1. Politics is different from political affairs. The former focuses on the system and belongs to the category of special history. The latter focuses on facts, such as dynasty change, personnel, internal affairs, diplomacy and military affairs. , belongs to the category of general history. Only by understanding the general history can we have a long-term and wide-ranging understanding, and then study it one by one from the special history, then synthesize it and then look at the general history. After this process, our understanding will be more profound, detailed and thorough.

2. History is very important because political system is very important. Why is the political system important? Because it obviously retains the tradition. This tradition can be deeply felt from the scale and continuous system of a country. The political system is the key to understanding the history of China. If you don't understand the political system, you won't understand the history of China.

3. Ruan Yuan in Qing Dynasty said that a person can't be a generalist or an ordinary student if he doesn't read "two links". What is "two-way"? One is a general mirror, which records the general history; The first is the "general examination of literature", a special and systematic history.

4. The political system in China's history can be divided into two stages: feudal politics in pre-Qin and county politics after Qin. Instead of feudal society, feudal society is the product of western history, which is different from China's own "feudalism". China's "feudalism" is a "feudal country", that is, the top-down enfeoffment system. In essence, the country is still unified, and feudal politics basically ended after the reunification of Qin. The "feudalism" in the west is the separatist regime of the lower classes, and there is no unified political power. It can be seen that "feudalism" is a completely different concept in the east and the west and cannot be copied.

5. Zhuge Liang's Model: "In the palace, everything is one." Palace is the palace of the emperor, the royal family, the residence of the emperor and the place of sovereignty. The government is a government court, presided over by the Prime Minister, and it is where the power lies. The royal family and the government are different, but they are not strictly separated. They can be integrated and interoperable. From the Qin Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, generally speaking, the government set up a prime minister, at least before the Ming Dynasty, the prime minister was obvious. Even if Zhu Yuanzhang abolished the prime minister in the Ming Dynasty, there was still a difference between the imperial court and the foreign court. Although the details have changed, the whole remains the same.

6. The West stresses politics and emphasizes power, while China stresses politics and emphasizes position. In China, different positions have different rights, and the rights are within the office.

7. China began to have an examination system in the Tang Dynasty, which originated from the Chaju system in the Han Dynasty. The original intention of the inspection and adjudication system is to select talents for government positions to deal with political affairs. Because the procuratorial system was not elected by the people, it was seriously abused and changed to an examination in the Tang Dynasty. Relying on the electoral system, the government selected talents to enter the official career through public examinations, thus creating a literati government or a sage government in the Qin Dynasty.

8. The British civil service system actually imitates our examination system.

9. Studying the system depends not only on the system itself, but also on the historical facts related to this system. Because the establishment of the system must be targeted, it is established and operated according to the actual political situation. In addition, the system will always change with the change of reality, and it is normal to modify it, so we should study the system from a dynamic perspective.

10. When studying systems, we should pay attention to the existence of a set of ideas and theories behind each system. Ancient scholars in China seldom wrote political theory works, mainly because most of them devoted themselves to political practice, which has been reflected in practical actions, and there is no need to write their theories into a book. For example, Dong Zhongshu and Sima Qian are not only scholars, but also politicians, ambitious and practical. For example, Fang and Du Ruhui, famous figures in the Tang Dynasty, created a system that lasted for a hundred years, and even if the dynasties changed, it was hard to surpass it. This is the greatness of China politicians.

Reference: China's Historical Research Method Lecture 2: How to study Chinese political history.