A Study On The Change Of The Policy Of Cutting Feudalism In The Early Western Han Dynasty

In the early Western Han Dynasty,due to the implementation of the parallel system of counties and states,emperors and vassals "ruled the world together",which had its own specific historical reasons.However,with the development of history,these vassals grew in power and gradually had the ambition of competing with the central government.Therefore,from the period of Liu Bang,Emperor Gao,to the period of Liu Che,Emperor Wu,the local kingdom problem became an urgent domestic issue for the central government to solve in the early Western Han Dynasty.Liu Bang took enfeoffing vassals of the same surname as the main means to maintain the rule after he set aside the different vassals.This measure maintained the stability of the early Western Han Dynasty to a great extent,but it backfired from the point of view of the central imperial power.At that time,due to the needs of The Times,the central government gave great political and economic power to the local vassals,which enabled them to accumulate a large amount of wealth and gradually developed into kingdoms independent of the central government,threatening the central government’s rule.Therefore,on the premise of not abolishing the existence of the kingdom,how to weaken the power of the vassal king,so that it could not pose a threat to the central rule,became the ruler had to deal with a serious problem.The rulers at this time had no historical experience to draw on and had to explore their own step-by-step solution to the problem.In order to maintain the rule of the central government,Jia Yi in the period of Emperor Wen advocated the use of system to resolve the possible end of the disaster,so he proposed the strategy of "building up vassals but reducing their power" and the strategy of "controlling vassals by relatives" to attack and limit the power of vassals and Kings,which was the first "cutting down vassals" in the Western Han Dynasty.Chao Cuo in the reign of Emperor Jing advocated directly expropriating the fief of a vassal king and offered the policy of "expropriating a vassal".Although the chaos of the seven states of Wu and Chu was triggered,Emperor Jing took the opportunity to reclaim the political privilege of the vassal king and expropriate his fief,which was the key step of "expropriating a vassal" in the Western Han Dynasty.Drawing on the historical experience of Jia Yi and Chao Cuo’s advocation of cutting off vassals,the Zhufu Yan of Emperor Wudi put forward the Order of "promoting favor".The vassal states were divided into several small vassal states without bloodshed.With Emperor Wudi’s great talent and strategy,the kingdom problem of the Western Han Dynasty was completely solved.In short,the three dynasties of Wen,Jing and Wu took the "cutting of vassals" as the first policy to solve the problems of the kingdom,which was supported by the Han law.The kingdom experienced the active period of enfeffication in the period of Gao Emperor,the declining period of the reign of Empress Lu,Emperor Wen and Emperor Jing,and the weak period of Emperor Wu’s reform.After repeated division and cutting,the problems of the kingdom that troubled the Han Court were solved,and the vassal Kings were no longer able to fight against the central government.