Why, unlike the Roman Empire, has China survived for more than 2000 years?

為什么與羅馬帝國不同，中國能夠延續(xù)2000多年至今？

評論翻譯

原創(chuàng)翻譯：龍騰網(wǎng) http://www.ltaaa.com 轉(zhuǎn)載請注明出處

Rome was always a bureacratic identity. China was always a cultural one. Cultural identities can last forever, bureaucratic ones die with the regime.
First of all, Matt Riggsby is just outright wrong. It doesn't surprise me that someone who also wrote that the Great Wall was a logistics network for chariots would be wrong on other things. There's good reason why he disables comments on his answers.
His argument is that China didn't exist during fractured states or dynastic change. But then - even though Rome literally had the same things happen - he hand waves that away and doesn't even acknowledge it happened. Rome had many “warring states” periods and multiple dynasties. In fact, most dynasties were of a single ruler or two. The only reason why we don't count Rome by dynastic eras is that there would be dozens of them but in China it's a neat and succinct list. Han, Tang, Song, Ming, & Qing pretty much covers about 80% of the last two millennia so we gravitate to those epoch markers out of simplicity.
He then calls a Germanic federation using some PR as the continuation of Rome despite largely occupying a population and territory that was never part of Rome. I'm shocked he didn't also include Czarist Russia, who claimed to be the Third Rome as well. Basically he's super stringent in viewing Asia but anything goes in Europe. It's not just inconsistent, it's beyond rational thinking.
But I digress. Romans were never Romans. They were Berbers who lived in Rome, they were Arabs who lived in Rome, Greeks that lived in Rome, they were Jews that lived in Rome, etc etc etc. All those ethnic groups survive today but the Roman bureaucratic identity didn't. Not once in the Roman Empire was Latin even remotely close to being the most commonly spoken language. Latin was the language of administration - again reminding us of Roman being a bureacratic identity.
Most tellingly, the Romans really didn't view other Romans as countrymen. When the Arabs or Persians conquered a city, it often was welcomed. Time and time again we have local populations happily opening their gates to the foreign armies. Resistance came not locally but from a far off army paid for by someone hoping to cash in on taking back the “Roman” land.
Never did the Romans rebel against any occupiers and voluntarily go back to Rome. Any rebellions were for local independence. Rome itself was just as much a foreign occupation as those who conquered the land from the Romans. That's really the key distinction, they were always the foreign occupiers, never the countrymen.
In fact, many Christians actively aided the Arab conquest because they'd prefer to be under the Arabs than the sightly different churches of Rome or Constantinople because those churches wanted to dictate how they should worship and collect taxes but the Arabs just wanted to collect taxes. The Roman was the tax collector to them and nothing more.
400 years later when the crusades happen, again the local population (that's still mostly Christian) basically divorces themselves from their Christian liberators and stay out of the conflict. Hundreds of years of crusading and the crusader states always had to import new soldiers from Europe or hire Turkic mercenaries because the local Christian population didn't join in the fight.
So much like you wouldn't still send money to the IRS if the United States government collapsed, the Romans ceased being Romans once they were no longer paying taxes to Rome. At that point they went back to being Arab or Jew or Berber or Frank or what have you. Even modern Italians have had significant genetic and cultural drift that their DNA is very different from that of the Romans.
Meanwhile, in China, it was 99% just one ethnic group. While they were spread out over a territory larger than Europe and thus had many different spoken languages, they all shared an identical written language. Unlike Rome, the language of administration was the language of the people as well.
The relative stability of the Chinese language is astonishing. People still grow up in school reciting poetry in it's original form that was written over a thousand years ago. For reference, pick up a copy of Canterbury Tales in original text. It's unreadable. You can guess at the meaning but you really have no idea because the English language changes so dramatically over just a few hundred years.
Whan that Arcite to Thebes comen was,
Ful ofte a day he swelte and seyde `Allas,'
For seen his lady shal he nevere mo;
And shortly to concluden al his wo,
So muche sorwe hadde nevere creature,
That is, or shal whil that the world may dure.
His slep, his mete, his drynke is hym biraft,
That lene he wex and drye as is a shaft.
Then try to read Beowulf, the first “English” publication from just a few hundred years prior.
Hw?t. We Gardena in geardagum,
teodcyninga, trym gefrunon,
hu ea ?telingas ellen fremedon.
Oft Scyld Scefing sceatena treatum,
monegum m?gtum, meodosetla
Good luck with reading that “English” poem. Honestly, the only reason why English is likely to remain relatively stable today is the printing press and now the internet.
China doesn't have this fluidity if language. Yes, reading by the classics will be difficult for them and they'll often be trained in how to do it, but the changes they encounter reading something 1,500 years old is about equivalent to is reading Shakespeare, it's weird, you're not quite sure but with some thought it will make sense. It's never like Canterbury Tales or Beowulf where is basically an entirely different language.
Then you have genetics. China regularly does does DNA sampling at archaeological digs and the results are pretty astounding. The DNA is basically the same as that of modern Chinese. This is unheard of elsewhere in the world. It's so profound that when they excavate non Han Chinese from an ancient site, they immediately label them as captured slaves. Many Shang Dynasty burial sites have what have been labeled as slave pits:
Hundreds of captured slaves were typically executed during a renji ceremony,usually via decapitation. The corpses of the victims, along with their severed heads, were buried in mass sacrificial pits
So in Rome you have hundreds of different ethnic groups and languages under one bureacratic identity. In China you have one ethnic group and one language so their bureacratic and social identity is one and the same.
When the government collapsed the people moved on in Europe and established new governments under their cultural identities. In China, if the government collapsed, it'd be replaced by a new government that was still Chinese.

羅馬始終是一個官僚體制的國家。而中國一直是一個文化大國。文化認同能永遠持續(xù)下去，而官僚國家會隨著政權(quán)的更迭而消亡。
首先，Matt Riggsby完全錯了。能寫出“長城是戰(zhàn)車的運輸網(wǎng)絡(luò)”的人（譯注：在該網(wǎng)友對其他提問的回答中提到的），在其他方面也能寫錯，我對此不感到驚訝。他關(guān)閉自己回答的回復功能是有“充分理由”的。

他的論點是：在國家分裂或王朝更迭時期，中國是不存在的。但是后來——盡管羅馬確實發(fā)生了同樣的事情——他卻揮揮手，甚至不承認所發(fā)生的事情。羅馬有許多“戰(zhàn)國”時期和多個朝代。事實上，大多數(shù)朝代都只有一兩個統(tǒng)治者。我們不按朝代來計數(shù)羅馬的唯一原因在于，它們的數(shù)量多達幾十個，但在中國，朝代變成了簡潔明了的列表——漢、唐、宋、明、清就幾乎覆蓋了過去兩千年的80%，所以我們被這些時代標記所吸引，因為它們簡潔明了。

然后他把日耳曼聯(lián)邦稱為羅馬的延續(xù)，盡管日耳曼聯(lián)邦在很大程度上占據(jù)了一部分從未屬于羅馬的人口和領(lǐng)土。我很驚訝他居然沒有把沙皇俄國也包括在內(nèi)——沙皇俄國也聲稱自己是“第三羅馬”?；旧?，他看待亞洲極其嚴格，但歐洲怎么都行。這不僅是不一致的，而且超出了理性的思考。

（譯注：古英語段落節(jié)選。完全看不懂）

祝你讀這首“英語”詩哥讀得愉快。老實說，英語在今天保持相對穩(wěn)定的唯一原因是因為有了印刷機和當今的互聯(lián)網(wǎng)。
中國沒有這種語言的流動性。是的，閱讀經(jīng)典對他們來說是困難的，他們經(jīng)常會被訓練如何去做，但是他們在閱讀1500年前的作品時所遇到的語言變化，相當于閱讀莎士比亞作品的難度（可以接受）。完全不像《坎特伯雷故事集》和《貝奧武夫》一樣變成了風馬牛不相及的語言。

然后是基因。中國經(jīng)常在考古發(fā)掘現(xiàn)場進行DNA取樣，其結(jié)果令人震驚。考古DNA與現(xiàn)代中國人的DNA基本相同。這在世界其他地方是聞所未聞的。它是如此的影響深遠，以至于當他們從一個古老的遺址挖掘出非漢人時，他們就立即把他們標記為被俘獲的奴隸。許多商代的墓葬都有奴隸坑：
數(shù)百名被俘奴隸通常在人祭儀式上被處決，通常是斬首，受害者的尸體連同他們被砍下的頭顱一起埋在大規(guī)模的祭祀坑中

所以在羅馬，在一個官僚體制下有幾百種不同的民族和語言。而在中國，只有一個民族，一種語言，所以他們的官僚主義和社會認同是一致的。
當政府垮臺時，歐洲人民繼續(xù)前進，并且以他們的文化身份建立了新的政府。在中國，如果政府垮臺了，它將被一個仍然是中國的新的政府所取代。

Tony Zhu, Studies Chinese History and History of the Ancient World 研究中國歷史和古代世界歷史
I would attribute the continuity of the Chinese state much as a result of geography and its impact on Chinese history for better or worse.
It’s not like Chinese dynasties have lasted more than two millennia, a general pattern throughout history we see is that any particular state experiences rise, apex, and decline in a centuries-long cycle. But what distinguishes China is the fact that each successor, whether this is a unified state or splinter kingdoms carries more or less the same cultural identity. Barbarian conquerors quickly become integrated into the local culture, while dynasties of origin from within carry the same mantle. Examples for the first include the Mongols, Jurchens, Xianbei. Examples of the second are how most dynasties carry the same cultural baggage.
Why does this happen? I think it’s attributable to geography precisely because of two things: the population distribution between at first the yellow river region compared to everywhere else because a centralized state arose first out of the need for flood control and irrigation (like Mesopotamia) and later the current productive farming regions in China which largely correspond to its core territories. Secondly because of the natural barriers that meant the extent of Chinese civilization, and the nomads in its vicinity that were never able to form a state of equivalent power without invading China.
Shang Dynasty, Ming Dynasty, Current Crop Production, Natural Barriers

我認為中國國家的延續(xù)性很大程度上是地理因素及其對中國歷史影響的結(jié)果，好處壞處都有。
延續(xù)了2000多年的并不是中國的朝代，縱觀歷史，我們看到的一個普遍模式是，任何一個特定的國家都會經(jīng)歷一個長達數(shù)百年的興衰周期。但中國的不同之處在于，每一個繼承者，無論是統(tǒng)一的國家還是分裂的王國，都承載著或多或少相同的文化認同。蠻夷征服者也很快融入了當?shù)匚幕鴣碜员就恋某鷦t肩負著同樣的使命。前者的案例包括蒙古人，女真人，鮮卑人。后者的案例包括大多數(shù)朝代都背負著相同的文化（傳承）包袱。

為什么會這樣？我認為這正是由于地理原因，因為兩點：首先，黃河流域的人口分布與其他地區(qū)相比，因為一個集中型國家首先產(chǎn)生于對防洪和灌溉的需要（就像美索不達米亞），并且中國今天的生產(chǎn)性農(nóng)業(yè)區(qū)在很大程度上與其核心領(lǐng)土是相對應的。其次，由于天然屏障保證了中國文明的范圍，并且其周圍的游牧民族在不侵略中國的情況下，永遠無力形成一個具有同等實力的國家。
商、明、今天中國的農(nóng)業(yè)生產(chǎn)狀況，天然屏障

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As I said I think Mesopotamia is a great parallel for how Chinese civilization arose. The semi-historical myths of the founding three sovereigns and five emperors and the Xia dynasty are deeply related to flooding the man who stopped it, Yu the Great. This resulted in the first advancement in terms of political organization from tribes to larger tribes to feudal kingdoms.
While the Yellow River was at first a productive region, it gradually lost its place in China as the center of agricultural production and economic power precisely because of the development of the south. The current Yangtze River Delta region which is the economic center of China was barren 2000 years ago. But it would gradually become more productive with new agricultural technology and techniques, and the “drying” of the north due to deforestation, bad irrigation management, and overall too much agriculture (like fertile North Africa in the Roman period).
What this meant was that the population of the Han were always to outnumber any of their surroundings by a huge amount. And because there was a lack of natural barriers within China, the natural course of things is the establishment of a dynasty of local origin, who would extend its borders from the northern tundra to the tropical jungles of SE Asia, and the from the Pacific to the deserts and Himalayas. But even in the case of invasion and being conquered, there was never an effective way for the minority to govern these masses of people and territory without adopting Chinese customs, government, and culture. This ensured the continuity of the state as Chinese, rather than anything else.
Nomadic Conquerers? Now you’re Chinese.

正如我說過的，我認為美索不達米亞與中國文明的起源有很大的相似之處。創(chuàng)始者三皇五帝和夏朝的半歷史神話，與阻止大地被洪水淹沒的人——禹大帝——有很深的關(guān)系。這導致了政治組織從部落到更大的部落再到封建王國的第一次進步。

雖然黃河最初是一個生產(chǎn)地區(qū)，但由于南方的發(fā)展，它逐漸失去了在中國農(nóng)業(yè)生產(chǎn)和經(jīng)濟實力中心的地位。今天中國的經(jīng)濟中心長江三角洲地區(qū)，在2000年前是貧瘠的。但是，隨著新的農(nóng)業(yè)技術(shù)和工藝的出現(xiàn)，以及由于森林砍伐、不良灌溉管理和總體上過度的農(nóng)業(yè)開發(fā)（就像羅馬時期肥沃的北非）而導致的北方的“干旱”，南方地區(qū)的農(nóng)業(yè)生產(chǎn)將逐漸提高。

這意味著漢人的數(shù)量總是遠遠超過他們周圍的任何族群。并且，由于在中國內(nèi)部缺乏自然障礙，歷史的自然進程就是建立一個具有地方血統(tǒng)的王朝，再把它的疆界從北部的苔原一直延伸到東南亞的熱帶叢林。從太平洋到沙漠和喜馬拉雅山脈。但是，即使是在被侵略和征服的情況下，少數(shù)民族在不采用中國的風俗習慣、政府和文化的情況下，也從來沒有有效地管理這些民眾和領(lǐng)土的辦法。這確保了中國以“中華”形式的連續(xù)性，而不是其他任何東西。
游牧征服者？現(xiàn)在你已經(jīng)是中國人了。

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Jamie Cawley, Author of 'Beliefs and the World they have created', 2015 and 'The Birth of Now' 2015年《信仰及其創(chuàng)造的世界》和《現(xiàn)在的誕生》的作者
I disagree with Matt Riggsby. China as a unity - seen as ‘All Under Heaven’ is an idea that has persisted since at least 221BCE and consists roughly speaking of the eastern half of modern China surrounded by tributary states. Obviously it has had a turbulent history but the idea of a unified civilised middle-world has persisted throughout.
The Roman Empire lived in the mind much longer than most people realise. The Eastern half was finally defeated with the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and the Holy Roman Empire, a ghostly title of the Empire in the West went on until 1806 when Napoleon took it down. It had a reality though, under Charlemagne and Frederick Barbarossa, right through the Middle Ages.
China has a much more unified geography than Europe: tundra to the North, desert to the West, mountains to the South and sea to the East. And it has one written language, which I think is critical in keeping it unified.
So those are the two main reasons. There are others to do with climate and ease of movement but these two will do.

我不贊同Matt Riggsby的觀點。中國作為一個整體——被視為“普天之下”，這一理念至少從公元前221年起就一直存在，它大致包括了現(xiàn)代中國的東半部分，并且被朝貢國所環(huán)繞。顯然，它經(jīng)歷了一段動蕩的歷史，但一個統(tǒng)一的文明的“中央王朝”的理念一直貫穿始終。

羅馬帝國存在于人們思想中的時間比大多數(shù)人意識到的要長得多。隨著1453年君士坦丁堡的陷落，東羅馬最終被擊敗，神圣羅馬帝國——這個在西方如亡魂一般的帝國頭銜——一直延續(xù)到1806年，直到拿破侖將其終結(jié)。盡管在查理曼大帝和腓特烈?巴巴羅薩的統(tǒng)治下，它都是現(xiàn)實存在的，貫穿了中世紀。

中國擁有比歐洲統(tǒng)一得多的地理特征：北邊是苔原，西邊是沙漠，南邊是群山，東邊是大海。并且它只有一種書面語言，我認為這是保持中國統(tǒng)一的關(guān)鍵所在。
以上就是兩個主要原因。還有其他一些因素，與氣候和行動便利有關(guān)，但這兩個因素就能促成國家的延續(xù)了。

Alex Marquès, fascinated by history and literature 對歷史和文學著迷
The Eastern half of the Roman Empire did last 1,500 years. However, it’s true that China has built and unbuilt the Empire, assimilated Mongol and Manchu dynasties and in fact kept that huge chunk of Asian land together for arguably 2,500 to 3,000 years. China introduced very early on a system for civil service with examinations that was instituted all over the state. Another factor of cohesion was that, in lieu of a common language, China uses a common writing system which is ideographic, allowing people who speak different languages to read the same texts. Of course these things alone cannot explain the longevity of the country, and its boundaries have varied and several periods of fracture have occurred, but I think that, in the main, we can consider that centripetal forces have maintained the Chinese civilization as a continuous project in spite of the centrifugal forces that kept it from becoming a homogeneous nation-state. Perhaps if they had attempted to impose one language and one religion they would have disappeared long ago.

羅馬帝國的東半部分持續(xù)了1500年。然而，中國也確實建立和解散了帝國，同化了蒙古和滿族王朝，并且在2500到3000年的時間里在事實上一直將這片巨大的亞洲土地聚合在一起。中國很早就在全國范圍內(nèi)實行了公務(wù)員考試制度。中國凝聚力的另一個因素是，中國使用表意文字的通用書寫體系，而不是使用一種通用的口語，這使得說不同語言的人能夠閱讀相同的文本。當然光靠這些東西無法解釋這個國家的長壽，及其邊界變化和幾個分裂時期，但我認為，總的來說，我們可以認為，盡管離心力阻止了中華文明成為一個單一民族國家，但向心力使中華文明保持了連續(xù)性。也許如果當初他們試圖強加一種語言和一種宗教，他們早就消失了。

Xiaobo Wang
In my mind the fundamental thing is a Chinese state was always seeking for unification. You can imagine that all European countries are seeking for unification of all European countries and take that as the only mission of the government until it’s done.

在我看來，最根本的原因在于中國一直在尋求統(tǒng)一。你可以想象所有的歐洲國家都在尋求歐洲國家的統(tǒng)一，并把統(tǒng)一作為政府的唯一使命，直到統(tǒng)一完成。

Kevin Anderson
You are confusing “empire”, with the name of a modern, present-day country.
Consider this question: “Why, unlike the Mayan Empire, has Sweden survived for more than 2000 years?”.

你混淆了“帝國”和現(xiàn)代“國家”這個名稱。
思考下這個問題：“為什么與瑪雅帝國不同，瑞典能夠延續(xù)2000多年至今？”。

Geography. China is surrounded in the east and south by the ocean, beyond which there weren’t any large adversaries, to the south west by the Himalayas, to the west by the Gobi Desert and to the North by Mongolia. Furthermore, proto Chinese culture was centred in the Huangtu Plateau and the North China Plain which fostered unity and one overall continuous culture and language. China was able to evolve and coalesce in relative peace.
Europe is much more geographically fractured than China: Italy is isolated from Europe by the Alps, Spain from France by the Pyrenees, England by the English Channel, Germany also by the Alps and vast tracks of forests. Furthermore, Western Europe is at the end of a vast track of grasslands and temperate zones extending from Mongolia to the Hungarian basin, which fostered major migrations into Europe and is a natural invasion route.
Rome was under contant attack: Celts, Germanic people, Huns, Cartage, Persia, etc… There were never the same kind of unifying forces that existed in China. The best examples are Romance languages, all issue from Vulgar Latin, but all now mutually intelligible due to geographic isolation.
Also, there is no way to compare two entirely different cultures existing in completely different environments.


因為地理環(huán)境。中國東部和南部被海洋包圍，在海洋之外沒有任何強大的對手，西南部被喜馬拉雅山脈包圍，西部被戈壁沙漠包圍，北部被蒙古包圍。此外，原始中華文化以黃土高原和華北平原為中心，這促進了文化和語言的統(tǒng)一和整體的連續(xù)性。中國能夠在相對和平的環(huán)境中發(fā)展和融合。

與中國相比，歐洲在地理上的差異要大得多：意大利與歐洲之間隔著阿爾卑斯山脈，西班牙與法國之間隔著比利牛斯山脈，英國被英吉利海峽阻隔，德國也被阿爾卑斯山脈和大片森林阻隔。此外，西歐處于從蒙古到匈牙利盆地的大片草原和溫帶的末端，這些草原和溫帶促進了大量移民進入歐洲，是一條天然入侵路線。

羅馬遭到了持續(xù)不斷的攻擊：凱爾特人、日耳曼人、匈奴人、迦太基人、波斯人等等……而在中國從來沒有過這種統(tǒng)一的入侵力量。最好的例子是羅曼斯語，它們都起源于粗俗的拉丁語，但由于地理上的隔離，它們現(xiàn)在只能說能夠相互理解。
而且，在完全不同的環(huán)境中存在的兩種完全不同的文化是無法比較的。


1、China grew as an expanding core from the earliest ages of civilised history, to be the largest nation in the world throughout all of its history. The massive and gradual expansion is the reason for their large borders actually, with the lack of real conteders in China proper.
2、Romans were smart but small nation with successful government and some great leaders. This along with other conditions allowed them to take over the Italian Peninsila, and then expand further and inherit the Hellenistic and Carthaginian civilisations. They did not grow into what became the Roman world. They took over it in a quick process of 200 years. Prior to them were different peoples and cultures, and so has been after them. They did have contenders in their surroundings. Roman entity was immediatley challenged with varied Germanic entities and later some Slavic and Arabian, after its collapse.
Not quite short after all…

簡短的回答：
1、中國從文明史上最早的時代起就有一個不斷擴張的核心，在其歷史上一直是世界上最大的國家。這種大規(guī)模的、漸進式的擴張，實際上是造成他們疆域廣大的原因，而且中國本身缺乏真正的競爭對手。

2、羅馬人很聰明，但國家小，政府成功，有一些偉大的領(lǐng)導人。這些特點和其他條件一起使他們得以占據(jù)了意大利半島，然后進一步擴張并繼承了希臘和迦太基文明。他們沒有發(fā)展成后來的羅馬世界。他們在200年的快速進程中接管了它。在他們之前有不同的民族和文化，在他們之后也有不同的民族和文化。他們周圍確實有競爭者。羅馬實體在崩潰后，立即受到了日耳曼實體以及后來的斯拉夫和阿拉伯實體的挑戰(zhàn)。
但畢竟延續(xù)時間也不算短了……