Three Debts

Whenever a dynasty is about to collapse, someone always ends up taking the blame. This book isn’t looking for that person. It follows just three accounts: the sword (who holds the troops), the grain sack (who pays the taxes), and the official’s hat (who gets to make the decisions). As long as these three accounts can change hands between one another, the dynasty keeps running. Let go of any one of them, and the other two will collapse with it. From the dozens of relatives King Wu of Zhou granted fiefs to, all the way to 1840: 2,886 years, divided into twelve cases. Each case has six sections and asks the same set of questions: Who entered the game? Who held each of the three accounts? Which one slipped away first? These are not twelve stories of failure. They are the same problem worked out twelve times, and each time, the answer made sense in its own era. The breaking points in the first eight cases lie with the sword and the grain: land is given away, and the troops follow; the troops can be maintained, but the grain can no longer keep up. The breaking points in the last four cases all lie with the official’s hat: it’s not that there is no money or no troops, but that the machine can’t find anyone responsible. This book is written to be read aloud. Each passage can be spoken in a single breath, and once you’ve read it, you’ll remember it. There are no footnotes to obstruct the way and no tables to block the path. Behind every important point is the original historical source. It tells no stories of heroes or foolish rulers. It shows only how an account goes from “adding up” to “no longer adding up.”