VOLUME IV, CHAPTER 8, SECTION 2
The First Emperor's Five Foundations
Last section covered that centralized authority is a life-level law, one Han Feizi set out clearly twenty-three hundred years ago. But setting out a law and making it into an institution that can run two thousand years are two different things. This section is about one person who, over twenty-two hundred years ago, made centralized authority into a complete institution for the first time, called the founding ancestor of human political institutions. He is the First Emperor.
The year two hundred twenty-one before the common era is a watershed in the political history of humankind. In that year a Chinese man, Ying Zheng, ended the tradition of parceling the realm out to lords that had run in China since the Xia, Shang, and Zhou for some eighteen hundred years and more, integrated the whole of China into one great state ruled directly by the center, and designed for this new state a whole set of institutions never seen before, the office of emperor, the commandery-and-county system, the bureaucracy, unified standards, a network of roads, all built from nothing. In that year Ying Zheng named himself First Emperor, meaning the emperor at the beginning, believing this institution could last ten thousand generations. In fact the Qin collapsed a few short years after his death, only fifteen years from founding to fall. But the Qin fell and the institutions of the Qin did not. The centralized-authority system the First Emperor founded became the political blueprint of every dynasty in China for the twenty-two hundred years after. The year two hundred twenty-one before the common era is not only a key year in Chinese history, it is a key year in the political history of humankind, because in that year, for the first time, the political form of the centralized great state appeared, and every great state after, East and West, at bottom repeats this design in some degree. To understand what the First Emperor achieved, one must first know what came before him.
Sketch the political forms of humankind before the First Emperor, and there were four. The first, the city-state, the city-states of ancient Greece like Athens and Sparta each independent, each very small in area, deciding mainly by the assembly of citizens, unable to expand into a large state, unable to hold together once the population passed a few hundred thousand. The second, the parceling out of the realm, the three dynasties of Xia, Shang, and Zhou in China and medieval Europe, the Son of Heaven or the king granting land to lords or nobles, the lords on their own land nearly independent little kings, the core feature a multi-center politics, at bottom a loose alliance. The third, the early forms of kingdom and empire, ancient Egypt, Babylon, Persia, the empire of Alexander, states relatively concentrated with a king or an emperor, but still depending inside on a mass of local nobles, a priestly class, and provincial governors, these local power-centers holding considerable independence. The fourth, the tribal alliance, several tribes loosely joined, uniting before a common enemy and each independent in ordinary times, with no true central government. Of these four, none was centralized authority in the true sense, the city-state too small in scale, the parceled realm multi-center, the early empire concentrated in name but depending in fact on local power, the tribal alliance with no center at all. The centralized great state humankind needed, large in scale, truly concentrated, and institutionalized, did not exist before the First Emperor. This is the First Emperor's place, that in the year two hundred twenty-one before the common era he built, for the first time in human history, a true centralized great state.
After unifying the six states, the First Emperor did five things, and these five together make up the core structure of human political institutions. The first, to abolish the parceling out of the realm and set up commanderies and counties. After the unification the court debated how to govern the realm, some urging that the princes be granted distant regions and the tradition of parceling continued, and Li Si opposed it fiercely, pointing out that the Zhou too had parceled the realm out, and later the lords attacked each other and the Son of Heaven could not control them, which was the root of the five centuries and more of the great disorder of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States. The First Emperor took Li Si's counsel, abolished the parceling out, divided the whole realm into many commanderies, each set with a governor, a commandant, and a supervising censor, all appointed by the center and answering directly to the emperor. This layer wholly broke the thousands of years of local hereditary tradition, the former lord's position passing in a family being dynastic enfeoffment, and the later governor's position appointed by the center, moved or replaced after a few years, never letting anyone build a hereditary power on the ground. The commandery-and-county system became from then on the basic model of local governance in China for twenty-two hundred years, and today China's five tiers of province, city, county, township, and village, and America's states, counties, and cities, are at bottom extensions of this. The second, to set up the office of emperor and establish the highest authority. The First Emperor gathered the honored titles of the ancient sovereigns and coined the title emperor. But the emperor was not only a title, it was a whole institution, the emperor the highest decision-center of the state, holding the final power of legislation, the highest power of appointment, the highest judicial power, the highest military power, the highest economic power, the first time in human history such a concentration of political authority appeared, the kings, pharaohs, and sultans before having no such all-round concentration of power. Understand that the office of emperor was not the personal ambition of the First Emperor, it was the institutional need of a centralized great state, a great state of tens of millions of people across millions of square kilometers must have one concentrated decision-center, or return to the chaos of the age of parceling. For the twenty-one hundred years after, every dynasty in China carried on this office of emperor, whatever the personal ability of the emperor, the institution itself staying stable.
The third, to set up the bureaucracy. An emperor alone was not enough, one person cannot handle all the affairs of a great state, and there must be a bureaucracy. The First Emperor founded the system of the three lords and nine ministers, the three lords the highest administrative officer, the highest military officer, and the highest supervisory officer, their division of labor clear and checking each other, the nine ministers nine central department-level officials each managing a share. The three lords and nine ministers together made up the first central government in the true sense in human history. This structure was not the First Emperor's personal invention, it was gradually perfected through several generations of Qin governing practice since the reforms of Shang Yang. For the twenty-one hundred years after, the central government structure of China all evolved from the three lords and nine ministers, the Han's three lords and nine ministers, the Sui and Tang's three departments and six ministries, the Ming's cabinet and six ministries, the Qing's grand council, the structure changing but the spirit of the center having specialized departments with a division of labor always of one line, and today the premier plus ministers of the governments of the world are at bottom extensions of this structure. The fourth, to unify standards. The First Emperor unified the realm's writing, cart-track width, weights and measures, currency, and law. Writing made one, the small seal script made the unified writing of the realm, so decrees, law, and culture could be conveyed consistently. Carts to one track, the wheel-width of carts fixed uniform for the realm, roads, city gates, and bridges all built to it. Measures to one system, the standards of length, volume, and weight unified. Currency unified, the round coin with a square hole fixed for the realm, a form that shaped every currency for the twenty-one hundred years after. Law unified, the legal standard made consistent for the realm. These five unifications together made up the first true national standardization in human history, the great states before never reaching this degree, and China became for the first time a truly integrated state. The fifth, the network of roads, building a national road network from the capital to every region, the imperial highways running east and west, the direct road running north and south, thousands of kilometers in all, the first true national trunk-road system in human history. Why build it? Because centralized authority needs the central decree to reach the whole country fast and the central army to move fast to any region, and without the road network even the strongest centralized authority is only nominal. The First Emperor's highways and direct road turned centralized authority from theory into fact, the capital's order able to reach the whole country within a few days, a state of the center actually controlling the whole country that no political body before had achieved.
Look back, and why are these five foundations so important? Because together they solved every core problem of running a centralized great state. The commandery-and-county system solved local governance, making local power an extension of central power, not letting the localities form independent powers. The office of emperor solved the highest decision, giving the state one clear final decision-center. The three lords and nine ministers solved central governance, giving the emperor a professional bureaucracy at his side. The unified standards solved national integration, letting the whole country run by unified rules. The road network solved actual central control, letting the center's orders and resources truly reach every region. The five working together form a complete system for running a centralized great state, incomplete without any one, and the five together mean humankind for the first time held the political technology to govern a great state of tens of millions, which no civilization before had achieved and which every great state after has used. This is why the First Emperor is called the founding ancestor of political institutions, not because he personally was so great, but because in the year two hundred twenty-one before the common era he completed the most far-reaching institutional innovation in the political history of humankind, an institution that ran on for twenty-two hundred years and is still the base structure of great states today.
These five were not the personal invention of the First Emperor on a whim, they were the joint result of several generations of Qin governing practice, the theory of Legalist thought, and key decision-makers, and the most crucial moment was that court debate. In the year of the unification the First Emperor called the ministers to discuss how to govern, the chancellor speaking for the majority in favor of parceling the realm out, on the ground that the newly unified regions were too distant and needed princes to guard them, and the commandant of justice Li Si opposing it fiercely, his argument changing the political history of humankind. Li Si held that the sons and kin the Zhou kings had enfeoffed, of the same surname and very many, grew distant as the generations passed and attacked each other like foes, and the Son of Heaven could not stop them. Li Si's core argument was that the Zhou's parceling out led in the end to the lords attacking each other and the Son of Heaven losing control, a lesson of history, and that with the realm now unified all should be made commanderies and counties, easier to control, the way to the peace of the state. The First Emperor supported Li Si, his judgment being that the reason the realm knew no end of war was precisely the existence of the lord-kings, and that now with unification hard-won, to set up lords again would be to plant new seeds of war. This court debate decided the direction of the political history of humankind. Had the First Emperor taken the counsel to parcel the realm out, China for the twenty-two hundred years after might have carried on the kind of feudal arrangement of medieval Europe, and the political form of the centralized great state might have appeared centuries or even a thousand years later. The three ancestors, Han Feizi's theory, Li Si's execution, and the First Emperor's realization, together completed this most far-reaching institutional innovation in the political history of humankind.
So here is the position this section lays down. We set one layer firm: the year two hundred twenty-one before the common era is a watershed in the political history of humankind. The First Emperor completed in that year five foundations, abolishing the parceling out and setting up commanderies and counties, setting up the office of emperor, setting up the three lords and nine ministers, unifying standards, and building a road network, together the core structure of human political institutions. This structure became the political blueprint of every great state for the twenty-two hundred years after, China of the East and the great states of the modern West at bottom all using this design. The three ancestors, Han Feizi the theoretical founder of centralized authority, Li Si the executor of the institution, the First Emperor the actual builder, together completed this institutional innovation, earlier than any comparable Western thought and practice by some eighteen hundred to two thousand years. This is one of the deepest, most solid, and most lasting contributions of China to the political wisdom of humankind.
But here is a question. Once this institution was set up, on what did it win? Why, for the twenty-two hundred years after, was nearly every contest of great states a victory of centralized authority over scattered politics? Where exactly is the strength of this institution? The next section is about why centralized authority works.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.