Wei and Jin did not submit to Zhou

Chapter 74: A Little Popular Science

Let me first mention the update time. It will be changed to 12 noon, since updating at midnight is too unlucky.

Then I'll do a little bit of popular science. Although I have a lot to say, I'm trying to restrain the urge to talk nonsense, which means avoiding arguing with readers about right and wrong or winning and losing.

What kind of world was it during the transition from the Wei to the Jin dynasties? I would like to discuss this from the following points:

1. A political environment where rule by man is completely absent, with no element of the rule of law whatsoever.

2. The back-and-forth oscillation between the military-first model of fiscal policy and the traditional tax system of registering households and equalizing the people.

3. Families that have already seized power, and those who are unaware that they have already succeeded in seizing power but are still struggling aimlessly.

4. The magical misalignment between the extreme contraction of the commodity economy and the extreme increase in manor production efficiency.

5. A social atmosphere that prioritizes reputation, leads to moral decay, and fosters sycophancy.

I'll address each point one by one; I may not be able to finish in this article.

Point 1 is easy to understand, but we still need to elaborate on it.

In this era, due to the relationship between productivity and war, the cost of the rule of law is extremely high! How high? Unimaginable.

Because papermaking technology was still immature, there simply wasn't enough bamboo to make enough bamboo slips to advance the rule of law. Other problems are too numerous to mention; every single technical detail was a stumbling block.

It's like a piece of paper that's almost entirely black; if someone asks where the black is, there's no way to answer. In short, it's everywhere, so focusing on any one aspect is meaningless.

The imperial court (including Wei, Wu, and Shu, with Shu being slightly better off due to its rule by men) barely interfered in local affairs. To put it simply, there weren't enough "civil servants" to handle the work!

To maintain stability, the only option was to rely on powerful local clans to handle those troubles. For the sake of war, stability and the overall situation were paramount.

The second point will probably be confusing to some people.

First, let's talk about the military-first fiscal policy. As the name suggests, everything was geared towards fighting. The purpose of taxation was to fund the war effort, so under the conditions at the time, there were no fixed rules for taxation; the more taxes collected, the better.

This made the traditional system of registering households and collecting taxes from self-cultivating farmers very unstable. In other words, because the population changes in a prefecture or county were too drastic, the traditional system was no longer worth trying.

Therefore, the imperial court's procurement of war materials leaned towards the establishment of military farms to collect food, the tribute from wealthy and powerful families (who contributed manpower and resources to the war effort), and the monopoly on daily necessities such as salt and iron.

The idea of ​​a 10% tax rate for self-cultivating farmers, or county officials collecting taxes from farmers' homes—this kind of imagined scenario is far removed from reality. In other words, weak local administrative agencies didn't have the time or inclination to deal with such trivial matters; that's a scene from the Ming and Qing dynasties, the era of small landlords.

Because the late Three Kingdoms period and the early Western Jin Dynasty were marked by periods of war and relative stability, the state's need for war was sometimes tense and sometimes relaxed. This led to repeated setbacks in fiscal reforms during the Three Kingdoms and even the Western Jin Dynasty.

I want to relax but can't; being constantly tense is very uncomfortable.

This resulted in the economic development at the societal level over several decades being far slower than that of the later Sui and Tang dynasties.

Point 3 is somewhat interesting.

In the late Three Kingdoms period and even the Western Jin Dynasty, it's generally agreed that powerful clans successfully seized power. Traditional forces like eunuchs and imperial relatives had already withdrawn from the political arena and no longer held real power. We won't delve into the complexities of the Shu Kingdom's political system, as it had its own unique historical circumstances.

After the Cao Wei dynasty implemented the Nine-Rank System, there were no longer any obstacles for powerful families to rise to power. The establishment of the Western Jin dynasty by the Sima family, a prominent clan, is one such example.

Although the situation was different in Eastern Wu, it was an undeniable fact that powerful families monopolized political resources and decision-making power.

There's not much to say about these points, but what's interesting is the following sentence: Although the powerful families had already seized power, they were unaware that they had already seized power.

These people still think like "gamblers," not like casinos.

Therefore, when studying the history of the Western Jin Dynasty, one experiences a strong sense of dissonance. On one hand, powerful clans controlled the government, while on the other hand, they were constantly vying for power and engaging in cutthroat competition with each other.

This led to the casino closing down and going bankrupt.

It wasn't until the Eastern Jin Dynasty that these powerful families became relatively politically mature and skillfully adopted a stable model similar to that of the Zhou Dynasty's emperor and feudal lords.

Therefore, the Eastern Jin Dynasty was the era of Lao Deng, while the late Three Kingdoms period and even the Western Jin Dynasty were a transitional period of madness, bizarre behavior, and constant exploration of new ways to play.

I've read some of the readers' comments. Some might be from fellow professionals offering sarcastic remarks, while others simply don't understand this era.

In short, I don't want to argue; there's no point in trying to prove who's right or wrong.

With a deeper understanding of the social and historical context, the same event can lead to different conclusions. Just as different floors offer different views, the scenery itself remains the same, the difference lies in the angle of observation.

That's all for today's science lesson. We'll talk about the remaining questions next time.

(End of this chapter)