Qin Shi Huang was the first feudal emperor to unify China, and at first it represented the requirements of historical development, but he was so happy that he was overjoyed, and he made the people resentful, but the second Qin Dynasty perished. Du Mu said in "A Fang Gong Fu": "The Qin people have no time to mourn themselves, and future generations mourn them; Later generations mourn and do not learn from it, and it also makes future generations mourn for future generations. After the establishment of the Tang Dynasty, Tang Taizong made great efforts to govern the country, accepted the sages, and achieved the rule of Zhenguan. However, the later rulers of the Tang Dynasty gradually got carried away, intoxicated with the sound of dogs and horses, Tang Xuanzong "the spring night is bitter and short, and the king is not early in the dynasty", officials at all levels of corruption and bribery have become commonplace, and as a result, "Yuyang Yang came agitatedly, and broke the song of the neon clothes and feathers", and the Anshi Rebellion occurred, and the Tang Dynasty also moved from prosperity to decline, and finally Wang Xianzhi and Huangchao rebelled to capture Chang'an, and soon the Tang Dynasty died.

——Speech at the Second Plenary Session of the 18th Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (January 22, 2013)

Further reading:

"The principle of prosperity and decline, although it is called the mandate of heaven, is it not a human being!" Ouyang Xiu wrote in the preface to "The History of the New Five Dynasties: The Biography of Lingguan". Ouyang Xiu analyzed the process of the Tang Dynasty's transition from prosperity to decline and sudden rise and death, and came to the conclusion that "sorrow and labor can rejuvenate the country, and Yiyu can die" and "disasters often accumulate in the slightest, and wisdom and courage are mostly trapped in drowning". The death of the second Qin Dynasty and the Anshi Rebellion of the Tang Dynasty can all be used to learn the historical lessons of Yiyu's death.

The Qin Dynasty was the first great unified dynasty in Chinese history. Qin Shi Huang has the achievements of unifying China, as well as the credit of "the same book, the same track, the same system, and the same line". But as the "Historical Records" said, "the world has suffered for a long time". At the beginning of his reign, Qin Shi Huang began to build the cemetery, which was completed in 208 BC, lasted 39 years, and collected a total of 720,000 people. It has been estimated that the number of people who built the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang was almost eight times that of the Pyramid of Khufu in Egypt. It is recorded in the Book of Han: "Qin so those who died in the sixteenth year of the second emperor were healthy and luxurious, and they were also rich in the end." Jia Yi said in "On the Passage of Qin": "One husband is difficult and seven temples are dead, and he is the one who laughs at the world, why not?" Benevolence and righteousness are not applied, and the offensive and defensive forces are different. Du Mu also sighed: "The Qin clan, Qin, not the world." Therefore, it can be said that those who died in Qin are arrogant and lascivious, benevolent and ungenerous.

The prosperity and decline of the Tang Dynasty, the greed for pleasure, corruption and degeneration of the ruling class are also the main reasons. "Chang'an looked back at the piles of embroidery, and the top of the mountain opened thousands of doors. As soon as the concubine laughed on the red dust, no one knew that it was a lychee. Du Mu's "Quatrain of the Qing Palace", selected as Yang Guifei's flying horse to send lychees, vividly exposes the Tang Dynasty rulers in order to satisfy their appetites, did not hesitate to mobilize the people, and worked the people and lost money. According to the "Old Tang Book", Xuanzong "worked in the palace for the brocade embroidery of the Guifei Courtyard, where there were 700 people, and its carving and smelting were hundreds of people". Such a large number of people shows the luxury of daily life. Tang Xuanzong indulged in pleasure and allowed Yang Guozhong and other traitorous ministers to cause trouble in the government, as a result, An Lushan rebelled, and the Tang Dynasty went from prosperity to decline through the Anshi Rebellion.

Honesty leads to prosperity, and corruption leads to government rest, which is the iron law of history. Xi Jinping's account of the death of Qin II and the decline of the Tang Dynasty is precisely to emphasize that corruption is a cancer in society, and to remind all comrades in the party to learn from history, learn from history, and unswervingly carry out the anti-corruption struggle to the end. Just as he pointed out: "Our party has raised the building of a clean and honest government and the anti-corruption struggle to the high plane of the life and death of the party and the country, and has profoundly summed up the historical lessons of ancient and modern China and foreign countries. There are many examples in China's history of the loss of power due to the serious corruption of the ruling group, and there are countless examples in the world today of the loss of political power due to the corruption and degeneration of the ruling party and its serious detachment from the masses. ”

On the issue of anti-corruption, Xi Jinping has always had a deep sense of worry. He has said on many occasions that "the biggest threat facing our party, as the ruling party, is corruption" and that "if the problem of corruption is allowed to become more and more intense, the party and the country will inevitably fall in the end." He also stressed on many occasions that the masses of the people hate all kinds of negative and corrupt phenomena and all kinds of privileges the most, and these phenomena are the most lethal to the flesh-and-blood ties between the party and the masses of the people. As early as when he was in charge of Ningde, he said: "There is a question of who offends whom, you have violated discipline and law to occupy land and build houses, and you have destroyed the party's authority and image for your own selfishness, and it is you who have offended the party, the people, and the party discipline and state law, instead of investigating and punishing your cadres on behalf of the interests of the party and the people. ”