An Abridged History of China, Interlude

The most fundamental thing to understand about imperial China is that emperors had absolute power. They were gods. They were the law. They owned the whole of China. I tried to find an equivalent in western history and I couldn&rsquo;t. Not even Louis XIV. A general knew that an attack was suicide. But if the emperor ordered him to attack, he attacked. In the most extreme cases, an emperor could…