I found “The Canon of Yao” and “The Canon of Shun” to be an interesting for a number of reasons specifically in how they portrayed the role of the king in their society. The part of the story that I found to be most interesting for me was the downplaying and essentially exclusion of a king’s executive power over his kingdom. Based on what the story depicts, their is an inherent lack of administrative power in the hands of the king nor does there seem to be a need for the king to have any sort of experience in ruling a country. When She was promoted to the throne, his powers seemed to be set in rituals like making the “lei sacrifices to the Lord-on-high” ( “The Canon of Yao” and “The Canon of Shun” ). While in the society, the conducting of …show more content…
rituals and paying respects to the ancestors represented an important part of society, it also severely limits the actual authority of a king over his subjects. While Shun does also have the power to “put into accord the seasons, the months, and the proper days,” there never comes a point where it can be said that the king really appears to have total control over the far reaches of his kingdom.
Rather, the authority of the king all comes back to being a moral exemplar who is able to make “bright [their] virtue” (“The Canon of Yao” and “The Canon of Shun” ). Even more so as mentioned earlier, the need for experience, knowledge or desire for ruling and statesmanship that typically aids a king in the ruling of his nation appears to not be necessary. For Yao before he retires wants to ensure that whoever comes next has the necessary virtue to be a king and goes so far to say that if needed that “someone who is humble and of low status” should be raised up to the position of king (“The Canon of Yao” and “The Canon of Shun”). This eventually leads to Shun being promoted to the position of king even though the only basis for his appointment is the fact that he remained virtuous in an unvirtuous …show more content…
family. Although this a noble way to promote the next king, it leaves a lot to be desired in terms of putting a person in power who would be able to successfully run and rule over a country. In considering all of this after the reading, I found there to be a very large power vacuum that seemingly existed in Chinese society at this time if it were to match the society described in the Canon’s as the king does not posses the power to rule over the many parts of the country.
As a result, it has to be wondered what filled the vacuum that was left by the lack of central authority. I would speculate given a few factors that the power would localized to families in locales and other sorts of localized forms of governments. I feel confident that based on this reading, this would be the assumed system that would govern society as it is the one of the only ways given the nature of the king’s authority to run a kingdom with such a weak king. Even more so, based on what I have previously learned about Confucius who collected the Canon’s, I know that he was a strong advocate for a hands-off central government that gave a lot of authority to powerfuls families. These Canon’s interestingly seem to suggest a type of government very similar to the one Confucius advocates given the fact that a weak central government exists which normally gives way to a localization of power into families and
such. Given the fact that Confucius collected these documents and then advocated for the decentralized government system, I am certainly suspicious of exactly how accurate and historically correct that documents are given how well they support the Confucian claims. Even if it is too big of a leap to suggest this, at the bare minimum, it needs to be noted that these readings mirror the Confucian style of virtue and government.
The purpose of this type of government was to allow the “common man” to make decisions for other “common people”. This allowed them to be the “bad guys” rather than just one ruler. For example, if a war needed to take place, the Senate allowed for a possible discussion and logical explanations. Whereas, if a king or other singular ruler declares a war that the public does not agree with the logic and proof is harder to come by for the everyday citizen .
Han China and Ancient shared bureaucratic governments. This means that they had a government ruled by unelected officials, giving the people little to no say in government. In Rome the ruler was once a king but then their government transitioned to an oligarchy, which would put the rich people in the highest place in society. On the other hand in Han China, which was an imperial dynasty, and emperors were decided by the Mandate of Heaven. The Mandate gave the common man a chance to become a major ruler during the Han period. The Han government was mainly influenced by confucian government while Romes was based on Roman law and the classics. The Han government spread Confucianism since that was the basis for their government. Rome also relied on local rulers to make sure that their many lands were following rules and not plotting against them. Both the Han and Rome shared a bureaucratic government which affected their social structures in different ways.
During the Ming and Qing Dynasty, under the circumstance of which the absolute monarchy reached its peak progressively, two trends of thoughts appeared in China:
The government within the monarchical society was populated by the aristocracy. It was they who were depended upon for directing the course of governmental affairs. The controls of all co...
The Han dynasty and the Roman Empire were both powerful empires during their era. However, the ways they obtained their power varied greatly because they used different methods that involved their political structures, which revolved around their centralized governments. The Han dynasty and the Roman Empire acquired very unique techniques that allowed them to control social and political. For example, the Han dynasty adopted a religion known as Confucianism, which monitored everything in the lives of the Chinese. Contrary, the Roman Empire established a monarchy but allowed its residents more freedom as compared to the Han. Nevertheless, the two empires were similar in political structures in that the power was depended on the wealthy that were in authority, the peasants struggled with their lives because of concerning issues such as food supply. The empires were able to create and preserve a peaceful and sustainable lives for a long time, unlike the past empires. Social distribution were under the control of the wealthiest and they could effortlessly impact community viewpoints and interactions among the residents. These two empires existed during the Classical Period had comparable and various social, political, religions, as well as economical values and practices. However, they both possessed differences and similarities in their economic and social perspectives even though the two empires were established around the same era.
After starting the Chinese Empire, Shihuangdi based the empire on a harsh law system called legalism and was also influenced by Confucianism. Since Shihuangdi was the only ruler of the empire, the government was considered a strong central monarchy. When the Chinese empire had a good start, they expanded their territories to northern Vietnam, Korea, and the northwest steppes. Shihuangdi believed the harsher the empire the more respected, so he invested heavily into a strong military army a...
...rs as better than him is followed by the citizens adoring him more, as everyone admires a modest king and surely no one likes a self-centered one.
In this initial chapter, Huang provides an anecdotal history of some of the events that occurred, and includes within it a discussion of the set up of the leadership, the repercussions that occurred in the event of certain actions, including the prospects of an audience with the emperor. Huang reviews these issues as he considers that actions taken by the Wan-li emperor, who was only twenty-four in 1587 and who had been a veteran of ceremonial proceedings, and considers his history as an element of understanding the progression of leadership. Huang outlines the reconstruction of the court under Wan-li who came into power at the death of his father and the seemingly insignificant actions taken by the emperor, from his marriage to the redecorating of the court. Within the scope of this discourse, Huang is able to disclose the excesses of the emperor, and consider the implications of the bureaucratic system that he devised as an extension of this excess (13).
It has been proven that knowledge is an essential element every community should master. The more information and culture people have, the better they can work and subsidize to their commonality. People would be tutored in every single area, from how to cultivate to the different philosophies. In addition, with their new understanding and their own opinions, they can find other ways to improve these thoughts. Also, Confucianists believed that castigation would not get a society anywhere. As Confucius, the founder of this concept, said that with strict laws people “will avoid wrongdoing but will not be good people”. This means that though they will not break the law, they will still be bad. Also, he thought that “lead[ing] them with virtue and sett[ing] a good example” will make people differ from what is good and what is wrong. Adding onto this, Confucius created a test that would determine if people had what they needed in order to be a leader. This examination was called the Civil Service Exam, and it was open to the public so everyone would be able to take it, since now everyone would have an education and could apply the concepts grasped to make the Empire they lived in a better place. This gave the citizens an opportunity to
From the beginning of his life as a warrior to the end as a king, he gains and develops glory, responsibility and courage, all vital to his reign as a successful king.
The Shang Dynasty developed a more centralized government, but as the Zhou Dynasty took over, they ruled on the Mandate of Heaven. This “Mandate” meant that heaven would grant the Zhou power only as long as its rulers had governed wisely, if they had the support of heaven. The Zhou Dynasty contained the most feudal ruling. The king ruled the empire, but China was too big for one ruler so the king had nobles with land and power over it. As their wealth and power developed, China’s complex kingdoms developed officials. The Indus valley never let their regions gain too much power, unlike
When a private individual becomes a ruler, he will need both his inner skills and a good chance to show them. The relationship of fortune and the virtù will bring him the success. Without a chance, the skills will not find a way to show them while gaining the power, and without the skills, given chance can not be used effectively for a long time.
The large democratic society use to elect their leaders, and at this time it was a republic before it become an empire, and ruled by Emperors. Also the leaders could not have to much power. It was seem as the same way as Athenian democracy, meaning that only adult male could vote, and they limited the vote of the poor people. They would elect two consult that would work together for a year. There was also senators, but they did not have the power that the consuls had. However been a senator it’s for life, whereas the consuls were only there for a year. With one important thing, all these members in this government had the sam object for their civilization, only the well being of the republic as well as the well being of the
The Mandate of Heaven was created during the Zhou dynasty and is an ancient philosophical concept which determined whether an emperor was capable of ruling his people. Some basic features of the mandate were that the power to rule could change and no one family was given this power to rule for ever. Heaven has given the power to rule to one individual because there is only one heaven at any given time. The last feature being that if an emperor were to not be ruling his people in an appropriate manner they have the right to rebel and replace them. The document shows Yi Yin, the chief minister, instructing the new king on his duties and responsibilities now that he will be taking the throne. He explains the actions of the former king and what made his reign successful, hopefully to influence the next in line. The quote, “"Oh! do you, who now succeed to the throne, revere these warnings in your person. Think of them!” the minster telling the new king to not fail and the use of “warnings” seems to imply that if failure were to happen there would be punishment. This punishment would later be explained to be a removable of powers to rule and thus passing the throne to a different dynasty as the writer says “will bring the ruin of your ancestral temple”. This mandate had an overall positive effect on how government was
A government was required to lead the people and aid in organizing a city. City governments were far more powerful than the council of elders and local chiefs of farming villages. At first, Priest probably had the greatest. In time, warrior kings came to power as chief political leaders. They soon set themselves up as the chief hereditary ruler and passed their power from father to son. Governments soon became more complex as rulers issued laws, collected taxes, and organizes systems of defense. To enforce order, rulers relied on royal officials. Over time, government bureaucracies evolved. Almost always rulers claimed their power came from god or divine right. These rulers then gained religious power as well.