Rather than the skepticism of the common people, the real lethal threat to reform is opposition from vested interests. However, due to the three favorable conditions mentioned above, the Qin State was finally able to persevere. Despite this, the opposition of the old nobles of the Qin State can by no means be said to be mild, and at the beginning of the reform, the common people also felt that these new laws were not good. In this environment, even the crown prince has violated the new law. In order to suppress the opposition, Shang Ying tortured the prince's Fu Gongzi and punished the prince's grandson Jia. Although tattooing a teacher's face for a student's crime is not considered a fair act today, it did work well at the time, and according to the Historical Records, the Qin people obeyed the decree from then on.

According to Sima Qian, the change was only ten years, and the Qin State was already "the people of the people, the road is not forgotten, there are no thieves in the mountains, and the home is sufficient." The people are brave in public war, cowardly in private fighting, and the countryside is governed. Judging from the fact that the Qin State continued to defeat the Six Kingdoms and finally unified the world, the results of the law change are also undeniable. But in the eyes of later generations, including us modern people, it seems that the Qin State is a living hell full of severe punishments and laws, and has no other advantages except for the terrible war. So why is there such a big contrast between the effect of the change and its image in the eyes of future generations?

When talking about a political system, one should not forget the specific circumstances in which it is located, and the survival of the fittest is an eternal and unchanging truth.

What was the environment of the Qin State at that time and after the Shang Dynasty reform? Two words: war. And it's an endless war. Every Chinese country is trying to expand its army, and the scale is getting bigger and bigger, the war situation is becoming more and more brutal, and the death toll of each battle is rising. Since there are already very few small countries, there is a direct conflict between the big countries, and there is an irreconcilable war of life and death. If you want not to be eaten by others, you have to eat others. In such a situation, war is the overriding priority, and only warlike countries can survive and develop.

The Shang Dynasty reform precisely catered to the requirements of the times, and the purpose of the reform was, in the final analysis, one: to enable the Qin state to defeat other countries. To this end, the nobility was curbed by abolishing the ida and establishing the counties, eliminating the possibility of civil strife and allowing the monarch to concentrate on the outside world; In order to make the state administration and military command more efficient, the concentration of power, especially military power, which was unprecedented in Chinese history, was in the hands of the monarch alone; In order to ensure political stability and the implementation of various laws and regulations, the principle that everyone must abide by the law without exception has been established; In order that the people of the whole country could unanimously serve the war, the Shiwu system was established, with rewards as bait and punishment as coercion, and all other channels for the people to make a fortune were blocked. In order to make the soldiers fight valiantly, to make them forget the danger with rich rewards, and to cut off their retreat with severe punishments and sitting; In order to maintain national stability during the war, they did not hesitate to set up a barbaric system of joint sitting and a system of prosecution, and used severe punishment to curb crime.

Through this series of changes, the Qin State became a unique legal country in ancient Chinese history, and truly realized the whole country playing a game of chess, and the top and bottom wholeheartedly sought development and victory. For that era, the Qin State after the change of law can be said to be the most adaptable to the environment, so it is also the strongest. Its chain of command is simple and effective, its decrees are unimpeded, its officials are impartial and law-abiding, its people are hardworking, and its soldiers are brave and skillful. Although the Qin State was large, it was "simple". It does not have the aristocratic problems of the Chu State, which are full of feudal kings, have many clans, and are almost impossible to solve; There are also no "chivalrous", diners, columnists, scholars and other characters like the Sanjin Dynasty who are dedicated to themselves, pursue profits, and have no sense of the country; There is no such folk customs as the Qi country, which is easy to work for, greedy for life and afraid of death. More importantly, the legal system has not been established in the six countries, the religion of religion has become completely unworkable, and it is impossible to completely abandon it. In the face of a country like Qin, where the whole country is like a person who is engaged in a "general war" and is pressed like Mount Tai, where is there any possibility of victory?

So why was the legal system of the Qin State hated by the world so soon after its unification that it was hated to the core, and later generations also talked about it and called it a cool government? In addition to the reasons that I will discuss later, a large part of the reason is that this rule of law is adapted only to the environment of war. Obviously, the measures of the Shiwu sitting, encouragement, severe punishment, and making a hole in the war were only adapted to the harsh environment of war, and when they were in a peaceful environment, they were too harsh and unreasonable. In a modern country ruled by law, its laws are rights-based, while Qin's legal system is obligation-based. Therefore, the modern rule of law can last for a long time, but the Qin legal system has become an important reason for the rapid demise of the Qin Dynasty.

In any case, the Shang Dynasty changed the law to exert the miraculous effect of turning stones into gold, making the Qin State quickly strong. Although Shang Ying was falsely killed after the death of Qin Xiaogong, the effect of the reform was already obvious, so there was no situation of people dying and retiring from government. For more than 100 years after that, the Qin State followed the track of the legal system and continued to achieve victories.

Committing brutal things in the name of changing the law, who did Shang Ying's change of law benefit, and why did he say that he harmed the people endlessly!

Speaking of Shang Ying, everyone knows that he is one of the representatives of the Legalist school, and he made the Qin State from weak to strong by changing the law. Shang Ying, because of his changes, made him an imitation object for many people in later generations to hope to enrich the country and strengthen the army, but few people know that the wealth and strength brought by Shang Ying's reform is at the expense of the interests of the people, whether it is from the theoretical basis and doctrine that Shang Yang relied on and the essence of the changes he implemented, we can see the brutality of Shang Ying's law. Therefore, in later generations, anyone who pretended to trust Shang Martingale to change the law would be violently opposed, which was actually because the orthodox Confucianism in later generations and the Legalist doctrine in the Warring States period were naturally opposed.

In Confucianism, Confucius and Mencius advocated that people have innate goodness, so people need to rely on education to make them morally restrained, through their own cultivation and restraint to achieve self-improvement, and finally through the improvement of virtue to make the people live and work in peace and contentment. On the contrary, the Shang Dynasty advocated the evil of human beings, and only through harsh punishments and heavy rewards could the people be best restrained.

The first article of the Shang Dynasty reform law is that the people are awarded knighthoods according to military merits, which in the eyes of modern people is to pay attention to the improvement of the status of soldiers. But in fact, Shang Ying's original intention was that no matter whether the country has money or not, it must always be in a state of war, and only war can make the country strong. Moreover, in order to maintain prosperity, it is necessary to get rid of the Confucian virtues of etiquette, poetry, repair, filial piety, honesty, chastity, benevolence, and equality.

The second article of the reform is to encourage the people to tell the truth, and those who do not tell will be beheaded. Shang Ying believed that the country would only become easy to govern if the people dared to do only what the state allowed them to do. Therefore, he encouraged everyone to snitch, encouraged each other to betray, and suppressed the good qualities in people through harsh laws. Make the rule of the state the simplest and most effective. It does not consider people's pursuit and yearning for beauty at all.

The third clause of the reform was to allow the people to work only in agriculture, and if they were poor in other occupations, the whole family would be sent into slavery. The logic of Shang Ying is that only when the people are poor will they have the motivation to pursue wealth, and once the people are rich, they will have their own selfishness, rather than working for the country. Therefore, in order to rule better, it is necessary to try to take away the wealth of the people, so that they will always be exhausted in poverty.

The essence of the comprehensive Shang Ying's reforms, whether it is the doctrine on which Shang Ying is based or the laws and decrees he implements, is to completely sacrifice the interests of the people, so that the people always struggle on the line of survival and reduce the value of people to the minimum, just for the so-called strength of the country. His change of law is just for the sake of better rule of the ruling class, and for the people, it is a law that harms the people.

The Shang Dynasty Reform was a successful reform in ancient China, which made the Qin state a powerful state, laid the foundation for the future Qin state to unify the six kingdoms, and established the idea of the rule of law. Shang Ying drew on the experience of Li Kui, Wu Qi, and other Legalist figures in implementing law reforms in Wei, Chu, and other countries, and further developed Legalist policies in light of the specific conditions of Qin. He further abolished the well-field system, expanded the mu system, emphasized agriculture and suppressed business, rewarded the production of male cultivators and female weavers in each family, and encouraged land reclamation, which promoted the development of the small peasant economy in the Qin State. He popularized the county system, enacted laws, unified weights and measures, and established a centralized monarchy. He stopped personal fighting, rewarded military merits, and instituted a system of 20 knighthoods, which was conducive to strengthening the army's combat effectiveness. He attacked the old aristocracy who opposed the reform, and "burned the poems" and "books" and clarified the decrees, so that the changes could be implemented. As a result of all this, the Qin state quickly became rich and powerful, laying the foundation for the subsequent unification of all of China by Qin. As Wang Chong of the Han Dynasty said: "Shang Yang is filial piety, and he is the emperor of Qin." ”

After the Shang Dynasty reform, the Qin State changed the old production relations economically, abandoned the wells and fields, and fundamentally established the private ownership of land; Politically, the old blood patriarchal system was attacked and dismantled, the state mechanism was more sound, and the construction of the centralized system began. Militarily, rewarding military merits achieved the goal of strengthening the army, greatly improved the combat effectiveness of the army, and developed into the most powerful country in the late Warring States period, creating favorable conditions for Qin's next strategic development and laying the foundation for the unification of the whole country.

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