For the vast majority of people in the entire civilization, they want those in power to do their best to do their duty, and if not, it would be better to change someone.

But for the people in power themselves, they very much do not want to be replaced, and even hope that their families can rule for thousands of generations, even if they do a bad job, it is better not to replace them.

These two desires are bound to clash with each other. The hereditary monarchy, on the other hand, is not so much the result of the concentration of power as the result of mutual compromise between different classes.

The excessive level of militarization and the organizational ability higher than the historical norm have made the Central Plains regime overloaded all year round. To put it bluntly, this kind of great unified dynasty should not have appeared under this productive force and technological conditions, and it belonged to the entire society that forcibly "overclocked" and forced out.

This form of organization has very high requirements for decision-making efficiency, so there is nothing we can do but 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 also knew this, and as long as they had the opportunity, they would advocate that they would rule the peace and tranquility of the river. Because that's the best evidence of persuasion.

As long as you 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 can 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, he has to think about the whole family. In other words, to convince everyone that even if their descendants can't, everyone has to let him hold the supreme 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 this selfishness and don't care if your own son ascends the throne.

This reason can be seen from the end of the Ming Dynasty.

At the beginning, the news that Emperor Chongzhen hanged himself reached Jiangnan, and a slave rebellion immediately broke out in the local area. The house slaves of the gentry rebelled, tortured and even killed their masters. Because in their view, the death of the emperor and the end of the dynasty also meant the collapse of the previous order as a whole - in the future, there would be no kings and ministers, and naturally there would be no masters and servants.

This principle is actually similar to the situation of the five dynasties of the Tang Dynasty. The existence of order is a network of wholes from top to bottom. The emperor's military dictatorship was destroyed, and so was the military dictatorship of the Jiedu envoys; In the same way, when the emperor's personal control was destroyed, so was the personal control of the gentry.

As a result of this incident, the gentry in Jiangnan were greatly shaken and took action one after another, inviting the Qing army to hurry south to calm the situation. Obviously, in the face of this situation, Huayi's distinction has become a dispensable rule again.

Therefore, the emperor maintained the hereditary system, not only for himself, but also for the royal family, but also for all the scholars and squires in the world.

Even if the emperor does not allow his son to ascend to the throne and chooses an adopted son as his heir, it is not impossible - this has happened more than once. But as long as you want to be an "orthodox" dynasty, you have to go this way. Because for the gentry, there must be someone who sits on the throne and maintains this order, and if the emperor dares to touch this red line, then he will also be abandoned.

Therefore, even if some dynasties were indeed ascended to the throne 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 the Han Dynasty, which can be called the most legitimate unified empire, has to find a bunch of prophecies and the like to embellish it and 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 the end of the crossbow. This point was discovered from Li Zicheng and others before the Qing Dynasty entered the customs.

Li Zicheng not only failed to transform himself, but also did not even have people like Zhu Yuanzhang and Liu Xiu among his subordinates, and he couldn't even "drive the king". One of the reasons may be because at this time, the traditional way of thinking is almost at the end.

is also from the bottom, but Li Zicheng did not cut off from the peasant army like Zhu Yuanzhang; did not make a series of statements such as nostalgia for the previous dynasty and claiming that he did not deliberately rebel, but played the banner of "suppressing the army and reassuring the people". At this point, he has taken a few steps further than Zhu Yuanzhang back then.

Of course, as a result, he never got the support of the gentry.

On the other hand, although the gentry did not support Li Zicheng and others, they were unable to support a "Liu Xiu" by themselves. They finally took refuge in the Eight Banners of Manchuria, but they could only be slaves to others, and they could no longer become the "partners" of the dynasty as before. This signal also seems to indicate that their era is nearing the end and their strength has dropped significantly.

Later generations felt that the Central Plains civilization did not seem to have the monarchy restoration stage that was common elsewhere, so they thought that it was more suitable for a republic, and once inspired by the new concept, they immediately discarded the original outdated concept. However, 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 already very complete, and even used the slogan of national righteousness that may not appear in other places until modern times. But after the Ming Dynasty couldn't hold on, the traditional construction of legitimacy could not come up with more new things.

At this time, the gentry, warlords and many other forces in the Central Plains, with the help of foreign armies in a semi-civilized state in the border areas, smashed the reform attempts of Li Zicheng and others in the Central Plains, and enshrined the barbarian tribal leaders as emperors.

This can be said to be a step backwards, but it also means that the traditional hereditary dynasty is coming to an end.

The system of the Qing Dynasty is indeed very perfect, and the average quality of the supreme rulers of the Qing Dynasty is actually very high. But the more advanced and powerful this aspect is, the more it proves that the dynastic era of this dynasty, and even the entire civilization of the Central Plains, has been declining.

Thus, the Qing Dynasty showed a strange coexistence of "reactionary" and "advanced" – it had to maintain an efficient organization to suppress the fierce resistance that had never been seen before. In this regard, the Qing Dynasty was even relatively successful.

However, this efficient ruling machine is also efficiently draining the power of supporters from all walks of life, both at home and abroad. In the end, the Qing Dynasty made almost all the attempts it could, but it still failed. At this time, the barbarian army, the royalist gentry, and even the "foreign loyal ministers" were completely powerless to stop the tide of history.

In this way, after the Qing Dynasty, there was no effective restoration, in fact, it is not difficult to explain: after the Song Dynasty, the monarchy and the corresponding gentry class began to decline; After the Ming Dynasty, it went to the end. And the Qing Dynasty was a long process of restoration, and after all the forces were burned out, it was no longer able to do it again if it wanted to.

(End of chapter)