A Study On Political Geography Of The Qin Dynasty

Based on the theories and methods of political geography,this article took three elements which were important in the generation and development of political entities as the breakthrough point;specifically analyzed the resource control and allocation,political culture connotation and construction of the Qin Dynasty,as well as the geographical relationship with its surrounding political entities and ethnic groups.It was helpful to re-understand Qin’s boundaries,administrative regions and transportation,as well to construct the political and geographical patterns of the Qin Dynasty.Boundary was an equilibrium line of two or more forces.The Qin’s boundary forms evolved from“Feng”and“Gou”(“封”和“沟”)to“Sai”and“Jiao”(“塞”和“徼”);which was not only a sign of Qin’s abundant resources and strong deployment capacity,but also reflected that the Qin rulers’strengthened the competition and control of resources.In essence,the struggle for human resources on the boundary was a struggle for ethnic identity and affiliation,involving people’s view of“Yi Xia”(夷夏)and the geographical strategy of the Qin dynasty.In late Warring States,The Qin state became a member of“Zhu Xia”(诸夏),inherited the political symbol of the Xia dynasty in the expansion process,and later claimed“Qin Ren”(秦人)with higher cohension and recognition instead of“Xia Zi”(夏子).After the unification,Qin became the only representative of“Hua Xia”and was in the expansion period of“Hua Xia”power,the margin of“Hua Xia”was not clear and fixed at that time.It occupied the initiative of geopolitical relations with surrounding political entities or ethnic groups,the military geostrategy took the Legalist theory of expansion as the core,weighed the cost-benefit and the realistic conditions,and then implemented a more flexible strategy.The cultural geostrategy was also divided into the north and the south,“separating the difference between Hua and Xia”in the north,and“turning Yi into Xia”in the south.However,“turning Yi into Xia”was not effective,one of the main reason was that legitimacy of its internal regime was not established.Although the Qin rulers tried from multiple levels such as etiquette,law,and bureaucracy,finally they failed because of cultural inconsistency and resistance caused by coercion and rigidity.The reason why Qin constructed a political and cultural system different from that of the Western Zhou Dynasty was to match the imperial power and the centralization system.Based on mature farming areas,supplemented by a complete transportation and road system,post system and administrative operation system,The Qin central government controlled the local.No matter from the perspective of resource allocation or political and culture integration,the Qin Dynasty has formed a three-tier structure of political geographical pattern,“Gu Di”(core area)– “Xin Di”(middle area)-“Bian Di”(marginal area).In terms of agricultural resources area,the Qin Dynasty administrative area could be divided into four major resource regions: the core region,the Huanghuai region,the Jiangnan region and the marginal region,and the interior-edge structure was prevalent in each region.The fall of the Qin Dynasty was more due to the failure of internal transformation;the defects of Qin’s political ideas,as well as the malpractice of political systems and administrative operations accelerated the process of failure.To a certain extent,“the Han Dynasty followed the Qin Dynasty system” was the developmental stereotype of such a political entity in the early Chinese dynasties.The transition from kingship to imperial power,patriarchal enfeoffment system to centralism did not stop with the fall of the Qin Dynasty,and the Han Dynasty continued the unfinished transformation and construction.