In the long history of human civilization of more than 5,000 years, the Chinese civilization is a great miracle.

Since 221 B.C., China has stood in the east of the world as a unified multi-ethnic centralized imperial state. For more than 2,000 years, China was one of the most developed countries in the world at that time, and had several glorious periods, including the Han Dynasty, Sui and Tang Dynasties, the Yuan Dynasty and the Early Qing Dynasty.

China reached its peak in the 13th century and became the world's most prosperous cultural and trade center at that time, with many inventions such as the compass, papermaking, printing, and gunpowder making important contributions to the world's history and technological development, as well as a developed agriculture and handicraft industry.

"Under the whole world, it is not the king's land; On the shore of the land, it is not the king's minister". The long-term superiority of the Chinese empire formed a great sense of cultural superiority: according to the traditional concept of Chinese feudal society, China was the "heavenly kingdom" and the center of world civilization, and the Chinese emperor was the "co-ruler of the world". Turning the pages of world history, this view was indeed a fact before the 16th century.

Napoleon once said to the British diplomat Amsterd: "China is a sleeping lion, and when awakened, the world will be shaken." "Napoleon has crisscrossed Europe all his life, and trampled the multinational coalition under his feet several times, why did such a powerful figure have such an opinion about China at that time, and where did his basis come from?

If we look at the modern history of the world, we will find that in Napoleon's time, most of the regions that once had excellent ancient civilizations were fragmented and independent, as was the case in Europe and Africa. Most of the great countries with vast lands do not have ancient civilizations, and this is true of Russia, and the same is true of the United States. China is still the only one that can truly combine the ancient civilization with the vast territory.

Napoleon had always sought to unify Europe because he knew that only by combining the power of civilization with the vastness of its territory could great empires be created.

Looking at the 5,000-year history of the world, we can come to the conclusion that it is crucial and decisive for China's civilization to be so great and for China's strength to be so despised that it has always existed in the form of a unified state.

As a multi-ethnic centralized imperial state, all power was concentrated in the emperor alone. The times create heroes, heroes create the times, and it is entirely possible for the heroic emperor to change the course of history. In the history of the Chinese Empire, there have been more than 400 emperors, of which 13 outstanding emperors have been brilliant in the annals of history for their great achievements, and have left a profound imprint in the history of the Chinese Empire and even the history of the world.

During the period of feudal society, China has always stood in the east of the world as a great empire, and all ethnic groups have jointly written a history of China with their own history. During the Qin and Han dynasties, the Chinese Empire drove the Xiongnu to the west, triggering a series of great upheavals in Europe; During the Tang Dynasty, the Chinese Empire drove the Turks to the northwest, triggering turmoil in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. As for the succession of dynasties in the Qin, Han, Jin, Sui, Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, as well as the rebellions, divisions, or uprisings in each dynasty, they were nothing more than the internal strife of this empire that lasted for more than 2,000 years.

Now, when we look back at the history of this great Chinese empire, Qin Shi Huang is undoubtedly the original founder of this great empire, and it is precisely because of his monarchy that the foundation for the great unification of the entire Chinese nation was laid. In the history of the Chinese Empire, 221 BC was the first year of the empire in the true sense of the word. Qin Shi Huang, the "Emperor of the Ages", ruled the world, abolished the division of feuds, set up counties and counties, the same text, the same law, the same balance, the same track, built the Great Wall, and the unified Chinese Empire had a "unified heart".

Since then, with a high degree of political wisdom and unique cultural connotation, the Chinese have forever left the "idea of great unification" in the blood of all Chinese as the supreme ideal of the entire society and individuals. Qin Shi Huang also deserves to be the first emperor of the Chinese Empire. The title of "emperor" of Chinese feudal emperors began with Qin Shi Huang, and he was called "Qin Shi Huang", hoping that the Great Qin Empire would have the next two and third generations, and even tens of millions of generations. Although the descendants of Qin Shi Huang did not do this, in another sense, all the later emperors of the Chinese Empire were not the successors of Qin Shi Huang? There is a saying in historians called "Han Cheng Qin system", which means that after Liu Bang established the Han Dynasty, he inherited and developed the great unification system of the Qin Dynasty, and in this sense, Liu Bang was the first successor of Qin Shi Huang.

At the end of Qin, the world was in turmoil, and the result of the Chu and Han hegemony was that "the hooligans defeated the heroes". Xiang Yu first won the battle for hegemony in the world, but unfortunately Xiang Yu did not have the consciousness of establishing a central power at all, but divided all the princes into their respective territories. His approach was actually to return China to the Great Split of the Warring States Period, which undoubtedly amounted to a kind of historical regression, so it is not surprising that he lost to Liu Bang in the end. From this point of view, it is not so much that Liu Bang defeated Xiang Yu, but that unification defeated division.

The struggle for hegemony between Chu and Han also created another rule of the game for the empire: that is, the emperor takes turns to sit, and the hero does not ask where he comes from. The result of this rule is "success and defeat", which perfectly solves the problem of "legitimacy" of changing dynasties within the empire, and to a certain extent, ensures that the most capable person becomes the founding emperor and leads the empire to glory again and again.

After Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty ascended the throne, he deposed the Confucianism of the Hundred Schools of Thought, and laid a solid ideological foundation for the unification of China for more than 2,000 years in the future. "There are countless heroes, and swords and horses are all Han land." Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty attacked the Xiongnu in the north, the two Yue in the south, and the Western Regions in the west, laying the initial foundation for the vast territory of modern China, and he vigorously advocated exchanges between China and the West, and sent people to the Western Regions several times, which promoted national integration, and the Chinese Empire also began to have a wide range of world influence, and the Han cultural circle began to form.

"The general trend of the world, together for a long time, must be divided, and for a long time must be united." At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the pattern of China's great unification was divided for the first time for a long time. It was precisely this split that awakened the Chinese nation's strong sense of reunification.

When Cao Cao was young, he was evaluated by Xu Shao, a famous scholar at that time, as "a capable minister who rules the world, and a traitor in troubled times", and he did not live up to this evaluation, and his achievements made future generations sigh and be jealous. After Cao Cao unified the north, his power had reached the extreme of the people, but he did not become emperor, and the reason for this was that he was deeply influenced by the maintenance of orthodoxy. He immediately led a large army to the south, and although he was ultimately defeated, many of his policies in the north laid a solid foundation for the development of the Jin dynasty in the future. Emperor Wu of the Western Jin Dynasty unified China again, and the greatest credit was given to Cao Cao, which is why Cao Cao was considered the ancestor of the Jin Dynasty. In terms of maintaining unity, Cao Cao deserves to be regarded as one of the greatest statesmen in history.

The Three Kingdoms period was an era of heroes, and Liu Bei became the most popular civilian emperor in Chinese history with his unique personality charm. Liu Bei was a member of the Han Dynasty clan, and he was kind and loved the people, so he was the desire of the people in the troubled times at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty. It is also by virtue of these two conditions, from a man who sells straw mats with nothing to become the founding monarch of Shu Han, his life is also in the work of reunifying the world and reviving the Han Dynasty, due to the limitations of the times, he did not succeed, but the Shu Han he established has made great contributions to the development of the southwest and the promotion of national integration. Liu Bei's ability to divide the world into three parts is largely due to the light of "orthodoxy", and the essence of orthodoxy is unity.

History entered the Tang Dynasty, and more than 900 years after the establishment of the Chinese Empire, Li Shimin, Taizong of the Tang Dynasty, pushed this ancient empire to the peak of glory. Among the emperors of China, Tang Taizong was one of the very few British lords who were good at fighting the world and ruling the world. During his reign, he was prepared for danger in times of peace, appointed virtuous and virtuous people, humbly accepted advice, implemented the policy of lightly punishing and meager punishment, and carried out a series of political and military reforms, which finally contributed to social stability and production development.

For thousands of years, Li Shimin's "Zhenguan Rule" has always been a model for people to respect the feudal society, and he himself has become a generation of emperors who have competed to emulate later generations. Under the Tang Dynasty, China's influence on the world reached an unprecedented level.

Compared with Li Shimin's excellence, Wu Zetian is not inferior at all. As a daughter, she can sit on the throne in the environment of male superiority and female inferiority in feudal society, and let all men in the world bow down to him, which is an absolutely extraordinary thing in itself. But her accession to the throne was not only a woman's victory, but also the "Wuzhou Revolution" she created was an important transition for the Chinese Empire during the Tang Dynasty. Politically, she inherited the "rule of Zhenguan", paid attention to the prosperity of the country and the people, although her process of seizing power was cruel, but the people's lives were not only not affected, but more affluent, which laid a solid foundation for the later "Kaiyuan prosperous era".

On the big stage of the Chinese Empire, the outstanding features of Zhao Kuangyin, Taizu of the Song Dynasty, were more focused on the improvement of the system. The great unification regimes that preceded the Song dynasty, both the Han and Tang dynasties, were plagued by local forces in the later period, because local forces had armies and could easily threaten the central government.

After Song Taizu ascended the throne, his first move was to use Huairou means to cut off the general's military power, so that the army was all in the hands of the emperor, and the possibility of rebellion by local forces was completely eliminated. At the same time, Song Taizu was also an emperor who attached great importance to culture, and the economic prosperity and cultural prosperity of the Song Dynasty were also rare in previous dynasties.

After the Southern Song Dynasty was divided with the Liao, Jin, and Western Xia, the Mongols led by Genghis Khan once again unified the Chinese Empire, which was not only the first time that China's ethnic minorities unified the whole country, but also shocked the world again. Genghis Khan was born to be a king of war, and he spent his whole life in war, leaving his footprints of conquest in the Central Plains, Mobei, Western Regions, and Central Asia. The Chinese Empire has never been as aggressive as Genghis Khan's reign, so Genghis Khan has also become one of the Chinese emperors who has had a profound impact on the world.

After Zhu Yuanzhang unified the empire, he abolished the post of prime minister, and then opened a killing ring, almost killing the founding heroes, in addition to opening a brocade guard, monitoring the words and deeds of ministers and the people, and the feudal imperial power developed to a new peak in his hands.

Under Zhu Yuanzhang's series of measures, the Ming Dynasty almost developed into his family, whether it was the central or local, there was no longer a minister who could compete with the emperor, which could not be attributed to Zhu Yuanzhang personally, it should be said that it was the shortcomings of the system, and the feudal autocracy that had been implemented for more than 1,500 years gradually came to an end.

Under the influence of Zhu Yuanzhang, the later emperors of the Ming Dynasty only focused on internal fighting and did not want to forge ahead, and the world influence of the Ming Dynasty also declined, and the territory of the Chinese Empire also fell to a low point.

The Qing Dynasty was founded by the Jurchens, and this was also the second time that ethnic minorities unified China, and the most eloquent emperor of the Qing Dynasty was the Kangxi Emperor. Kangxi was the last emperor of the Chinese Empire who excelled in both civil and martial arts.

Kangxi adopted a series of policies conducive to the national economy and the people's livelihood, which led to the rapid expansion of cultivated land, the increase in grain output, and the extensive cultivation of cash crops, which ultimately promoted the development of the agricultural economy and laid the foundation for the "prosperous Kangqian era." Kangxi also put down the Junggar rebellion, firmly incorporated Tibet, Xinjiang and Taiwan into China's territory, and signed the "Treaty of Nebuchu" with Tsarist Russia, effectively resisting Tsarist Russia's invasion of the northeast region.

The Kangxi period was another peak of the Chinese Empire, but due to self-isolation and seclusion, China could no longer keep up with the pace of world development, and the great empire of nearly 2,000 years went into decline in the last flashback.

China's feudal autocracy developed to the Yongzheng period, and the monarchy reached its highest peak. After his accession to the throne, it was stipulated that the future emperor must write the name of the heir into an edict and seal it, which fundamentally solved the problem of the dispute between the royal heirs. Yongzheng also set up a military aircraft department, as the emperor's secretary team, to give ideas, write documents, and manage government affairs for the emperor.

Yongzheng's contribution to economic development cannot be ignored, and it is precisely because of his efforts to set things right that some of Kangxi's effective policies can be continued, and the prosperous situation created by Kangxi can be continued.

Qianlong, the son of Yongzheng, was the finalist of the "prosperous era of Kangqian". Qianlong reigned for 60 years, and in the early stage, he was quite politically clear, and on the basis of the Kangxi and Yongzheng dynasties, he pushed the situation of the "prosperous Kangqian era" to the peak.

In the later period of his reign, Qianlong began to use military force, squandered the hundreds of years of money accumulated by the Qing government, and implemented a policy of closing the country to the outside world, which further delayed the synchronous development of China and the world. ……

Queen Elizabeth of England said bluntly: The reason why the West has been suspicious of China for a long time is because China has always been a unified power.

"Reunification" is a key to opening up the Chinese civilization. Since Qin Shi Huang unified China in 221 BC, China's local government has no way to compete with the central government politically, no matter which feudal monarch in later generations, striving for unification or maintaining unification is a temptation that he cannot resist, and it is also a fate that he cannot get rid of. The concept that one country cannot tolerate two masters is so deeply rooted in the hearts of the people in this land, and it has truly become the national gene of the Chinese, and it is also the real reason why the Chinese civilization has endured and has been renewed, and the Chinese nation can stand proudly in the world.

Therefore, the protagonist of our story, Yuan Xi, is also destined to embark on the same path of unification as our ancestors, and is destined to be bloody and violent.