"Tang's Influence"-True or false, why it matters (2/3)
The Formation of the centralized government and rule of law We often see the emergence of the Nara Japan illustrated like a quantum move to the state of centralized government under rule of law, or Ritsuryo State 律令國家 , triggered by the influence from Tang China. If no one has intended to present it that way, that is the impression the most of us get left with from the popular narratives on the grand opening of Japan as state that we associate with Nara. Here again, we see a lot of fallacies working behind those narratives. To begin with, there is no evidence that the Japanese copied the Chinese law system. More importantly, even if they had done it, the written law is only a part of the social culture. Japan took the very different course of social development from that of China after the seventh century when, accord...