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CHAPTER 2 Ways of Monarchism While the end of the Chunqiu period marks the low ebb of the rulers’ fortunes, the next two centuries witnessed unprecedented resurrection of the sovereign’s power in all major states. A series of profound administrative reforms brought about a new entity, which Mark Lewis has aptly named “the ruler-centered state.”1 These reforms included, among others, limitations on hereditary office-holding and its replacement with recruitment based on talent ; abolition of hereditary allotments, instead of which officials henceforth received ranked salaries paid in grain, or, in rare instances, in precious metals; and replacement of the allotments’ autonomy with centrally ruled “commanderies and counties” ( jun xian 郡縣).All these steps, some of which had begun already in the late Chunqiu period but all of which matured only by the fourth century BCE, nullified the power of the hereditary aristocracy, which was now largely submerged within a new, broader, shi elite (see Chapter 5). Unlike the Chunqiu aristocrats, the shi did not possess independent sources of power and were not in a position to challenge systematically the lord’s rule. These developments greatly increased the political stability in the major states: the last century of the Warring States period did not witness violent domestic turmoil on a scale comparable with the late Chunqiu age. I shall not discuss Zhanguo reforms in greater detail here, since this task had been undertaken elsewhere,2 but will rather focus on the interaction between Zhanguo intellectual and administrative developments. I wholeheartedly endorse Lewis’s warning against a common tendency to attribute gradual and long-term reforms to a single brilliant statesman or thinker.3 The reforms emerged largely as a series of ad hoc arrangements, spanning centuries; and although the personal contribution of certain outstanding individuals, such as ShangYang (商鞅, d. 338), is undeniable, it would be an oversimplification to establish a direct connection between the pro-centralizing sentiments expressed in the Shang jun shu 商君書 and similar texts, and power arrangements in actuality. Rather than initiating reforms, Zhanguo thinkers often reacted to and rationalized extant regulations; and their major contribution to the ruler-centered state was not providing it with a direct blueprint but rather 25 creating an intellectual atmosphere that was conducive to its emergence and development. In what follows I shall present evidence for the ever-stronger pro-centralization and ruler-centered tendency in Zhanguo thought, but before proceeding to the detailed discussion, I would like to begin by focusing on two major sources of this general tendency. First is the impact of the ideal of the political unity as the only way to end the Warring States military turmoil. Elsewhere I have discussed extensively the emergence of this unifying thread in Zhanguo thought, which was a direct result of the breakdown of Chunqiu attempts to create a viable multistate order;4 here, suffice it to say, not a single known thinker or statesman considered the multistate world to be either legitimate or desirable.The question was not whether or not All under Heaven should be unified,but rather how this unification would occur.For the present discussion, the most significant aspect of this pro-unification drive is the emergence of the ideal of the True Monarch (wang zhe 王者).The notion of the True Monarch, a person who would bring about unification of the realm, appeared in the mid-Zhanguo period and rapidly became ubiquitous in political texts.5 While thinkers widely disagreed about the True Monarch’s desired personality and his mode of rule, almost all of them endorsed the idea that a single savior-like person would bring about unity and peace.6 This common belief in an ideal ruler as a prerequisite for unification reflects a phenomenon of “ruler-centered thought” that closely paralleled the emergence of the “ruler-centered state” of the Zhanguo age. Second, aside from idealist expectations of the future unifier, Zhanguo “ruler-centered” ideology reflected practical considerations, namely, the increasing awareness of the pivotal importance of a ruler for proper functioning of the state.Already in the late Chunqiu period, there was a palpable correlation between the state’s strength and the authority of the ruler within it; and by the fifth century this correlation had become obvious to any political observer .The parallel decline of two northern superpowers,Qi and Jin,the ruling houses of which were sidelined by unruly nobles, served as a strong warning against continuous dispersal of the lord’s power. Not coincidentally, the initial drive toward centralization...

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