It is well known that a people’s long history and cultural maturity are both a valuable asset and a heavy burden.
Some scholars who are concerned about the present day often find that real-life problems have been around for a long time, and scholars who are engaged in historical research often see that the accumulated ills of history return in life, and that the corpse returns to the soul.
Therefore, it is not only for historians but also for people who are concerned with reality to examine the inheritance and development of 4,000 years of history and culture, and to examine the advantages and disadvantages.
Mr. Wu Si is a rare scholar who is both familiar with history and concerned with reality. His book “Subterfuge: The Real Game in Chinese History” has been welcomed by many readers for its in-depth excavation and detailed analysis.
Recently, when studying historical and cultural issues, scholars often find that the existing concepts are not enough, so they create their own concepts to analyze the problems and summarize the rules. Some of these concepts have been quickly recognized by the academic community and used by many scholars, such as Huang Zongxi’s law, the subtle rules, etc. Some of these concepts have to pass the test of time.
Subterfuge is Mr. Wu Si first used, know this point will not be the historical documents in many facade as the historical reality.
Wu Si is an expert in the creation of new concepts, read his articles, I feel that he created the most new concepts, I think many will be tested by the use of the academic community to accept.
For example, blood money is one of them, and by extension, legal money. The value of blood money is determined by the value of the goal being fought for. If one were to kidnap someone, the value of kidnapping Jia Baoyu would be very different from that of kidnapping Jiao Da. If a bandit does not loot the area he is robbing, but only collects protection money periodically, then the remainder of the protection money, minus the cost of carrying out the protection, is the legal value of the reward.
Why do we study the issue of blood money and legal fees? The purpose is to find out the historical pattern of bandits turning into officials and officials turning into bandits and bandits turning into people and people turning into bandits. What are the internal driving forces behind these changes?
There are many similar new concepts. For example, extrajudicial prisons, gray prisons, the collective name for the officials and servants outside the establishment, white officers, the rules governing subterfuge, white rules, pumping rules, legitimacy of the right to harm, horizontal rules, and even the fundamental rule of the rules, that is, the meta-rule of the strongest violence, and so on.
The author uses these concepts to strip away the complexity of traditional Chinese politics, layer by layer, to reveal the process of maximizing benefits through violence.
Most of these concepts do not go beyond the scope of subterfuge. The above mentioned grey prison, white staff, white rules, etc. are all off the table, but in the real political or economic life, like the pump rule, the horizontal rule, the legitimacy of the right to harm, and other rules can be done but not said.
From this, we can see that traditional politics is really complicated. It has so many circles, so many uncertainties and non-standardization, as if it is the Sphinx’s riddle which is difficult to solve. To put it simply, in the final analysis, it is still the pursuit of maximizing interests through various means.
Why is such a simple issue made so complicated in traditional political culture? I am afraid the main reason is that the positive rules are too ambitious, which sounds good, but they are too restrictive and hinder the pursuit of maximizing benefits, so there must be a set of subtle rules.
Why is it that when the positive rules are formulated, the greatest interests of the rulers are not included in the positive rules? There are two main reasons: first, ideological constraints, and second, constraints on the pursuit of long-term interests.
In terms of ideology, Confucianism has dominated since the Han Dynasty, and it is the Si-Meng school of Confucianism. Mencius was an idealistic thinker. He believed that all rulers should be saints, and even if they were not, they should learn to be saints, be kind to the people and love the things, and practise benevolence. Confucianism is also strict on the distinction between righteousness and profit, and emphasizes the legitimacy of the means of obtaining benefits, so to speak, “The rich and the noble are not righteous, but they are like floating clouds to me”.
These basic principles of Confucianism have been taken into account in the establishment of rituals, laws and policies of successive dynasties. In addition, most of the people who established the laws of a dynasty were the founding kings. Most of these kings had experienced the sorrows and dangers of war, and had fought for the world by taking the risk of being shot at. They knew how hard it was for them to build a kingdom, and they understood that water can carry a boat, but it can also capsize it. When they formulated their strategies, they would always look at the long-term interests.
In this way, the positive rules formulated by the previous generation would inevitably form a great tension with the realistic pursuit of interests by the successors of the next generation, and the positive rules had to be adhered to, so the subterranean rules would inevitably appear. Even if the emperors were not all those who had no sense of responsibility for their children and grandchildren, assuming that they also attached importance to the long-term interests of the dynasty, it would be very difficult for them to control the officials who sought to maximize their interests.
If the real political life is operated in accordance with the subtle rules, it’s not a big deal. As long as people abandon the positive rules in their minds, that’s all that’s needed.
In reality, this is not the case. Not only do the positive rules enjoy nominal legitimacy, but they may also be able to enter into the operational level in a certain field or issue and exclude the subtle rules. Moreover, the subtle rules are subject to the constraints of the white rules. Moreover, it cannot be argued that the educational influence of Confucianism is totally ineffective. This makes it even more difficult to master traditional politics.
In order to navigate through traditional politics, one has to take into full consideration the uncertainty and non-standardization of politics. It is important to distinguish between what is said and prepared to be done and what is said and unprepared to be done in political life what is done and prepared to be said and what is done and unprepared to be said. A mistake is a thousand miles. The beauty of application lies in the mind.
Of course, it’s not certain that the initiative and the final decision is in the hands of the strongest. Need to try hard to figure out, just want to get a cup of soup from the strongest audience of the ministers, and the masses of people in front of the strongest just only the canopy and has been, sad man!
Mr. Wang Xuetai, Researcher, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
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