For the vast majority of people in the entire civilization, they hope that those in power can perform their duties as much as possible. If not, it would be better to replace them.
But for the people in power themselves, they very much don’t want to be replaced. They even hope that their family can rule for generations. No matter how bad the job is, it is best not to replace them.
These two desires are bound to conflict. The hereditary monarchy system is not so much derived from the concentration of power as it is the result of mutual compromise between different classes.
The excessive level of militarization and organizational capabilities that are higher than historical norms have kept the Central Plains regime in a state of overload operation all year round. To put it bluntly, this kind of unified dynasty should never have appeared under the conditions of productivity and technology. It was forced by the entire society to "overclock".
This form of organization has very high requirements for decision-making efficiency, so everyone actually has no choice but to do this.
In this environment, the best explanation for the source of power, as mentioned above, is to directly tell everyone, "I am here to lead you to better deal with disasters, defeat the enemy, and let everyone live a good life." In fact, The emperors were well aware of this, and whenever they had the opportunity, they would preach peace and tranquility under their rule, with He Qing and Hai Yan. Because this is the best convincing evidence.
As long as we can answer this question head-on and give everyone a similar answer, ordinary people will often not be too entangled. In this case, a ruler like Yongzheng could also cooperate with the "regional theory" to persuade everyone to accept his management.
But the main problem is that he can't just think about himself, but also the entire family. In other words, you have to convince everyone that even if your own descendants are not good enough, everyone must let him hold the highest power.
Moreover, this requirement was at the heart of dynastic power. As an emperor, you must meet this condition, even if you don't have such selfish motives and don't care whether your own son ascends the throne.
This reason can be seen from the late Ming Dynasty.
When the news that Emperor Chongzhen hanged himself reached Jiangnan, a slave riot immediately broke out there. The domestic slaves of the gentry rebelled one after another, tortured and even killed their masters. Because in their view, the death of the emperor and the end of the dynasty also means the overall collapse of the previous order - there will be no monarchs and ministers in the future, and naturally there will be no masters and servants.
This principle is actually similar to the situation in the Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties. The existence of order is an overall network from top to bottom. When the emperor's military dictatorship was destroyed, the military dictatorship of Jiedushi was also destroyed; similarly, when the emperor's personal control was destroyed, the gentry's personal control was also destroyed.
As a result of this incident, the gentry in the south of the Yangtze River was greatly shocked, and they took action one after another, inviting the Qing army to go south quickly to calm the situation. Obviously, in the face of this situation, the distinction between Huayi and Huayi has become a dispensable rule again.
Therefore, the emperor maintained the hereditary system not only for himself, but also for the royal family, and for all the scholar-bureaucrats and squires in the world.
Even if the emperor does not allow his son to ascend the throne and chooses an adopted son as his successor, it is not impossible - this has happened more than once. But as long as you want to be an "orthodox" dynasty, you have to follow this path. Because for the gentry, there must be someone who sits on the throne and maintains this order. If the emperor dares to touch this red line, he will be abandoned.
Therefore, even if some dynasties came to power because the previous dynasty was too tyrannical and raised troops to overthrow the previous dynasty, they could not regard this reason as the main part of their legitimacy. Even a unified empire like the Han Dynasty, which can be said to have the highest legitimacy, still had to find a bunch of prophecies and the like to modify it to avoid the embarrassing situation of the "horse liver theory".
At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the legitimacy narrative of the traditional unified empire had actually reached its end. This can be discovered from Li Zicheng and others before the Qing Dynasty entered the customs.
Li Zicheng not only failed to transform himself, but there were no people like Zhu Yuanzhang or Liu Xiu among his subordinates, and he could not even "pioneer for the king". One of the reasons may be that at this time, the traditional thinking is almost over.
Li Zicheng also came from a lower-class background, but he did not cut off from the peasant army like Zhu Yuanzhang did; nor did he make a series of statements such as remembering the previous dynasty or claiming that he was not deliberately rebelling, but instead used banners such as "suppressing the troops and calming the people." At this point, it has gone a few steps further than Zhu Yuanzhang did back then.
Of course, the result of this is that he never gets the support of the gentry.
On the other hand, although the gentry did not support Li Zicheng and others, they failed to support "Liu Xiu" themselves. They finally surrendered to the Eight Banners of Manchuria, but they could only serve as slaves and could no longer become "partners" of the dynasty as before. This signal also seems to indicate that their era is coming to an end and their strength has declined significantly.
Some people in later generations felt that the civilization of the Central Plains did not seem to have the monarchy restoration stage common in other places, so they believed that it was more suitable for a republic. Once inspired by the new concept, they immediately abandoned the original outdated concepts. But from the perspective of legitimacy theory, in fact, the entire Qing Dynasty can be regarded as the "restoration era" of the Central Plains civilization.
The legal system of the Ming Dynasty was so complete that it even used slogans of national justice that might not appear in other places until modern times. But after the Ming Dynasty could not hold on, the traditional legitimacy construction could no longer produce more new things.
At this time, the gentry, warlords and many other forces within the Central Plains used the semi-civilized foreign armies in the border areas to crush the reform attempts within the Central Plains. Li Zicheng and others made the leader of the barbarian tribe the emperor.
This can be said to be a step back, but it also means that the traditional hereditary dynasty is coming to an end.
The system of the Qing Dynasty was indeed very complete, and the average quality of the highest rulers of the Qing Dynasty was actually very high. But the more advanced and powerful it is in this regard, the more it proves that this dynasty, and even the dynastic era of the entire Central Plains civilization, is in decline.
Therefore, the Qing Dynasty also showed a strange state of coexistence of "reactionary" and "advanced" - it had to maintain an efficient organization to suppress unprecedented fierce resistance. In this regard, the Qing Dynasty was even relatively successful.
However, this efficient ruling machine is also efficiently consuming the power of supporters from all walks of life at home and abroad. In the end, the Qing Dynasty tried almost everything it could, but still failed. At this time, the barbarian armies, royalist gentry, and even "foreign loyal ministers" were completely powerless to stop the historical trend.
In this way, it is not difficult to explain that there was no effective restoration after the Qing Dynasty: after the Song Dynasty, the monarchy and the corresponding gentry class began to decline; after the Ming Dynasty, it fell. The Qing Dynasty was a long restoration process. After all the power was burned out, it was no longer possible to try again.
(End of chapter)
