2020年08月26日
近代国家を最初に樹立した中国
中央集権的な官僚制度を最初に確立した中国は、兵士の動員率もずば抜けていた。ローマ帝国が人口の5%くらいを戦時に兵士として動員していたのに対し、中国を最初に統一した秦は8-20%を動員していたという。
動員数が多いから、犠牲者も多くなる。紀元前217年に起こったカルタゴとのトラシメヌス湖畔の戦いの犠牲者は5万人とされているが、秦の場合、紀元前293年の戦いでは24万人、紀元前260年の戦いでは45万人が死んだと記録されている（中国なので誇張もあるかもしれないが）。
秦がこうした大規模で効率的な官僚システムを作れたのは、法家の考え方を取り入れたからだった。それまでの中国は他国同様、同族を中心とする社会だったが、これは腐敗につながり、大きな国にはならない。そこに「法による統治」を持ち込んだのが秦であった。
以来、現在に至るまで、中国の歴史は、「法家と儒家との対立の歴史」だという。そして、漢族としての共通文化、歴史認識、共通言語が確立したのも、秦とそれに続く漢の時代であった。こうした共通文化の認識は、国が滅んでも残り、時代を経てまた漢族による統一国家が造られることになった。
106: From the standpoint of political development, the critical aspect of European feudalism was not the economic relationship between lord and vassal but the decentralization of power it implied.111: When compared to other warlike societies, China's bloody record during the Eastern Zhou stands out. One scholar has calculated that in the 294-year duration of the Spring and Autumn period, more than 1,211 wars were fought between and among Chinese "states." Throughout this entire period, there were only 38 years of peace. More than 110 political units were extinguished during this time.Compared to other militaristic societies, China under Zhou was remarkably violent. By one estimate, the state of Qin succeeded in mobilizing 8 to 20 percent of its total population, compared to only 1% for the Roman Republic and 5.2% for the Greek Delian League. Rates of mobilization were even lower in early modern Europe. Casualties were also of unprecedented scale. Livy reports that the Roman Republic lost approximately 50,000 soldiers in their defeats at Lake Trasimene and Cannae; a Chinese memorialist claims that 240,000 soldiers died in one battle in 293 B.C. and 450,000 in another in 260.113: The Growth of BureaucracyIt is safe to say that the Chinese invented modern bureaucracy, that is, a permanent administrative cadre selected on the basis of ability rather than kinship or patrimonial connection.119: Confucianism vs. legalismThe policies implemented by Shang Yang in Qin were justified and turned into a full-blown ideology known as Legalism by later writers like Han Fei. Much of China's subsequent history up through the Communist victory in 1949 can be understood in terms of the tensions between Legalism and Confucianism, a tension that revolved in part around the appropriate role of the family in politics.135: The nature of Han governmentIn the year 5 B.C., when the registered population of China was sixty million, there were already about 130,000 bureaucrats serving in the capital and provinces. Schools were set up to train young men, beginning at age seventeen, for government service, where they would be tested for their ability to read different styles of script, to keep accounts, and the like.149: Why China reunified has implications for contemporary developing countriesDuring Qin and Han dynasties, China developed a common culture in addition to creating a strong state... China was defined by a shared written language, a classical literary canon, a bureaucratic tradition, a shared history, empirewide educational institutions, and a value system that dictated elite behavior at both the political and social levels. That sense of cultural unity remained even when the state disappeared.150: China and India are differentThe default Chinese political condition over the past two millennia was to be a centralized bureaucratic state punctuated by periods of disunity and decay; India's default situation was to be a series of small, squabbling kingdoms and principalities, punctuated by a brief periods of political unity.
