The centralized system in ancient China originated from patriarchal cooperative agriculture in the pre-national era. The centralized system of government was established in the Xia, Shang, and Zhou “kingship power” era. In the “imperial power” era from the Qin Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, the authoritarian centralized system with imperial power as the core was increasingly strengthened. The evolution from “kingship power” to “imperial power” was an inevitable trend of China’s historical development, and the centralized power system had also been strengthened. As a dominant ideology, the thought of “Great Unity” provided a theoretical cornerstone for the centralized system in ancient China; the centralized system in ancient China provided the institutional guarantee for the official status of the idea of “Great Unity.” The system of centralization has been continuous in Chinese history, perfectly adaptable to Chinese traditional society, and interchangeable with the idea of “Great Unity,” providing an ideological basis and institutional guarantee for the formation, continuation, and development of a unified multi-ethnic country in China. The thought of “Great Unity” and centralization are the common values of the Chinese nation, which can provide useful reference for the current road of modernization.
This paper focuses on the iron smelting industry from the Han Dynasty to the Wei, Jin, and Southern and Northern dynasties, uses modern industrial theories to highlight the process of the development of the iron smelting industry, summarizes the characteristics of the transformation of production mode, and analyzes the impact of the transformation of production mode on the change of state governance. In ancient times, China’s iron smelting industry chose the technical path of pig iron smelting and casting. Based on the mature and developed pig iron smelting and casting technology, it shifted to a production mode based on steel forging from the late Eastern Han Dynasty to the Wei, Jin, and Southern and Northern dynasties. The transformation caused changes like decentralization and localization in state governance at three levels: central government policies, iron smelting production organization, and the behaviors of grassroots individuals and social communities.
With the society moving from decentralization to a whole and the strengthening of centralization, the state gradually enhanced the involvement in rural community. At the same time, the management of people-land relationship tended to be refined. The original Xiang-Li system, which was suitable to decentralized community, was no longer needed by the state, and would be inevitably replaced by smaller rural organizations that were suitable to centralized community. In this context, the Du-Bao system emerged as the times required. During this process, the combination of the Bao-Jia system, territory division, and mapping technique played a key role in pushing forward the refinement management of people-land relationship. From the Xiang-Li system to the Du-Bao system, from rural officials to rural servants, when rural power was transferred to the government, more new rural authority systems that embodied the state will replaced the traditional rural authority system. There was a lack of obvious dominant class such as aristocratic families and gentry representatives in rural community in the Song Dynasty. Such a unique era provided an excellent opportunity for the state forces to go deep into and change rural community. For this reason, thestate authority upon rural areas in the Song Dynasty exceeded the Han and Tang dynasties, and even the subsequent Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties.
In the local administrative procedures of the Ming Dynasty, very commonly submitted documents included those co-signed by a number of village leaders, local students, and gentry representatives. Such a way of document submission in the early and middle Ming Dynasty was known as the co-signed document submission, and then, as of the end of the Ming Dynasty, mostly, the public document submission. Starting from the middle Ming Dynasty, there were some document submissions signed as “whole school” or “whole county.” These submissions are not only an important means of reflecting the expectations of the local community to the government, but also an important basis for local officials to report on local affairs to the higher authorities. By the end of the Ming Dynasty, the status of the public document submission was increasingly prominent, and its application rules also tended to mature. For some local affairs, the public document submission of a specific group, as an evidence of the expectation of the local community, became the necessary documentary reference for the government’s decision-making.