The Study Of Jia Yi's Political Thoughts

As a political thinker of the early former Han dynasty, Jia Yi is always an indispensable part of the research of the Han intellectual history whose political ideology has played an irreplaceable role in four hundred years of peace and stability of the Han dynasty. Jia Yi focuses his attention on political design frequently because of his awareness of the issues of the safety in the world. Therefore, we need to study Jia Yi's thought macroscopically instead of microcosmically and pay attention to his political design so as to understand and illustrate his ideas more thoroughly.Jia Yi's political ideology which emerged at the end of the Qin dynasty and the beginning of the Han period has its own historical and academic background. Historically speaking, the Han inherited the administrative apparatus of the Qin, which shows the Han's difficulty to rule the state and deficiency of people with intelligence and statecraft. Moreover, Han people want to live a peaceful and stable life during the period of recession, so the non-interventionist policies are needed to let the nation "rest and recover". Academically speaking, Jia Yi was reared in the background of Confucianism which centered in Luo Yang, studying "Book of Songs", "Book of Documents" and six arts of the nobleman("Six Classics"), taking in other thoughts such as Daoism, Legalism, Mohism and Yin-Yang School at the same time. The formation of Jia Yi's political ideology also has its realistic background:the policy of curtailing the power of the families of imperial consorts, Emperor Wen's ascending to the throne, the continuous impact of Huang-Lao thought on people and national administration.The logic starting point of Jia Yi's political design was put forward during the process of finding out the faults of the Qin and warning the Han of possibility of repeating the same mistakes of the Qin, namely, the theory of ruling with kindheartedness. Jia Yi argued that the demise of the Qin resulted from its abolition of "Benevolent Ruling". He didn't just condemn the legalism of the Qin like other thinkers of the early Han period. He affirmed Qin's historical role to unify the whole country and its achievement of defeating the Han. His ideas were adopted by Sang Hongyang in the period of Emperor Wu. However, Jia Yi still wanted to trace to the rites of the Zhou dynasty and build up a time of peace and prosperity by proposing unique methods for a peaceful reign, the so-called Zhi'an ce, to demand the Hans to surrender when he was interpreting the statecraft of former emperors.There are two inherent features in Jia Yi's theory of kingcraft which is an important element of his political layout. One is "Shi"("Timing"), on which ruling a state depends to avoid the country to be ruined. The emperors should be able to identify the shift of "Shi", the other is "Ming", which can recognize and understand the general trend of the events happened in the world. "Ming" and "Cheng" are a binary whole. "Shi" and "Ming" are the intrinsic features of Jia Yi's theory of kingcraft. Jia Yi raised the question of the possibility of governing as a king, namely, the ways of establishing a monarch which explains the reasonability of being a king, and the ways of governing as a king who emphasize on the actuality of the king's behaviour. In order to understand the ways of governing as a king, you should first understand the ways of establishing a monarch, which is the most valuable and ignored part of Jia Yi's theory of kingcraft. Thus, Jia Yi advocated the theory of ruling by ritual instead of ruling by the law in his political thought. He supplemented a focus on rites and music with law, supplemented a focus on educating with punishment to carry out the policy of ruling by rites. Only by this way, he insisted, can a time of peace and prosperity appear. Jia Yi's theory of ruling by rites was originated in two chaotic phenomena, the arrogation of vassal states and luxury of folk customs which resulted in the situation of not being related to relatives and not venerating the venerable. He pointed out the reason why the feudal vassal states arrogated is that there was no rules and regulations to abide by. Hence, Jia Yi proposed the milder scheme of "Tuienzhongjian" to cut apart the territories of the vassal states. The emperor accordingly issued edicts to change social traditions, stabilize the country and the society and regain the confidence of the public.People-oriented thought is the most significant part of Confucian political ideology which emphasizes that people are the basis of administering state affairs well and ensuring national security and the importance of people-oriented idea in the tug war between the emperor and the people. Jia Yi's people-oriented thought, the most systematic one in ancient times, inherited the essence of people-oriented thought of the Pre-qin period and ushered in two thousand years of ideological trend of humanism after the Han dynasty. It holds that the purpose of respecting the monarch is to respect people, which supplies powerful intellectual impetus and theoretical basis to Emperor Wen's statecraft. Benevolent government and loving people are the characteristics of Jia Yi's people-oriented thought which laid the foundation for the fusion of Confucianism and imperial power by putting forward core ideas of "valuing the people", "reassuring the people", "enriching the people" and "discussing state affairs democratically".