正文翻译

How can Qin Shi Huang be the first Chinese Emperor if there was a dynasty before him?

如果秦始皇以前就有朝代，秦始皇怎么能成为第一个中国皇帝？

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Whenever I read or watch something about this, previous dynasties are mentioned. A quick google check shows there''s three, Xia, Shang and Zhou (though I''ve been told that Xia may not have actually existed).

So how can he be the first emperor? Where the previous dynasties not empires? Is this splitting hairs?

每当我读到或看一些关于这方面的东西时，都会提到以前的朝代。谷歌的快速检查显示有三个朝代存在，夏、商和周（虽然有人告诉我，夏可能并不存在）。

那么他怎么可能是第一个皇帝呢？前代不是帝国？是我太钻牛角尖了吗？

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评论翻译

IstanbulnotConstanti

The Shang and Zhou dynasties used the title of king ( 王 ) whereas Qin Shi Huang was the first person to use the title of Emperor (皇帝 ) This has to do with Qin Shi Huang reuniting China after the warring states period.

商周时期使用国王（王）的头衔，而秦始皇是第一个使用皇帝头衔的人，这与战国后秦始皇重新统一中国有关。

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deezee72

Do you have any examples of regions in the south which were both relatively populated and culturally Chinese, and which there fore would be considered "civilized" in the eyes of the contemporary Zhou?

The only example I can think of is Wu state, which was a Zhou tributary controlled by a cadet branch of the Zhou ruling family, and so during the Western Zhou it was de facto a part of the Zhou''s controlled area until it broke free during the Spring and Autumn period.

Even Changsha, one of the earliest cities on the southern bank of the Yangtze, was not settled by the Yue people until the Spring and Autumn period and not Sinicized until the Warring States period. This is actually a good example of this point - much of the South was settled during the Spring and Autumn period, and thus "unifying China" meant extending further south in the Qin era than it did in the Zhou era.

你有没有一个南方地区的例子，说明这些地区在人口和文化上都是与中国相关的，并且在当时周人的眼中，那里被认为是“文明的 ?

我能想到的唯一例子是吴国，它是一个由周朝统治家族的一个分支控制的支流，因此，在西周时期，它实际上是周的控制区的一部分，直到春秋时期它挣脱出来。

甚至长沙，长江南岸最早的城市之一，直到春秋时期才被越人定居，直到战国时期才被中国化。这实际上是这一点的一个很好的例子——南方的大部分是在春秋时期定居扩张的，因此“重新统一中国”意味着在秦时代向南延伸比在周时代更远。

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TechnicallyActually

From a previous post, tl;dr, it''s due to language differences and translation artifact:

The translation of their titles is a bit lack luster. Especially, considering there is a "First Emperor of China" historically. The term "emperor" in Chinese is a compound word composed of two characters. The first character is “皇” (Huang). The second one is "帝“ (Di). Together they make the word Huang Di, meaning "emperor". The two depicted on the statue have the title of "Di" ONLY. No direct equivalent in English, so it is often "mistranslated" as "emperor". The character is sort of like "god king".

In ancient Chinese history there were eight great rulers. Three with the title "Huang" and five with the title "Di". The First Emperor of China, after uniting all known Chinese territory and then some in the 250ish BC, combined both titles. He thought his accomplishments have surpassed all three Huangs and five Dis combined. So he combined both titles into " 皇帝 (Huang Di)", meaning emperor.

从以前的一篇帖子，总的来说，这是由于语言差异和翻译工差造成的：

对他们头衔的翻译总是缺少一些润色。特别是考虑到那是历史上“中国第一个皇帝。汉语中的“皇帝”一词是由两个字组成的复合词。第一个字是“皇”（Huang）。第二个字是“帝”(Di)。他们合在一起创造了皇帝这个词，意思是“皇帝（emperor）”。英语中没有直接等效的词，因此，它往往被“误译”为“emperor”。但是这个词只把两个描述中的一个表达了出来，即“帝”，其实这个词有点像“圣王”。

在中国古代历史上有八位伟大的统治者。三个头衔为“皇”，五个头衔为“帝”。中国的第一个皇帝，在统一了所有已知的中国领土之后，然后在公元前250年左右，合并了这两个头衔。他认为他的成就超过了三个皇和五个帝的总和。所以他把这两个头衔合并成“皇帝（HuangDi）”。

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Critical_Liz

Sounds like a PR thing.

听起来像一个为了传播的东西。

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sjioldboy

The Chinese refer to these Xia or pre-Xia mythological ruler-deities as 圣王 ("god-king"), but Wikipedia (& modern English language in general) has a better descxtion: culture heroes.

中国人把这些夏或夏前神话统治者的为圣王（“god-king”)，但维基百科(&现代英语）有一个更好的描述：文化英雄。

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DaKeler

圣 should be translated as "sage" instead of "god".

Despite having enormous respect, by the time of Chinese classical thinkers, these ancient rulers were still regarded as people (人) not spirits/gods (神).

If your translation is correct, would it have made sense for Confucians to have promoted the study of Confucius''s teachings and call him 圣人when the Master himself cautioned against investigating gods and the supernatural (子不语怪力乱神)?

圣应该被翻译成“圣人”而不是“神”。

尽管受到了极大的尊重，但到了中国古典思想家的时代，这些古代统治者仍然被认为是人，而不是一种精神力或者神。

如果你的翻译是正确的，那当大师自己警告不要调查神以及超自然现象的时候 (子不语怪力乱神)，儒家是否还有必要促进孔子的教义的学习，并称他为圣人？

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TechnicallyActually

Very much so, his entire point was to set himself above all the rulers of the past.

非常重要的是，他的全部目的是使自己凌驾于过去所有统治者之上。

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pheisenberg

Previously, the Zhou were considered to have the Mandate of Heaven and anyone who wanted to rule legitimately had to call on their name and cultural status. Creating a new, higher title might have been a way to break with that tradition.

A bit of context is that the Qin dynasty was rather tyrannical and didn’t last very long at all due to rebellion. Maybe Shi Huangdi was an extreme narcissist and so gave himself a god-tier name.

在此之前，周被认为具有天命，任何想合法统治的人都必须向他们和他们的文化效忠。创建一个更高的新头衔可能是打破传统的一种方式。从某种意义上说，秦朝是专横的，并且由于叛乱没有持续很长时间。也许始皇帝是个极端的自恋者，所以给自己起了个更神级的名字。

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Critical_Liz

If you''re going to beat up all your neighbors and make them your subjects, you have to be at least a bit of a narcissist.

如果你要打败你所有的邻居，让他们成为你的臣民，你至少要有点自恋。

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Intranetusa

The previous Dynasties were either 1) smaller local powers (eg. Shang and early Zhou) that were independent of numerous other kingdoms in the area or 2) were actually a collection of semi autonomous and/or fully autonomous kingdoms that only paid lip service or tribute to a king (eg. Later Zhou era).

The first emperor of Qin is considered the first emperor because he finalized the conquest of the numerous different kingdoms and created a centralized bureaucracy to rule over them.

先前的朝代要么是（1）较小的地方政权（例如商和周初），存在着独立于该地区的许多其他王国，要么是2）实际上是半自治和/或完全自治的王国的集合，它们仅口头向国王效忠（例如，东周时代）。

秦始皇被认为是第一皇帝，因为他最终完成了对众多不同王国的征服，并建立了一个集中的官僚机构来统治它们。

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deezee72

While the early Zhou were smaller than the Qin empire, it''s not fair to call them a "smaller local power" and it''s probably not the case that size is what differentiates them from the Qin.

The reason for that title is that the Zhou rulers called themselves kings (王). As the dynasty fragmented into smaller local nobles (during the Spring and Autumn and then Warring States periods), those rulers took on the title of king as well. Accordingly, when Qin Shi Huang conquered all of the kings to re-unify China, he saw fit to take on a higher title, and drew on Chinese mythology to create the title of emperor (皇帝).

虽然早期的周比秦帝国小，但称他们为“较小的地方政权”是不公平的，而且大小可能不是他们与秦的区别。

这个头衔的原因是周统治者自称为国王（王）。随着王朝分裂成较小的地方贵族（在春秋和战国时期），这些贵族也获得了国王的称号。因此，当秦始皇征服了所有的国王重新统一中国时，他认为有必要接受一个更高的头衔，并借鉴中国神话创造了皇帝的头衔。

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Geoffistopholes

Shang and Zhou were not as expansive as Qin. Imperial China is the period of what is now modern China being covered by a single empire, of course not all of modern China, and not always one power.

商周并不如秦那么宽广。帝制中国是现在的现代中国被一个帝国所覆盖的时期，当然，不是所有的现代中国领土，也不是总是只有一个政权。

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Singer211

Whether or not the Xia even existed is hotly debated.

The Shang and Zhou were far less expansive and their rulers used the title of kings.

The Qin were the first to truly centralize power and unite China, and Shi Huang was the first ruler to use the title of Emperor.

夏朝是否存在是一个激烈的争论。

商周的扩张程度要低得多，他们的统治者使用的是国王的头衔。

秦是第一个真正集中权力和统一中国的统治者，始皇是第一个使用皇帝头衔的统治者。

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DeaththeEternal

The first dynasties used the title of Wang, where Huangdi, the term used for Emperor, reflected both a different political system and a different concept of what the ruler was meant to be. The Chinese Empire was a profound break with what went before it, prior to that the Later Zhou era is somewhere in between the Bafuku/Shogunates of Japan in providing de facto dynasties underneath a nominal head and by the very end it was like the post-1648 Holy Roman Empire. Nominally the elected ruler of Christendom, in practice a road used by the real powers to fight real wars.

So too was the later Zhou given perfunctory nods, if that much, by the real rising forces of the era like Qin and Chu.

第一个王朝使用王的头衔，皇帝这个词既反映了不同的政治制度，又反映了关于统治者的不同概念。中华帝国与它之前发生的事有了深刻的突破，在此之前，东周时代处于类似于日本的幕府统治之间的某个地方，王朝只是象征性的老大，到最后，它就像1648年后的神圣罗马帝国。名义上是基督教的民选统治者，在实践中是各个大国争斗的战场。

所以东周也是如此，给予各国名义上的承认，受到了秦，楚等时代真正崛起的力量的控制。

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War_Hymn

Keep in mind that the Shang and Zhou were not centralized empires, but more like feudal entities that were acknowledge by associating and surrounding polities as the paramount power in the region. Their neighbors and vassals might owe fealty, have certain obligations and pay tribute, but for the most part they ruled their own territories with a large degree of autonomy and independence. In terms of direct domestic control, royal Shang or Zhou rule might have only extended a few hundred miles around their immediate capital.

What changed with the Qin was they took control over everything. Qin Shi Huang replaced the local rulers of newly conquered territories with court-appointed bureaucrats who took direct orders from him. He attempted to standardize everything from writing, weights, and even the width of chariot axles. What he created was a centralized bureaucratic empire.

请记住，商周不是中央集权的帝国，而是更像封建实体，通过与周边政体的交往和承认而成为该地区的最高权力。他们的邻居和附庸可能要向他们表示忠诚，有一定的义务和上贡贡品，但在很大程度上，他们以高度的自治和独立统治着自己的领土。就直接的国内控制而言，商朝或周朝的皇家统治可能仅在其直接首都周围延伸了数百英里。

秦朝改变的是他们控制了一切。秦始皇以宫廷任命的官僚代替了新征服的原本的统治者，前者服从他直接下达的命令。他试图标准化所有东西，包括书写，度量，甚至是战车轴的宽度。他创建的是一个中央集权的官僚帝国。

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szmj

he''s the person who invented the phrase Emperor in Chinese, he thought King is not enough for him

他是用中文发明皇帝这个词的人，他认为国王对他来说是不够的

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TheGreatOneSea

What we think of as "China" was never unified before Qin: the Jin state was "only" the most powerful state of the time before The Warring States, not literally the only state. The previous kingdoms also weren''t centralized in the least, relying entirely on family bonds.

Qin actually destroyed all the Chinese states, and it centralized power such that its government actually survived the collapse of Qin itself.

我们所认为的“中国”在秦以前从来没有统一过：晋国是战国之前的时间“唯一”强大的国家，而不是字面上的唯一国家。以前的王国也不是至少集权化的国家，完全依靠家庭纽带。

秦实际上摧毁了当时所有中国政权，并集中了权力，使其政府实际上幸免于秦本身的崩溃。

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deezee72

China was unified under the Zhou dynasty (1050 - 771 BC, although it existed on paper for another 500 years until 249).

The Zhou rulers called themselves kings (王). As the dynasty fragmented into smaller local nobles (during the Spring and Autumn and then Warring States periods), those rulers took on the title of king as well. Accordingly, when Qin Shi Huang conquered all of the kings to re-unify China, he saw fit to take on a higher title, and drew on Chinese mythology to create the title of emperor (皇帝). Hence, "first emperor".

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The previous kingdoms also weren''t centralized in the least, relying entirely on family bonds.

This is also not accurate. Many of the kingdoms during the warring states actually had fairly sophisticated bureaucracies, and made efforts to centralize. For instance, during his lifetime Confucius was a high ranking bureaucrat for the King of Qi, despite the fact that he was unrelated to any of the three main noble families that ruled the kingdom. While Confucius himself was a minor noble, many of his disciples were commoners who also attained fairly senior positions in the bureaucracy of the Qi kingdom or other kingdoms that adopted Confucian teachings. The best example is Zigong, who was not only a commoner but came from a pretty poor background, and went on to become prime minister of Lu.

Many of the Warring States were quite large - by the 4th century BC, China had a population close to 30M and there were only 5 states left standing, giving them an average of 6M people. For comparison, the Ancient Athens reached its peak around the same time and had 300,000 people, of which only 10,000 were citizens. It''s natural that kingdoms at that size would need a fairly complex government apparatus in order to govern - and that''s exactly what we see in Warring States records.

中国统一于周代（公元前1050-771年，尽管它在纸上继续存在了500年，直到249年）。周统治者自称为国王。当王朝分裂为较小的地方贵族时（在春秋战国时期），这些统治者也获得了国王的头衔。因此，当秦始皇征服所有国王重新统一中国时，他认为他有资格获得更高的头衔，并借鉴中国神话来创造皇帝的头衔。因此，他是“第一个皇帝”。

“以前的王国也不是至少集权化的国家，完全依靠家庭纽带。”

这也不准确。战国时期的许多王国实际上都拥有相当复杂的官僚机构，并做出了集中化的努力。例如，孔子一生中是齐王（注：应为鲁国）的高级官僚，尽管他与统治该国的三个主要贵族中的任何一个都没有关系。孔子本人虽然是次等贵族，但他的许多门徒都是平民，在齐国或其他采用儒家教义的国家的官僚机构中也担任过相当高级的职务。最好的例子是子贡，他不仅是平民百姓，而且来自相当贫穷的家庭背景，后来成为了鲁国首席大臣。

许多战国是相当大的-到公元前4世纪，中国的人口接近3000万，当时只剩下5个国家，平均有600万人。相比之下，古雅典人口大约在同一时间达到顶峰，有30万人，其中只有1万人是公民。这样大小的王国自然需要相当复杂的政府机构来管理——这也正是我们在战国记录中看到的。

【龙腾网】如果秦始皇以前就有朝代，那秦始皇怎么会是第一个中国皇帝？