Popularize the difference between Eastern and Western kingship! This article is excerpted on the Internet!

The purpose is to explain why this book uses the civilization of the Western system, and the purpose is to avoid the protagonist from returning to the pre-liberation period.

In order to better tell the things in this story that do not seem to conform to the Eastern concept! (If you have any comments, you can leave your comments, writing and reading books is just looking for a group of people who have a common hobby!)

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Compared to the Chinese emperors, the other monarchs of the world looked petty and shabby. You know, the most powerful emperor in Europe, Louis XIV of France, envied his subjects only for being able to "eat green peas without restraint." When Louis XIV traveled, he brought the "Swiss Hundred Guards" with him, and he thought that the pomp was extremely big, but he didn't know that every time Emperor Yang Guang of Sui went out, there were at least 30,000 warriors dressed up around him. Compared to the strictness of the Chinese Ouchi, the order of the French court is a joke. "It should be said that anyone can enter the Palace of Versailles, and they can play between the major suites at will, except that beggars and monks are not allowed to enter. Commoners who wanted to watch the king eat could enter the palace with a sword and a hat in the crook of his arm, and these props could be rented from the palace guard. That's why there is a story about a chef disguised as a nobleman and dancing with a French princess at a court ball.

No other ruler in the world has as absolute, thorough, and all-pervasive power as the Chinese emperor. Compared to the Chinese emperors, the glory of the Western monarchs is actually very suspicious. The emperor of China has only an illusory "sky" on his head, and everything else is at his feet, while the monarch of the West has three mountains on his head. The first is the Pope. Pope Gregory VII commanded in the 11th century: "All monarchs must kiss the feet of the pope." "When the monarchs of Europe ascended to the throne, they saluted their allegiance to the pope, who then placed a crown on him. In China, the emperor is both "the king of all peoples" and a "saint"; is both a mortal and a "Son of Heaven"; It not only manages government affairs, but also monopolizes ideology, and has the natural power to "educate" the people. In Europe, kings and emperors had limited secular power, but no access to the spiritual world of their subjects, and ideology and education were the domain of the clergy. The second mountain is the law. In China, the word of the emperor is the law, and the Europeans clearly declared: "The king is above all men and under God and the law." "The state itself cannot create or make laws, and certainly cannot repeal laws or break them." Because of the protection of the law, a poor man can triumphantly declare that he does not welcome the king into his house: "The wind can enter, the rain can enter, but the king cannot enter." "The third mountain is the restraint of the nobility. In China, "Jun" and "Chen" are heaven and earth, and the "King" in English, in addition to the accident of "king", also means "great" and "primary". In fact, the British aristocracy has always considered the king to be a member of their ranks, "the first man of the nobility". The king himself was only the largest nobleman, and to a certain extent, he was mainly friends with other nobles. When his buddies are not happy, they can unite and dethrone him, so he has to curry favor with them everywhere and try to consider their interests as much as possible.

As a result, the kings of Europe were far less powerful than the Chinese emperors in terms of depth and breadth of power, and therefore naturally they were far less imposing than the Chinese emperors. In 1199, Richard I heard that one of his nobles had dug up a cache of ancient gold in the castle, and the financially strapped king demanded the treasure. In England, however, the king was met with a merciless rejection. The king was so angry that he confronted the nobleman, but he was killed.

This is how the English aristocracy often refused the king's orders. During the period of John, the "landless king", he coveted the European continent and planned to go to France, but the English knights were not interested in the continental war and refused to obey, and John had nothing to do.

In contrast, the kings of the West were quite relaxed. Because of its small size, few affairs, and more importantly, the scope and depth of power were far from being compared with those of China, so the British government agencies were very simple, and it was not until the 13th century that three departments were formed: one was the Finance Department, which was responsible for collecting taxes; One is the Supreme Court; The other is the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which is responsible for handling day-to-day administrative matters. Since the state is mainly governed by the law, the king has to bow to the affairs of the state himself. Twenty-one of the thirty-four years of Henry II's reign were in France, but the social order in England was quite good. In the West, kings spend very little time each day doing their part, leaving plenty of time to hold banquets and balls and play with confidence. King Louis XIV of France hunted at least twice a week, and the "Nights of the Bedchamber" entertainment was held three times a week. "Night at the Bedchamber" runs from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. and "has a wide variety of entertainment: gambling, billiards, dancing and sometimes performances." All kinds of food and drinks were set up. All kinds of pastries, ice cream, etc. are always available, and all kinds of drinks are always available", "Louis XIV appeared amiable. When he walked to the table, he didn't let anyone get up to greet him, and he greeted everyone politely.

Europeans believed that the throne must be inherited by someone with royal blood. The dozens of crowns in Europe have always been passed down among the nobles of the heavens, and there has never been a feat of raising the rod and establishing a dynasty with clay legs. In the history of England, although there have been many wars for the throne, both sides of the war are legally entitled successors. In addition, in addition to war and succession, there is also a very important way to produce the throne in the West, that is, elections. BEFORE THE ADVENT OF PARLIAMENT, THERE WAS A COUNCIL OF THE WISE (WITAN) MADE UP OF NOBLES, CLERGY, AND HIGH OFFICIALS. One of the explicit duties of this council was to elect or depose the king. When the succession to the king is disputed, the council selects the one they think is the most suitable from among the candidates. Of the ten kings of England between 899 and 1016, only three were enthroned by blood alone, and the other seven were nobles who were closely related to the king recommended by the Council of the Wise and were given the right to inherit the throne by the incumbent king. Thus, an archbishop once said that, as is widely believed, the monarch of England is not actually hereditary, but elected.

Western Rome was founded for nearly a thousand years, and the Byzantine Empire enjoyed a state for nearly a thousand years. Looking at England, since the Norman conquest of William I in 1028, there have been a total of forty-one kings, all of whom are descendants of William I. In a non-strict sense, the British throne can also be said to be a millennium. It's just that the succession to the throne in Britain is not a strict Chinese succession between father and son, but a mixture of father-daughter relationship, brotherly relationship, grand-granddaughter relationship, and cousin relationship. Britain has experienced a total of nine dynasties, however, the change of dynasty is mostly due to the last king of the previous dynasty is the heir of the last dynasty, and the successor of relatives leads to the change of dynasty name. This is also the case with dynastic succession in other European countries.

Western rulers have shown weakness, confusion and incompleteness in the struggle for the throne that Chinese politicians despise. They don't understand the truth of "a small amount is not a gentleman, and no poison is not a husband". To the Chinese, their struggle for the throne is sometimes like a child's play.

When Henry I died in 1135, his grandson Henry II and nephew Stephen both believed that they were entitled to the English throne. In the first battle for the throne, Henry II, who was only fourteen years old, was inexperienced and ill-prepared, and the army had no food before the war began, and he fell into starvation, and in embarrassment, he actually asked his enemy Stephen for support. As for Stephen, he actually lent money to Henry II to send the hungry mercenaries home, and the first war ended ridiculously.

A few years later, Henry made a comeback, and the two sides fought again, this time with Henry quickly victorious and Stephen surrendering. However, the result of the negotiations between the two sides was a surprise: it was agreed that Stephen would continue to be king of England, but that Henry II would be declared his heir, and that Henry II would ascend the throne after a hundred years.

The other battle for the throne ended even more dramatically. The descendants of Edward III's two sons, the Duke of Lancaster and the Duke of York, were interested in the English throne, and each of the two families brought a group of nobles and waged a civil war. Because the coat of arms of the Lancaster family was the red rose, and the coat of arms of the House of York was the white rose, the war was called the War of the Roses. The end of the war was no fight, no deal, the two families fought in the war, Henry the seventh of the Lancaster family, married Elizabeth of the York family, announced the merger of the two major families of York and Lancaster, ended the Wars of the Roses, and also ended the Lancaster and York dynasties, and started the Tudor dynasty.

Although there is no lack of cruelty and bloodshed in the West's struggle for power, it is not the same as the cruelty of China. After all, in the West, getting the throne does not mean getting everything, losing the throne does not necessarily mean losing everything, and people are not as desperate, paranoid and crazy as they are in the East. There is a tradition in European politics that a person who has been a king is treated with the necessary courtesy even if he is pushed down from the throne. This is one of the manifestations of chivalry: sympathy for the weak, magnanimity towards the loser. As a result, there are few examples of losers in European power struggles being put to death. In those days, it was intolerable for one king to kill another. It's not that they don't know the truth of raising tigers, but they would rather suffer the consequences of the comeback of the loser than destroy their chivalrous demeanor. In 1688, William III conquered England and seized the throne from his father-in-law, James II. After that, he deliberately left the sea unguarded in front of the castle where his father-in-law was imprisoned, allowing him to escape to France by boat. The following year, his father-in-law organized a well-honed mercenary army to land in Ireland. William III had to free his hands from the war to deal with his father-in-law, who had a comeback, and although he eventually drove James back to France, he lost the war with France. However, no one seems to criticize William's unwisdom for this.

In England, although the struggle between the king and the nobility has been repeated many times, the general trend is that the power of the king is weakening day by day, and the rights of the nobility and the people are being extended day by day, which eventually leads to the formation of a constitutional monarchy. The English realized early on that unfettered ** power would inevitably bring turmoil and disaster to the country, so the nobles always lost no time in putting ropes on the king's head when he was in a weak state. From the Magna Carta to the Merton Statute to the Oxford Statute, the British gradually narrowed the scope of the king's power according to the needs of the situation, until the cabinet system matured and the royal power no longer had any meaning to the country. Thus, the history of the change in the sphere of power of the King of England is the history of the development of conservative liberal democracy in England.