中国历史上以王朝更迭的循环而闻名，那么在分裂时期，当时的人会认为这是内战还是独立国家之间的攻伐？
China is famous for going through a cycle of strong empires and fracturing and civil wars. But did people during times of small kingdoms see it as a “civil war” or as a war between separate states? Was there a desire or expectation that they’d all be united again eventually?
译文简介
中国以经历强大的帝国、分裂和内战的循环而闻名。但是，在小国林立的时代，人们把它们之间看作是“内战”，还是独立国家之间的战争？当时是否会有一种愿望或期望认为他们最终会再次统一起来？
正文翻译
China is famous for going through a cycle of strong empires and fracturing and civil wars. But did people during times of small kingdoms see it as a “civil war” or as a war between separate states? Was there a desire or expectation that they’d all be united again eventually?
中国以经历强大的帝国、分裂和内战的循环而闻名。但是，在小国林立的时代，当时的人们是把它们之间看作是“内战”，还是独立国家之间的战争？当时是否会有一种愿望或期望认为他们最终会再次统一起来？
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The short answer would be, "it depends."
The longer answer: Historically, the two periods prior to unification under the first Emperor of the Qin 秦始皇 (259 – 210 BC) are referred to as the Spring and Autumn 春秋 period, and the Warring States 戰國 period, both taking place under the nominal reign of the Eastern Zhou 東周 (770–256 BC). The Eastern Zhou was preceded by a smaller kingdom, the Western Zhou 西周 (1045–771 BC) which had in turn overthrown the Shang 商 (who claimed to have in turn overthrown the Xia 夏, inventors of the Chinese scxt), setting up a feudal vassal system 封建 which, over the course of several centuries became increasingly unwieldy, while at the same allowing the (written) language and culture of the central state to spread across a larger and larger geographic area. Here''s a map of the various kingdoms that existed during the SA&WS periods, with Zhou the middle:
简短的答案：“视情况而定。”
较长的答案：历史上，秦始皇统一前的两个时期被称为春秋时期和战国时期，都发生在东周（公元前770-256年）名义上的统治时期。东周之前有一个较小的王国--西周（公元前1045-771年），西周又推翻了商（商又声称推翻了夏-中国这套剧本的发明者），建立了一个封建的诸侯制度，在几个世纪的过程中，这个制度变得越来越笨拙，同时也让中央国家的（书面）语言和文化在一个越来越大的地理区域内传播。这是一张春秋战国时期各王国的地图，中间是周国。
With the exception of the oracle bones (Shang), and bronze inscxtions (Zhou), our earliest texts (Confucius and so on) date from the SA&WS periods. From these texts we can see that people did have a concept of ''foreigner'' and ''native'', typically described in terms of ''guests'' 客人 and ''hosts'' 主人. However, at the same time, a shared corpus of texts allowed people who came from outside of the historical Zhou heartland of the Wei River 渭河 valley (a tributary of Yellow River 黃河, in today''s Shaanxi and Gansu provinces) to demonstrate cultural affinity with the Zhou when it benefited them to do so. For example, Stratagems of the Warring States 戰國策 records the following anecdote:
Once there was a man from Wen who migrated to Zhou, but Zhou would not let him in. ‘Are you a foreigner [literally, a guest],’ they asked him. ‘No, I am a native [literally, a host],’ he replied. Then he was asked what lane he lived in, but he appeared not to know. So an official took him off to prison. The ruler sent someone to question him: ‘Why did you call yourself a native when you are in fact a foreigner?’ The man replied: ‘When I was young and studied The Book of Odes, I chanted the following verses from it: “All land underneath Heaven is the king’s land. To the far shores of the Earth every person is the king’s servant.” Since Zhou today rules All under Heaven and I am a servant of the Son of Heaven, how then can I be considered a foreigner? That’s why I said that I was a native.’ The ruler of Zhou thereupon ordered his officer to set the man free. 溫人之周，周不納。「客即？」對曰：「主人也。」問其巷而不知也，使因囚之。君使人問之曰：「子非周人，而自謂非客何也？」對曰：「臣少而誦《詩》，《詩》曰：『普天之下，莫非王土；率土之濱，莫非王臣。』今周君天下，則我天子之臣，而又為客哉？故曰主人。」君乃使吏出之。
除了甲骨文（商）和青铜器铭文（周）之外，我们最早的文本（孔子等）是在春秋战国时期。从这些文本中我们可以看到，人们确实有"外乡人"和 "本地人"的概念，典型的是用"客人"和"主人"来描述。但同时，由于有共同的语料库，使得来自渭河流域（黄河支流，在今天的陕西、甘肃两省）以外的周人，在有利的情况下，可以表现出与周人的文化亲和力。例如，《战国策》记载了以下的故事。
有一个文人迁徙到周国，但周国不让他进去。他们问他：“你是外国人[字面意思是客人]吗？”他回答说：“不是，我是本地人[字面意思是主人]。”然后又问他住在哪条巷子里，但他似乎答不上来。于是，一个官吏就把他关进了监狱。统治者派人去问他：“你其实是个外国人，为什么自称是本地人呢？”那人回答说：“我年轻的时候，学习过《诗》，我念过其中的以下诗句。"天下的土地，都是王的土地。天涯海角，每个人都是王的仆人"。既然今天周王统治天下万物，而我是天子的仆人，那么我怎么能算是外族呢？所以我才说我是本地人”。周君随即命令官员把这个人放了。（引自胡司德的（英国著名汉学家Roel Sterckx）《中国思想》在第一章里的翻译）
溫人之周，周不納。「客即？」對曰：「主人也。」問其巷而不知也，使因囚之。君使人問之曰：「子非周人，而自謂非客何也？」對曰：「臣少而誦《詩》，《詩》曰：『普天之下，莫非王土；率土之濱，莫非王臣。』今周君天下，則我天子之臣，而又為客哉？故曰主人。」君乃使吏出之。
During the SA&WS period, the perceived cultural proximity of a given kingdom to the Zhou was used to justify the partial conquests of one kingdom over another (and later, the outright elimination of rival kingdoms). The government minister and poet Qu Yuan 屈原 (340–278 BC), from the powerful but corrupt southern Kingdom of Chu 楚, for example, famously drowned himself in the Miluo River 汨羅江 after learning that the capital of his state had been captured by the armies of the western Kingdom of Qin 秦, which was often accused of being overly influenced by the ''barbarian'' cultures of the Rong 戎 tribes to the west and the Di 狄/翟 tribes to the north.
The historian Sima Qian 司馬遷 (145–86 BC) touches on this when discussing the surprising success of Qin in conquering the other kingdoms of the Eastern Zhou:
Qin originally was a small and remote state, all the Xia shunned it, treating it as Rong and Di [“barbarians”]; [only] after the age of Lord Xian [獻公, 384–362] it became a constant hero among the overlords. When we discuss virtue and righteousness of Qin, it does not match even the violence and cruelty of Lu 魯 and Wei 衛,10 when we measure its armies, they are not as strong as those of the three Jin 晉 states (i.e. Wei 魏, Han 韓 and Zhao 趙), but at the end [Qin] annexed All under Heaven. It is not necessarily due to the advantages of its mountain barriers and benefits of its geographic situation. Truly, [Qin] was aided by Heaven. 秦始小國僻遠，諸夏賓之，比於戎翟，至獻公之後常雄諸侯。論秦之德義，不如魯衛之 暴戾者，量秦之兵不如三晉之彊也，然卒并天下，非必險固便形埶利也，蓋若天所助焉。
在春秋战国时期，一个特定王国与周的文化接近被用来证明一个王国对另一个敌对王国的部分征服是正当的（后来又彻底消灭敌对王国）。例如，南方强国楚国的大臣和诗人屈原(公元前340-278年)，在得知其国都被西边的秦国军队攻占后，就投汨罗江自尽，而秦国常被指责为受西边戎族和北边狄/翟族的"野蛮"文化影响过大。
历史学家司马迁司馬迁（公元前145-86年）在讨论秦国征服东周其他王国的惊人成功时谈到了这一点：
秦国本来是一个偏僻的小国，所有的夏人都避开它，把它当作戎狄["蛮夷"]；[只是]在献公[384-362]时代以后，它才成为诸侯中的强者。当我们讨论秦国的德行和义气时，鲁国和卫国国君里最暴戾和残忍的都比它好，当我们衡量它的军队时，它们比不上晋三国（即魏韩赵）的军队，但最后[秦]却吞并了天下。这未必是由于其山川屏障的优势和地理环境的好处。老实说，[秦]是得到了上天的帮助。
秦始小國僻遠，諸夏賓之，比於戎翟，至獻公之後常雄諸侯。論秦之德義，不如魯衛之 暴戾者，量秦之兵不如三晉之彊也，然卒并天下，非必險固便形埶利也，蓋若天所助焉。
Following the establishment of the Qin Empire in 220 BC, you begin to see the concept of inevitable cycles of empire and civil war emerging. This is stated most succinctly in the first line of The Romance of the Three Kingdoms 三國演義:
"The way of all under heaven, it is said, is that all that is long divided must unify, and all that is long unified must divide." 話說天下大勢，分久必合，合久必分。
This novel, attributed to the late-Yuan, early-Ming playwright Luo Guanzhong 羅貫中 (~1315 - ~1400 AD), is a 120-chapter dramatic retelling of The Record of the Three Kingdoms 三國志, compiled by Chen Shou 陳壽 (233–297 AD). (In fact, it was almost certainly compiled from earlier oral retellings 平話 of the same history. See Andrew Plaks, The Four Masterworks, pp368–9)
Three Kingdoms is concerned with the collapse of the Han 漢 dynasty (202 BC - 220 AD) and the eventual founding of the Jin 晉 dynasty (266–420 AD) following the Yellow Turban Rebellion 黃巾之亂 of 184-205 AD, a peasant revolt lixed to millenarian Daoist secret societies. Unlike the SA&WS periods, writers in the post-Qin period is increasingly frxd their discussion of the state in terms of dynastic unification and separation under a single emperor. In contrast, under the feudal vassal system of the Zhou, writers stressed the relative worthiness of a given ruler of a given kingdom, basing that worthiness on how ''Zhou-like'' the ruler was perceived to have been.
在公元前220年秦帝国建立后，你开始看到帝国和内战不可避免的循环概念出现。这点在《三国演义》的第一句话中说得最清楚：
“天下统一得久了，就必然会分裂，分裂得久了，就必然会统一。” 話說天下大勢、分久必合、合久必分。
这部小说是元末明初剧作家罗贯中（约1315年-约1400年）120章的作品，是根据陈寿（公元233-297年）所编的《三国志》改编的。（事实上，它几乎可以确定是从同一历史的早期口头复述汇编而来的。）
《三国》关注的是汉朝（公元前202年至公元220年）的崩溃，以及公元184-205年黄巾之乱后晋朝（公元266-420年）的建立。与春秋战国时期不同的是，后秦（相对先秦）时期的作家们越来越多地将他们对国家的讨论定格在单一皇帝统治下的王朝的统一和分裂上。相反，在周的封建诸侯制度下，作家们强调一个国家的某位统治者的相对价值，并将这种价值建立在该统治者被认为是多么"像周一样"的基础上。
Sources:
Roel Sterckx, Chinese Thought: From Confucius to Cook Ding (Pelican Press, 2020).
Yuri Pines, “Biases and Their Sources: Qin History in the ‘Shiji,’” Oriens Extremus 45 (2005): 10–34.
Andrew H Plaks, The Four Masterworks of the Ming Novel (Princeton (N.J.): Princeton University Press, 1987).
就人们如何看待国家之间或国家内部的具体冲突而言（就像今天的人一样），这主要取决于他们个人在有关冲突中的得失。如上所述，一个想从一个国家移民到另一个国家的人可能会强调自己跟“周”有多大的共性，而像屈原这样曾在一个失败国家的政府中任职的人，则会更多地考虑到自己身份的丧失。
资料来源:
Yuri Pines, “Biases and Their Sources: Qin History in the ‘Shiji,’” Oriens Extremus 45 (2005): 10–34.
Andrew H Plaks, The Four Masterworks of the Ming Novel (Princeton (N.J.): Princeton University Press, 1987).
Crazyman_54
That’s really interesting thank you for the response! It’s really cool to see how the idea of the Mandate of Heaven and the Chinese people was created over time. Exactly the answer I was looking for : )
这真的很有趣，谢谢你的回应！看到天命和中国人民的思想是如何随着时间的推移而产生的，真是太酷了。这正是我要找的答案 : )
Glad to be able help out. The Mandate of Heaven was used by states to justify their reigns (beginning in the Zhou), but I''m not sure that the average person would have thought about their own identity in those terms. (As in, "I belong to the country with the mandate of heaven...") You can compare this to the development of national identity in places like the United States and the United Kingdom, and the use of concepts like "Manifest Destiny" and "The White Man''s Burden."
People tend to take on and off different identities depending on when it suits them to do so, and most of what we consider to be fixed national identities developed over time, through a combination of things, like newspapers and popular literature.
If you can, I would highly recommended tracking down a copy of Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, eds., The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge University Press, 1983).
很高兴能帮到你。天命是国家用来证明自己统治的正当性的（从周开始），但我不确定一般人是否会从这些方面考虑自己的身份。（如："我属于获得天命的国家......"）你可以比较一下美国和英国等地的国家认同的发展，以及"昭昭天命"和"白人的使命"等概念的使用。
人们往往会根据有利于自身的时间，接受和放弃不同的身份，而我们认为的固定的民族身份，大多是通过报纸和通俗文学等多种事物的结合，随着时间的推移而逐渐发展起来的。
如果可以的话，我强烈建议你去看一本埃里克·霍布斯鲍姆和特伦斯·朗格主编的《传统的发明》（剑桥大学出版社，1983）。
Early Modern East Asia
I see that there are already a few answers/specific anecdotes about Chinese unification (I can only blame myself for not spotting this question faster haha) which have attempted to explain how China ''defined itself'' during the 3 kingdom period or the Warring States period. Hence,I''ll just go over the scholarly idea of tianxia with a few examples, followed by (poached) examples of the opposite variety;if ''fragmented'' Chinese states saw themselves as successor states to one day achieve the mantle of reunification,did a unified China see itself as China ?
TLDR: Motives and purpose are about as varied as the men and women who make them up. History for China,or any nation for that matter, should be studied on a case by case basis rather than rough generalization,in my opinion. Words change their meaning and Unification is the thinnest of veneers,especially for a country as diverse and varied as China.Did the Southern Ming see themselves in civil war against the Qing ? I doubt it. Did the burgeoning Tang state see itself in a "civil war" against the ailing Sui or did it see itself as a legitimate successor state at war to rule China in the Sui''s stead ? If the Liao Khitan empire owned Beijing but the Song ruled most of China proper,were the Liao-Song wars a civil war or "actual" war between two states.
Why did I use the word Tianxia ?
我看到已经有一些关于中国统一的答案/具体的轶事（只能怪我自己没有更快发现这个问题，哈哈），我试着解释中国在三国时期或战国时期如何"定义自己"。因此，我会用几个例子来介绍一下学者们对“天下”的看法，然后再举一些相反的例子；如果"分裂的"古代中国地方政权把自己看作是有朝一日实现统一的继承国，那么统一后的中国把自己看作是中国吗？
总结: 动机和目的和组成它们的男人和女人一样多种多样。在我看来，中国或任何国家的历史都应该在个案的基础上进行研究，而不是粗略的概括。词语会改变它们的意义，而“统一”是一件最薄的外衣，特别是对于像中国这样一个多样化和多变的国家来说。"南明"是否认为自己是在与清朝发生内战？我表示怀疑。蓬勃发展的唐朝是否认为自己是在"内战"中对抗病入膏肓的隋朝，还是把自己看作是一个合法的继承国，在战争中代替隋国统治中国？如果辽国拥有北京，而宋国统治着中国的大部分地区，那么辽宋战争是内战还是两个国家之间的"实际"战争呢？
The word Tianxia (literally All Under Heaven) is an old Chinese cultural concept that is not nearly as old as we think. The first mention of it is in roughly the 8th century BCE. It does not appear in Early Zhou(1046BC-roughly 800BC) sources,is not mentioned in bronze inscxtions and absent from the earliest chapters of the Shu jin (書經) and the Shi jing (詩經), a book of poems and hymns. Now the most famous example is the oft-cited passage from the 8th century BCE poem 北山 (Beishan) which states:
“Everywhere under Heaven is the King’s land, each of those who live on the land is the King’s servant and hence what are the limits of everywhere under Heaven”? (溥天之下，莫非王土，率土之濱，莫非王臣)."
我为什么用“天下”这个词？
Tianxia（字面意思为天下）是一个古老的中国文化概念，不过它并没有我们想象的那么古老。天下一词最早见于公元前8世纪，但在周初（公元前1046年-约公元前800年）的青铜器铭文中没有提到，《书经》和《诗经》的最早篇章中也没有提到。现在最著名的例子是公元前8世纪的《北山》一诗中的一段话。
“天堂下的每一个地方都是国王的土地，每个生活在这片土地上的人都是国王的仆人，因此，天堂下的每一个地方哪儿有什么限制呢？”（溥天之下，莫非王土，率土之濱，莫非王臣）
To quote Yuri Pines on this "It is therefore likely that originally tianxia referred to the area under the direct rule of the Son of Heaven, and its limits might have shrunk together with the contraction of royal power."
这首诗的诗句有很多背景，因为当时周王室（统称为周王）正处于衰落时期，除了王室封地之外，执行实际权力的能力有限，最终导致王都镐京（洛阳）被攻陷。这首诗本身就是对王权衰落命运的悲叹，而且，很有说服力的是，"天下"这个词在周朝的大部分时间里都没有出现过，这说明"天下"的原意与我们所知道的"中国本土"有很大的不同。
引用尤里·皮恩斯的说法："因此，天下很可能是指天子直接统治的地区，其范围可能随着王权的收缩而缩小。"
As frequency of the word vanished,so too did China slid further and further into what we term the the Chunqiu Period or the Spring and Autumn Period (~771BC to 476BC) which saw conflict spread across China as the former Zhou states vied for supremacy and the word tianxia suddenly spring back into parlance. The Zuozhuan (左傳),a 30 chapter book covering the period, mentions this term only four times in the first half but eighteen times when recording the speeches of sixth century BCE statesmen.This increase is accompanied by gradual differences in how the word was used; It was gradually referring to the political state of affairs rather than simply the royal fief. In another book,Lunyu (論語),this term is mentioned 23 times and its cultural meaning twisted. Instead of simply meaning the royal fief,it was used thus:
随着"天下"一词的消失，中国也越发陷入了春秋时期冲突在中国各地蔓延的混乱中（约公元前771年至公元前476年），而随着前周诸国争夺霸权，"天下"一词又突然回到了人们的视野中。《左传》共30章，前半部分只提到这个词4次，但在记录公元前6世纪政治家的讲话时，却提到了18次，而且这个词的用法也逐渐不同，它逐渐变成指代政治状态，而不是简单的王室封地。在另一本书《论语》中，这个词被提到23次，其文化含发生了扭曲，它不再简单地指王室的封地，而是这样使用的：
“天下皆归仁”、“三年之丧，天下通丧”、还有长长的“天下有道,则礼乐征伐自天子出;天下无道,则礼乐征伐自诸侯出”
如果我们把里面"天下"的意思换成皇家封地，那在上下文中是没有意义的。然而，如果我们把它换成"土地"或者"中国"，我们就会开始了解这个词是如何开始被使用的。它不再是一个单纯的词，而是一个政治词，一个意味着"王国"单位的词。这就是约瑟夫·雷文森和尤里·皮恩斯试图传达的基本思想：天下如何成为一个政治术语的演变。“天下”的演变，不管是通过思想家们达成共识的方式（不太可能），还是在国家的时代精神中，这个词现在已经开始意味着中国，因为使用这个词的人都把自己看作是国王，并把它作为一种表达对所有对手优越感的手段。因此，王室领地现在是"我的土地和我的对手的土地"，因为每个国王现在都把所有的领土都看作是王室领地。 (请耐心听我说，这很快就会有意义的。)
"I heard that All under Heaven has Yan at north, Wei at south; [they] will connect with Jing (Chu) and rely on Qi, absorb Han and establish a vertical alliance, and then face to the west and make trouble for powerful Qin. I look at this and laugh. In the world there are three factors of defeat, and All under Heaven possess all three… Now, as for Qin lands, if you cut the longer and extend the shorter lines, they will be several thousand li squared..... in all these All under Heaven cannot be compared to Qin. If using all these you raise [troops] against All under Heaven, All under Heaven can be annexed and possessed."
有些关于法理和秦国的征战的回复与我平时阅读的内容相差无几，所以我就不再展开说了，但我会在下面留下几个链接。最终的结果是，在公元前221年，中国的第一个皇帝在经历了大约5个世纪的内部战争后统一了天下。那么秦人如何看待中国，以及反过来呢，韩非（一位哲学家）在公元前233年给当时的秦王的一份备忘录也许是最好的例证：
“我听说：天下北燕南魏，连接楚国和齐国，纠合韩国而成合纵之势，打算向西来同强秦作对。我私下讥笑他们。世上有三种灭亡途径，六国（天下）都占有了......如今秦国领土截长补短，方圆数千里，名师有数十百万之众。秦国的法令赏罚严明，地理位置有利，天下没有一个国家比得上的。凭这些攻取天下，天下无需费力就可兼并占有。”
Again,I quote this to illustrate one point : Tianxia varied depending on who was using it. Each king justified tianxia as both their casus belli and their raison d''être ;They conquered each other because they needed to unite all of tianxia and it was tianxia because their rivals owned it. A self perpetuating circle,if you will. Over time and over dynasties, this became the "norm". Chinese lands had to "unite" because previous dynasties had taken said land(Han conquest of Nanyue),or because there was a rival warlord who challenged imperial power(Song unification in the Tang-Song transition),or because a rival king,like the kingdom of Nanzhao ( modern day Yunnan) had become a credible threat to Chinese power in the region,resulting in the Tang invasion of Nanzhao in 863.
等等，什么情况？秦国为什么不属于"天下"？战国不是在同一个盘棋中几个平等（级）的国家之间争夺霸权吗？中国在内战中反对自己？为什么会有局外人，还有，侵略者不属于“天下”？
再一次，我引用这段话是用来说明一个问题：“天下”的定义取决于谁在使用它。每一个国王都把天下作为他们的宣战理由和存在的理由；他们征服对方是因为他们需要统一整个天下，而天下之所以是天下是因为他们的对手拥有它。这就形成了一个自我延续的循环。随着时间和朝代的推移，这成为了"常态"。中国的土地必须要"统一"，因为以前的王朝已经占领过这些土地（汉朝征服南越），或者因为有敌对的军阀挑战皇权（唐宋过渡时期的宋朝统一），或者因为一个敌对的王国，比如南诏国（今天的云南）已经成为中国在该地区权力的一个可信的威胁，于是导致唐朝在863年入侵南诏。