, acts as a witness, effectively representing the court. They confirm that the contract reflects the genuine will of both parties.

They say, “You may now place the ring.” This means, like signing a contract, and then they ask everyone, “Any objections?” This confirms the contract’s legality. If someone objects, such as claiming the groom already has a wife, the wedding would be illegal, and the contract void. Therefore, the clergy must ask if there are any objections to ensure the contract is legal. Once confirmed, they say, “You may now kiss,” signifying the exchange of the contract text. In the West, couples celebrate their wedding anniversary by dining together and exchanging gifts, affirming the contract’s continued validity.

Today, many young people adopt Western-style weddings, but the final step has changed. The officiant now says, “You may now exchange phones,” to monitor each other for secrets. This shows they are in a contractual relationship, with equality before the contract and the law.

However, they found an issue: law cannot govern everything. For instance, in science and technology, law is not applicable. It would be absurd if a court decided the correctness of a scientific paper or research conclusion. Academic disputes and scientific controversies cannot be resolved in court. So, what to do? We must sign another contract, this time with nature. We set that one plus one equals two and that the shortest distance between two points on a plane is a straight line. We set many premises, such as how objects behave on a plane or under current conditions. These are contracts with nature.

We establish axioms, theorems, and reasoning. Scientific conclusions from reasoning are called hypotheses, which must be confirmed or refuted. Once a hypothesis is confirmed, it becomes truth. Axioms, theorems, reasoning, and truth—once a principle is established as truth, everyone is equal before it, known as equality before the truth.

The third issue is that law and science cannot solve all problems, such as moral issues. Moral issues are not resolved by law or science. So, who solves them? Western civilization’s approach is to turn to God. They sign a final contract with God, with terms like: if humans do good and avoid evil in life, God promises us heaven after death. This is a contract, just signed twice. The first is the Old Testament, and the second is the New Testament—two contracts. After signing this contract, everyone is equal before God. This is the origin of faith.

Looking at our own nation, we do not have this system. We did not destroy clan organizations to establish a new nation but transformed clan organizations into tribes, then into states, integrating them into the nation. We replaced religious worship with ancestor worship. Thus, our nation lacks religion and faith. Without religion and faith, what maintains us? This brings us to the concept of the Chinese spirit.

Do we have religion and faith? My conclusion is no. To prove this, we need to define what religion and faith are. Religion is a comprehensive value system, behavioral norms, and lifestyle centered around belief. The core of religion is belief. What is belief? Belief is unwavering faith in the supernatural or transcendent. Belief is first and foremost faith, and secondly, unwavering faith, with no price tag. Don’t discuss the existence of God with a Christian; they won’t debate because they have unwavering faith.

There’s a Uyghur old woman who believes in Islam. When asked by the media if she believes in God or the Communist Party because her son joined the party, she said: “Allah created the world and the Communist Party. Without Allah, there would be no world or Communist Party. Without the Communist Party, there would be no New China.” This is logical coherence.

Faith’s object is supernatural and transcendent, not part of nature or human society. Thus, faith must come from a creator god and be unique. Only Judaism, Christianity, and Islam meet this standard because they have a single creator god.

Does our nation, specifically the Han Chinese, have an object of faith? We believe in gods, ghosts, Buddhas, immortals, bodhisattvas, Feng Shui, and ancestors—we believe in everything. Believing in everything means believing in nothing. There’s a saying, “Belief brings efficacy.” Feng Shui practitioners will say, “Belief brings efficacy; lack of efficacy is due to lack of belief.” Conversely, if I believe it works because you believe in it. I once saw an altar in the countryside with Buddha, Guanyin, Jade Emperor, Taishang Laojun, Guan Yu, Mazu, Land God, and even ancestors, with a red paper saying “Old revolutionary leaders.” This is a mixture of beliefs equating to no belief—believing in everything equals believing in nothing.

Multiple beliefs have sustained us for 3,700 years. What’s the secret? This is what I need to clarify, so I plan to write a thirty-six-volume “Zhonghua History of Yi Zhongtian” over five to eight years. It’s not that I have a conclusion now but rather that I don’t. Many media ask me for the final conclusion, and I say I don’t know. Students from the University of Science and Technology of China will support me because you have the scientific spirit and know a scientific experiment’s report cannot be written before results are out. If I tell you the conclusion now, it means pre-setting the conclusion and using all materials to prove it, which is academically unethical. So, I can only explore while writing and publish interim results, strive to answer this question in Volume 36, five to eight years from now.

It is certain that the problem we face is not a crisis of faith, because this nation originally had no faith; how could there be a crisis? The problem is that our core values are lost. Other nations have faith to ensure core values. For example, in Christian civilization, the core values are independence, freedom, and equality. These values are guaranteed by faith because people are created by God, Adam and Eve committed original sin in the Garden of Eden, so everyone is sinful before God, and everyone is equal. They use the name of God to guarantee the value of equality.

We do not have faith, but we have core values. From the Qin and Han dynasties to the Republic of China and the period before the Xinhai Revolution, our core values were the Three Bonds and the Five Constants, which were a consensus among officials and civilians. Before the reform and opening up, we had class struggle as the principle, and class struggle was effective; both officials and civilians agreed that we needed to continue class struggle, so we did not encounter problems.

The current problem is that the Three Bonds and the Five Constants are not applicable today, and class struggle is also not applicable today. Why are they not applicable? Because the Three Bonds and the Five Constants were suitable for a small peasant economy. In a small peasant economy, men farm and women weave, with the whole family living together, integrating the family and the nation, with rulers and subjects, fathers and sons. Therefore, the Three Bonds and the Five Constants were effective. Class struggle, on the other hand, was suitable for a planned economy. A planned economy is a different system with high centralization, requiring class struggle.

Now we have entered the era of the market economy; the era of the small peasant economy and the planned economy has passed. We are now in the era of the market economy. And our nation has no tradition of a market economy, so we feel lost and unsure of what to do. Therefore, over the past thirty years of reform and opening up, our country has rapidly developed economically and gained increasing international stature, becoming a major power that cannot be ignored. There is no problem in this regard. But sometimes we feel empty inside, not knowing where to go.

This is what we call being strong and powerful yet looking around aimlessly, with a full wallet but feeling lost. The reason for feeling lost is that we have not established a new core value system that fits China’s national conditions and adapts to the market economy. To solve this problem, I personally believe we must clarify the Chinese Dream, Chinese Confusion, and Chinese Soul. We must understand where we came from, what kind of path we have traveled, so that we know where we are going and what we should do in the future. This is why I am writing about Chinese times.

Okay, let’s answer three questions. Please pass the microphone to the staff.

I want to ask, what is it that conquers the world?

What? Conquering the world? What can conquer the world?

I want to ask you, why do you want to conquer the world?

No, I just want to tell you the answer—charm.

Are you that nervous? It’s the question about writers being unrestrained and independent personalities. As far as I know, both you and Mr. Wu Si, whom you mentioned, are multidimensional and unrestrained. But you feel that now many people on the list are not what we consider writers, and this situation—how can it change the survival status of writers? Should a writer adapt to the public or maintain their independent personality?

The meaning of independent personality is, first of all, to acknowledge that everyone has an independent personality. Without this premise, discussing independent personality is meaningless. Moreover, independent personality and free will are inseparable. A person with an independent personality must have free will, and a person with free will must have an independent personality. So what is free will? It is when a person has the power to choose, meaning they have free will. Is it that you can do whatever you want, like whatever you want? No, any choice comes with consequences. In other words, a person must have the capacity for responsibility to have free will. With free will, it means they have an independent personality.

Once we clarify this logical premise, the question I want to ask is: Are the readers we face as writers people with independent personalities and free will, or not? We must believe they do. Therefore, the readers’ choice of works is their sacred and inviolable personal right. Even if they make foolish, incorrect, or ridiculous choices, as long as these choices do not harm others and society, we have no right to condemn them.

Thus, when our writers face the market, they must face the reality that readers may make foolish, stupid, erroneous, ridiculous, low-level, and vulgar choices. This is also the readers’ right. They have the right to be low-level, vulgar, and foolish. If you are noble, elegant, and charming, but people do not want to read your books, you deserve to be neglected. Do not blame the heavens or others. All noble, elegant, and refined individuals who still want to face the market, the public, and readers, have only one way out: to make themselves lovable and charming.

I firmly believe in an ancient saying: “People strive for higher places, water flows to lower places.” Most people eventually know right from wrong. Based on my decades of teaching experience, I know that all students in schools, whether elite or ordinary, are the same in one respect. Their knowledge and academic abilities may not match their teachers, but no one knows better than students who is a good teacher and who is not.

So if you believe that there are now some poorly writing people who have become rich first and you are dissatisfied, I can only say sorry. On the path of our spiritual civilization entering the market, this is the tuition and price that must be paid. Sorry, I am very regretful, but there is no way around it.

Teacher, I have a question. You mentioned that a person must have economic independence to ensure their independent personality. But I think economic independence can only ensure the “establishment” of a person’s personality, not the “independence” of it. Because previously, I could still be blind to follow others. So I want to ask, what can keep our personality “independent”?

It is like this: economic independence is only a necessary condition. It does not mean that economic independence guarantees an independent personality. I did not say that. I only said that without economic independence, personality cannot be independent. How can you be independent if you have to depend on every bite of food? It is impossible to be independent. But first, achieve economic independence. There is still a distance from economic independence to independent personality. This requires all of us to promote this kind of spirit. We need to pass down these eight words from generation to generation: independent personality, free will. Repeatedly saying it, repeatedly saying it, there will come a day when this goal can be achieved. Thank you.

Hello, I want to ask you about the meaning of “sex” and another concept of Chinese pragmatism, which also leads to our Chinese activities. I want to understand your opinion. You think that with our topic being “The Bottom Card of History,” how will our bottom card appear in the international context in the next decade? In the path of pragmatism, which core value keywords can give us some explanation?

There is a very famous detective novelist in Britain named Agatha Christie. Do you know her? Agatha Christie has a very good book called “The Bottom Card.” The bottom card is revealed only in the last chapter. I would prefer that you accompany me to walk through these 3,700 years and also accompany me for the next five to eight years, so that we can reveal the card together at that time. Thank you.

Finally, I want to say two things. I am very grateful to the teachers and students of the University of Science and Technology of China. Actually, I can still answer the question that the student just asked. I place my hopes for the future of our nation on two things: one is science and technology, and the other is the market economy. Developing these, promoting the development of our country’s science and technology, and advancing the construction of our market economy, I am powerless. All my hopes are placed on you. Thank you, everyone.