Strong-Trunk Weak-Branch Centralization / 强干弱枝式集权

Definition

Strong-trunk weak-branch centralization / 强干弱枝式集权 is the imperial governance logic of concentrating practical capacity at the center while reducing the military, demographic, infrastructural, or elite-network capacity of regions that could resist central command.

Current Synthesis

The Qin version appears through 嬴政 / 秦始皇’s order to remove large city walls and river levees after the 碣石 tour. The point is not only construction policy: walls and defensive hydraulic works can preserve local autonomy and make regional actors harder to command.

The Western Han version works through 关中豪强迁徙 and 陵县式豪强迁徙. Instead of dismantling physical defenses, the state moves powerful households and senior officials’ families toward the imperial capital and mausoleum zone, making the center stronger while thinning regional power bases.

Key Claims

• Regional capacity can reside in walls, levees, armed resources, population, elite networks, and household registration, not only formal offices.
• Qin’s version weakens local defensive infrastructure after conquest.
• Western Han’s version strengthens Guanzhong and mausoleum settlements by moving wealthy and powerful households toward the capital region.
• The same centralization logic can look like security policy, population policy, ritual-mausoleum policy, or elite supervision depending on the institutional surface.
• Strong-trunk policy creates legitimacy and consent costs when local families lose ancestral, property, or livelihood continuity.

Evidence

• Built-environment control: Qinji 123-1 reads Qin’s removal of large walls and levees as reducing local ability to resist the center.
• Precedent logic: Qinji 123-1 links the logic to 孔子’s “堕三都” precedent in 鲁国.
• Han relocation logic: Hanji 526 says moving Guandong wealthy households and senior officials’ families into mausoleum counties strengthens the capital and weakens local magnates.
• Policy revival: Hanji 526 says Chen Tang argues for reviving Changlingyi under Chengdi to address powerful-household growth and fiscal strain.

Counterevidence & Qualifications

The concept should not be flattened into one institution. Qinji 123-1 concerns walls, levees, and post-conquest local capacity; Hanji 526 concerns capital-region population concentration and household relocation. Hanji 526 also records moral and political resistance to forced migration, especially ancestral-grave separation, livelihood disruption, and elite unease.

What Changed

• Migrated the page to synthesis-v1.
• Added the Western Han mausoleum-county relocation branch as a non-infrastructure version of the same centralization logic.

Related Concepts

• 关中豪强迁徙 - Western Han population-and-elite-control implementation.
• 陵县式豪强迁徙 - mausoleum-centered branch of Western Han relocation.
• 豪杰迁徙控制 - Qin household-relocation analogue.
• 统一后收兵器 - coercive reduction of regional rebellion capacity.
• 帝国整齐划一 - broader imperial ordering project.