Swaying between King and Bandit ——On the Special Image and Status of ChenSheng and His Uprising in Ancient China

The uprising led by Chen Sheng was the first large-scaled peasant uprising in China's history. To a large extend,its legitimacy was recognized by official books of history,officials,scholarbureaucrats and the mainstream ideology in ancient China,and Chen Sheng was even regarded as a sacred king like Emperor Shang Tang and Emperor Zhou Wu. This is obviously different from later peasant uprisings which were denounced as bandits and thieves. Even if occasionally some people drew parallels between Chen Sheng and Huang Chao,their aim was to warn the rulers to take care of the people. Between king and bandit, Chen Sheng was more like the king. This special image and status of Chen Sheng and the uprising led by him are of profound historical culture implication: Chen Sheng 's revolt was aimed at overthrowing the cruel Qin Dynasty,while Liu Bang's ruling clique did not need to consider political ethics. Since Records of the Grand Historian by Sima Qian and History of the Former Han Dynasty by Ban Gu were models for official history books in ancient China,no scholars and rulers in later generations were unable to repudiate their appraisals. Sima Qian was the first scholar who highly appraised Chen Sheng. His unprecedented appraisal was related with Liu Bang's affirmative attitude. It also shows that Sima Qian inherited both the people-first ideology of the Pre-Qin period and introspection of thinkers of the early Western Han Dynasty.