Chin Cheng, And Its View Of History The Basis Of Research

Shih Huang-ti,the ruler of Qin Dynasty,set up the Qin Empire in 221B.C.and established a set of rules for the centralized empire.Although the existence of the empire was only fifteen years,its ruling system had a significant and profound impact on two thousand years of Chinese feudal society,just as the summary generalized:"Qin Zheng is the political system of two-thousand-year ancient society of China." "It's Qin Zheng that the governments' policy was applied by authorities from varied classes during all dynasties behind Qin."As the reference of government,"Qin Zheng" was succeeded by the rulers of all dynastis;meanwhile,it was criticized and deprecated.The features of "Qin Zheng",its historical foundation,and the situation of contradictions about the evaluations of it,are the questions that will be researched in the thesis.With the guidance of the Marxism history theory,the thesis studies the ruling system of Qin Dynasty which could be generalized as "Qin Zheng" in depth,on the basis of original documents and the relative academic achievements.It also summarizes the traits of Qin's ruling system and the traits hiding behind the concrete political code from a macro-view,then tries to discuss the "Qin Zheng" in the view of history in order to discover its historical foundation,by means of analysis,induction,discussion and quoting historical facts.The thesis is composed of the preface,the body dividing into three chapters and the conclusion.The preface demonstrates the significance of the thesis and the academic achievements about the topic in brief.The first chapter of the body outlines "Qin Zheng" and reveals its meaning.The second chapter discusses the traits of"Qin Zheng" from several aspects: the emperor system characterized by totalitarianism,the ruling system characterized by "discarding the county system,adopting the enforcement system ",the governing thought of "obeying the law,learning from the governors",the cultural policy of "burning books and burying scholars",the political conduct characterized by harshness and cruelty,the extreme utilitarianism in governing and so on.The third chapter amplifies the historical foundation of "Qin Zheng" in the Legalist's view of history.To some extent,the victory of Qin Dynasty is the victory of Legalism,and the success of Qin Dynasty is the success of Legalism.This chapter compares Legalism with Confucianism in four aspects:the view of the world characterized by unified whole,the faith of divine providence characterized by the theory of Five Elements,the conception of heaven and human characterized by "valuing people while fooling them" and the conception of history characterized by "valuing the present while depreciating the past".The conclusion summarized the content of the thesis.