On the Dual Concept of Monarchy in Pre-Qin and Qin-Han Periods

A sentence is often quoted by scholars in“the Book of Songs”:“the territory all over the world is the emperor’s property,all the local-governors are the emperor’s officials”.It seems the centralized relationship between the emperors and the officials has been established from the West Zhou,but the fact is different.According to the historical materials,the officials’ thought of monarchism in the early Qin was absolutely different.Even when the situation of large feudal unification had been established and the absolute monarchy was fairly underway,some officials still did not treat the emperor as their only monarch.Their monarchical concept was plural,they not only treated the emperor as their monarch,but also the master of government office and so on.The multimonarch concept was a ubiquitous situation in the Qin society.