In other words, for such a long time, Japan has not changed its dynasty. This is a rather strange question. East Asia has always been? The emperor took turns sitting in my house today? How does the Japanese royal family maintain stability? A series of immortals? What about yours?
The flag of the Japanese emperor
This problem is very popular among the people, and it is not new. Most people know the answer: because the actual political rights of the ancient Japanese emperor were very limited, no one would compete for this position. The question is: How did this happen?
In fact, there are two reasons why Japan has formed this unique situation.
First, Japan's conditions made it impossible to form a unified feudal dynasty country in ancient times. To be honest, Japan is one of the countries with the most unique geographical conditions in the world. From a certain point of view, it may be more appropriate to treat it as an independent continent rather than an island.
Why do you say that? As we all know, before15th century, the main civilizations in the world were in Asia, Europe and Africa, namely? World island? In the world, Australia, America, sub-Saharan Africa because of and? World island? There are great barriers, basically no mainstream civilization was born, and its development is very backward.
World island? Of course, there are also marginal areas, that is, islands, such as Iceland, Britain, Japan and so on. Iceland is too far away from Europe, and it was basically a wilderness in ancient times; Britain is too close to Europe, so it is basically a part of Europe, while Japan, for example, is not far from the mainland.
Therefore, on the one hand, Japan can be radiated by mainland civilization without being wild; On the other hand, it has been separated from East Asia for a long time and formed its own unique system, which is not greatly influenced by mainland politics. Ancient Japan was the only country in East Asia that did not establish a formal suzerain-vassal system with China, and the Yuan Dynasty's attempt to attack Japan eventually failed.
That is to say. Japan is one of our own? Small world, huh? The mainland does not interfere, but it has its own development path. From the 3rd century BC to the 3rd century BC, the Yayoi Group from the mainland and the Korean Peninsula crossed the ocean and came to western Japan, bringing advanced production technology and establishing Japanese civilization. At this time, Japan was not a unified country in the early days, but a large and small blood tribe, and then gradually formed a tribal alliance.
This is really nothing new. The formation process of all countries in the world is the same. The legend of the Han nationality was originally formed by the combination of Yanhuang tribe and many other tribes. Did the Manchu people return it before the establishment of the Qing Dynasty? Eight kings in power? Well, there must be a leader in the tribal alliance. This is the original emperor of Japan.
In fact, the origin of the Japanese emperor has not been investigated clearly. The Japanese myth book "Records of Japan" says that the emperor is a descendant of the sun god, and this theory has become the basis of Japanese theocracy. This is obviously impossible. The History of Japan was completed from 68 1 year to 720 (four years of providing for the aged), which was the period when Japan was preparing to deify the royal family after modernization, so there were many myths about the ancient royal family.
Jinmu Tennō
Legend has it that the first emperor in Japan was Emperor Jimmu, then the second emperor Suize, and the eighth emperor among the ninth civilized emperors. Each of them had a chronology (namely, the throne and genealogy), but there was a lack of records of governance deeds, which Japanese historians called? Eight generations of finches? Everyone of these emperors lived 100 years old, which is obviously impossible. The Japanese themselves think it's basically a legend.
The tenth emperor worshipped God, which was the earliest possible emperor and was presumed by historians as the actual king in the second half of the 3rd century. After Emperor Ren Ying of 15, with the help of archaeological excavations and textual research, the credibility of the emperor's reign time and deeds recorded in Japanese ancient books was greatly increased.
What is certain, however, is that there were many small Japanese countries in the Middle Ages, which were finally unified by the Japanese court in the middle of Honshu Island (Nara Prefecture). What is reunification called at this time? Tribal alliance? However, the Japanese imperial court at that time was a bigger tribe, namely? Yamato? , the leader of the Japanese court, the emperor (then called? Your majesty. Just a tribal leader) just a coordinator between tribes.
It's a bit like the Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties in China, which are said to be three dynasties. In fact, it is not a unified dynasty, but the boss of the three major tribal alliances.
At this time, the emperor is unlikely to be overthrown. Isn't the history of Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties in China very long? After all, the historical evolution at this time is very slow, but Japan can easily absorb civilization from the mainland because of its geographical characteristics, so the development of Japanese civilization is obvious? Leap? Features: During the Sui and Tang Dynasties, Japan absorbed a large number of civilizations from the mainland, and finally carried out? Big change and new change? A unified feudal country that became a reality.
At this time, the emperor's position reached its peak, and he conquered most of Honshu and Kyushu.
Compared with China, this is not surprising. After the development of feudal economy in China, Qin Shihuang unified China. If China was not unified by Qin State at that time, but by Zhou tribes, then the historical trend of China is similar to that of Japanese history.
However, the emperor actually managed Japan for a short time and soon formed a virtual king. The reason is that Japan is too chaotic, it is not big, but the geography is too rugged, and the places suitable for living are divided into small pieces, like China? Great unification? The conditions for the formation did not exist, so later the local strongmen went their own way, and the court also admitted the legitimacy of this situation, so the samurai group was formed.
After that, everyone knew that imperial power was overhead.
Then the second question arises, why didn't the samurai kill the emperor instead of the emperor's independence? It formed the same situation as the Western Zhou Dynasty in China: the samurai was both the de facto Japanese ruler and the nominal emperor. How good?
This actually involves the second factor: political resistance. Readers who are familiar with the history of China should know that although dynasties changed frequently in ancient China, there was a great resistance when one dynasty perished, and that was the Han Dynasty. Why? After the Zhou-Qin Revolution, China formed a unified feudal imperial system, but the rule of the Qin Dynasty was too cruel. In addition, at first, this system was not fully accepted by the whole world, and soon the Qin Dynasty perished, and so did the Han Dynasty. After the early rectification, the Han dynasty determined the ruling order of the world and quickly gained legitimacy.
After 200 years of Han dynasty's rule, there was a crisis in the rule, and everyone called for Wang Mang to be in power. However, Wang Mang's reform led to chaos, and eventually the Eastern Han Dynasty replaced the Western Han Dynasty. Therefore, the Han Dynasty lasted for 400 years, and Liu's ruling had high political legitimacy. The people have a high sense of identity with the Liu royal family, so there is great resistance to destroying the Han Dynasty. Even if the Han dynasty was really destroyed, Cao Wei would give the Han emperor considerable courtesy. From this point of view, if Liu Bei really succeeded in the Northern Expedition and gave it to the Han Dynasty, it would be really hard to say the historical evolution of China after that, and it would be even harder to overthrow Liu's Jiangshan.
After Cao Pi replaced the Han Dynasty, he must also give special treatment to Emperor Xian of the Han Dynasty to reduce the hostility of people loyal to the Han Dynasty.
The same is true of Japan. Even from the 3rd century until the establishment of the samurai regime in12nd century, the Japanese royal family has lasted for 900 years! Although Japan can't form a unified system politically because of geographical factors, it is so big, nominally a country, and everyone has a homogeneous civilization identity (such as the Western Zhou Dynasty and the Central Plains countries? Zhu Xia? It is very difficult to change the emperor.
And unlike China and China, you gain political benefits by killing the royal family, because the political rule formed in China is that the emperor has the highest political power. However, due to the long-term evolution of Japan, it is the right way for the emperor not to manage the specific regime, so it is almost useless to change the royal family.
For example, in ancient China, apart from the emperor, there was another place in China that was sacred, and the emperor worshipped it when he saw it, that is, Confucius, a saint. But in ancient China, he had seen the emperor rebel, and had never heard anyone openly say that Confucius was not a saint, but he was a saint. Right?
The only person in Japanese history who wanted to overthrow the emperor himself as emperor was Hiramen, but of course he didn't succeed.
Moreover, this political inertia will continue to strengthen with the evolution of time, so even in Japan's feudal era, with the development of productive forces, Japan's domestic ties are constantly close. In the Tokugawa shogunate era, there has been a strong degree of centralization, but even so, General Tokugawa does not call himself a royal family, but only limits the secular power of the royal family.
So, ancient Japan has long been there? Theocracy? And then what? Regime? The state of separation.