Case Study of Chin Empire Fallen — the Perspective of Total Strategy

• Main Authors: Yung-Lo Chang, 張永樂
• Other Authors: Cheng-Chuan Shih
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2009
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/27961343569439182767

碩士 === 淡江大學 === 國際事務與戰略研究所碩士班 === 97 === Started from the Sang-yang Reform, after more than one hundred year storing up, Chin’s national power has been in a period of great prosperity when Ying-cheng ascended the . Therefore, Chin united other nations in only nine years since B.C.230. Chin’s unity could be viewed as a standard “long-term conflict” model in strategic aspect. The “long-term conflict” is a real integral strategy, which integrate politics, economy, military, and diplomacy. The essential factor of Chin’s success is the continuity and the consistency of its strategy. However, this successful strategy couldn’t maintain Chin’s lifeblood, contrarily; Chin has come to the end in only 15 years. Regarding Chin’s degeneracy, there are a lot of arguments from a very long time even till now, but all the arguments either only emphasized on the description of the phenomenon or one-sidedly emphasized on the explanation and analysis of a specific perspective. Based on the above statement, this research utilize documents analysis and historical research to firstly describe the environment Chin faced after the unity and sort out the plan of Chin’s integral strategy. Secondly, this research analyze Chin’s strategy in four aspects, political, economical, psychological, and martial, and then probe into the effects of the changes while Chin facing the new situation. Thirdly, systematically analyze the flaws of all Chin’s strategies by using the frame of the Total Strategy theory to find out the real cause of Chin’s degeneracy. The finding is that Chin used both centralization emperor system and prefectures and counties system politically, though this strategy ruled the empire effectively, the flaw of succession system made Hu-hai obtain the throne by tricks. The policy Hu-hai practiced after succeeding to the throne ruined the senate and think tank, which are emperor system needed for its well-arrangement. When facing the revolt during the last years of the empire, the collapse of the dominion caused Chin hard to react to the revolt effectively. During the war with Xiongnu and Yue peoples, though Chin had the victory, the mistake of the prewar evaluation made Chin need to invest in too many manpower and material sources, which couldn’t be proportioned to the sources they gained after occupying the new territory, and then caused the unstable internal political situation. Economically, Chin practiced varied policies in forestry, animal husbandry, and salt iron industry, and also tied in empire constructions to effectively transfer natural resources into national power, in addition, the reformation of Chin’s agriculture and currency system also gained well effects. However, the consumption of the years-running wars, palace build-up, and transportation made Chin’s economy overloaded that raised social grievances. Militarily, Chin owned varied divisions of its military forces, advanced hardware, variable array, and well-disciplined army, which made Chin’s army a key element of the united wars. Nevertheless, during the suppress war of the last years of the empire, due to mistake made at the middle stage, the situation of the last phase turned down rapidly. After Chin’s army surrendering to Xiang Yu, the force of the empire collapsed and made Chin lose the power to resist the rebels. Psychologically, the forceful promotion of the unify enactment and the effects of the Book burning event caused Chin’s failure in gaining the feelings of the citizenry. Although the defensive psychology strategy succeeded in Guanzhong, the social class from demarches caused the opposing position between the people of Guandong and Guanzhong which aroused people’s rebels. Chin’s many policies were effective, but the public anger from forceful promotions and the improper resource allocation both caused the over-consumption of the national power. In the later suppress war, the force couldn’t co-operate with other policies which made the power of the armed rebellion expanded again and again, and finally brought out the end of the empire.