从《清平乐》到《太平年》，论中国明君理想的再度滑坡

By Yang Xinghua

从歌颂君臣共治的《清平乐》到歌颂纳土归宋的《太平年》，中国的艺术行业甚至连最后一点唱赞歌的曲调的自由都失去了。这一演变不仅是艺术风格的更迭，更深层地折射出当代明君梦的异化——即从向往一个能够容忍异见、遵循法度、甚至略显软弱的仁君，堕落为一种对好大喜功、乾纲独断的政治强人的心理依附。在这一新范式中，政治的最高道德不再是仁爱与克制，而是统一与秩序；臣民的最高智慧不再是“死谏”，而是“纳土”与“顺势”。

在中国的大众文化场域中，古装历史剧从未单纯地充当娱乐产品，而是承载着极其厚重的现实隐喻功能。作为史官文化的现代变体，电视剧通过对历代王朝兴衰的演绎，构建了一套关于何为良治、何为明君的通俗政治哲学。每一部现象级历史剧的诞生，都精确地对应着特定时期的社会心理需求与政治审美取向。如果说本世纪初的《雍正王朝》呼应了改革攻坚期对实干型强人的渴望，2015年的《琅琊榜》寄托了中产阶级对程序正义与沉冤昭雪的理想主义诉求，那么2020年至2026年这一时间跨度内的历史剧流变，则揭示了一种更为复杂且危险的心理转向。

2020年的《清平乐》，以北宋仁宗朝为背景，核心叙事围绕君臣共治的制度困境与皇帝个人的情感压抑展开。其关键词是仁、忍与憋屈。而2026年初播出的《太平年》，以五代十国末期吴越国“纳土归宋”为题材。其核心叙事围绕“统一”、“终结乱世”与“政治决断”展开。其关键词是“大一统”、“太平”与“舍得”。从《清平乐》到《太平年》的跨越，标志着“明君梦”的实质性沉沦。在2020年，公众尚且对受到文官制度制约、无法随心所欲的宋仁宗感到“憋屈”但抱有同情，这意味着人们潜意识里仍认可“权力应当被关进笼子”的现代政治伦理（尽管这种认可伴随着某种对效率的不满）。然而到了2026年，《太平年》通过对“纳土归宋”这一历史事件的崇高化处理，成功地构建了一种新的政治神学：为了宏大的太平愿景，个人的尊严、地方的自治、甚至家族的荣辱都必须无条件地献祭给绝对的中心权力。此时的观众不再寻求权力的制衡，而是狂热地依附于那个能够扫平四海、建立不世之功的独裁君主。

《清平乐》在立意上是一次极具野心的尝试。与以往聚焦于帝王开疆拓土或后宫争宠夺权的历史剧不同，该剧极其罕见地将镜头对准了守成之君——宋仁宗赵祯。剧名清平乐本身就暗示了一种温吞、平和但缺乏激情的政治氛围。在剧中，宋仁宗被塑造为一个拥有极高道德自觉，却因此而丧失个人自由的悲剧人物。他的对手不是奸臣，也不是外敌，而是由范仲淹、欧阳修、韩琦等“千古名臣”组成的庞大文官集团，以及这些集团背后所代表的祖宗家法与儒家礼教。该剧花费了大量笔墨描绘台谏制度如何运作。当仁宗想要提拔宠妃张妼晗的亲属，或者想要保护自己最心爱的女儿徽柔免受不幸婚姻的折磨时，总是遭到谏官们铺天盖地的弹劾。这些弹劾并非出于私利，而是为了维护法度与平衡。这种叙事结构实际上触及了君臣共治的核心悖论：一个严格遵守程序的明君，必然是一个在个人意志上被阉割的君主。《清平乐》试图展示这种“通过自我克制来实现天下大治”的高贵，但在传播效果上却遭遇了滑铁卢。

“憋屈”是《清平乐》播出期间社交媒体上出现频率最高的评价词。这一词汇的流行，深刻地反映了当代受众对有限权力的无法忍受。观众习惯了爽文式的因果报应和雷厉风行，对于剧中大量的朝堂辩论、奏疏朗读感到厌烦。数据表明，认为剧情节奏缓慢的评论占据了负面评价的主流。在传统的儒家叙事中，仁宗的忍是圣德。但在崇尚丛林法则与狼性文化的现代商业社会中，这种忍被解读为无能。观众发问：“当皇帝当到这个份上，连自己的女儿都护不住，有什么意思？”这种质问标志着公众心理已经开始背离“仁政”的理想，转而渴望一种能够打破规则、快意恩仇的强权。在《清平乐》中，原本在教科书中光芒万丈的文人集团（背诵天团），在电视剧的戏剧冲突中往往扮演着反派的功能。范仲淹的耿直被刻画为一种不近人情的道德绑架，司马光的固执甚至导致了公主的悲剧——正如原著小说的题目：《孤城闭》。

这种处理方式无意中迎合了一种反智主义与反精英主义的思潮。它暗示：那些满口仁义道德的知识分子，实际上是阻碍国家机器高效运转、阻碍最高领袖实现个人意志的绊脚石。虽然剧作本意可能是展现君子和而不同的复杂性，但在“憋屈”的舆论场中，它加速了共治理想的幻灭。观众开始厌恶这种喋喋不休的议会式政治，潜意识里呼唤一个能让所有人闭嘴的强人。

《清平乐》在历史观上的探索是小心翼翼的。它试图在不违背史实的前提下，通过挖掘人物内心来解构宏大叙事。然而，这种微观视角的尝试在2020年的舆论环境中显得格格不入。当时的中国正处于新冠疫情初期，社会高度动员，集体主义情绪高涨。一部讲述皇帝如何被制度束缚、如何在孤独中挣扎的剧作，显得过于小资产阶级情调且缺乏力量感。它的失败，实际上宣告了内省式历史剧的终结，为随后到来的宏大叙事回归腾出了生态位。

在《清平乐》之后的几年，中国尤其是影视行业经历了一场深刻的供给侧改革与内容重塑。理解这一过渡期，是理解2026年《太平年》为何会呈现出如此面貌的关键。国家广播电视总局在此期间发布了一系列指导意见，明确反对宫斗剧、耽改剧以及涉及历史虚无主义的题材，留给创作者的空间被极度压缩。既不能拍后宫的儿女情长（如《如懿传》），也不能拍皇帝的无能与软弱（那会缺乏正能量）。剩下的唯一安全且受鼓励的路径，就是大一统叙事——即讲述历史上那些致力于国家统一、民族融合的英雄故事。随着国际环境的日益严峻，外部压力转化为内部对安全与统一的极致渴求。文化产品开始承担起凝聚共识的责任。在这一背景下，五代十国这一大分裂时期，以及宋初的大一统进程，成为了完美的历史镜像。它允许创作者讨论分裂的痛苦与统一的必然，从而精准地击中当代观众的爱国主义G点。

2026年的《太平年》，可以被视为对《清平乐》的一次全面反拨。如果说《清平乐》是关于克制，那么《太平年》就是关于征服与臣服。《太平年》选取的切入点是吴越国主钱弘俶“纳土归宋”的历史事件。在传统的通俗演义中，投降往往被视为屈辱。但在《太平年》中，这一行为被升华为一种至高无上的政治智慧与道德牺牲。剧中由白宇饰演的钱弘俶，被塑造成一个“舍一家一姓之荣，保千万生灵之安”的圣徒。曾执笔《建党伟业》等主旋律影片的编剧董哲运用了极为宏大的笔触来描绘钱弘俶的心路历程。剧作极力论证，钱弘俶之所以伟大，不是因为他治理好了吴越（虽然吴越确实富庶），而是因为他识时务。他看清了赵宋代表了历史的正统与大势，因此主动放弃了主权。这种叙事隐含了一个危险的逻辑：当面对一个更强大的中央集权力量时，地方的自治权、文化的独立性甚至政治的尊严都是次要的。真正的“明君”应当懂得如何优雅地成为附庸。

朱亚文饰演的赵匡胤，则呈现了另一种“明君”范式——好大喜功的征服者。与宋仁宗的“优柔寡断”不同，赵匡胤在剧中展现的是一种虽千万人吾往矣的霸气。剧作通过宏大的战争场面来渲染武力统一的正当性。所谓“好大喜功”，在剧中被置换为“为万世开太平”。为了这个终极的太平，过程中的杀戮、权谋以及对异己势力的清洗都被赋予了神圣的意义。观众在观看过程中，被引导去崇拜这种能够解决问题的强权，而不是纠结于手段的合法性。

在《清平乐》中，异见者（谏官）是主角；在《太平年》中，异见者是阻碍历史车轮的螳臂。剧情设置中，吴越国内部反对纳土的臣僚被描绘为短视、自私或守旧的势力。这种二元对立的设置，彻底抹杀了政治博弈的复杂性。它告诉观众：在大一统的绝对真理面前，任何形式的辩论都是多余的。这标志着君臣共治中“共”的基础被抽离，剩下的只有君主的独断与臣下的执行。

对比两剧的女性角色，亦能发现明显的退步。《清平乐》中的曹皇后是一个具有政治头脑、甚至在某些时刻能与皇帝分庭抗礼的管理者。她代表了女性在儒家政治秩序中依然保有的人格独立性。《太平年》孙太真则被描述为“海的女儿”，是钱弘俶身边“温暖而有力的一抹红色”。她的功能回归到了传统的抚慰者与陪伴者。甚至有评论将其比作“小美人鱼”——一个为了爱或大义而牺牲声音与自我的形象。这种女性角色的柔化与去政治化，与剧作整体强调顺从的基调是同构的。

从2020年对仁宗的恨铁不成钢，到2026年对赵匡胤和钱弘俶的顶礼膜拜，这一演变揭示了当代中国人集体心理的三个关键位移。

首先，对复杂性的厌倦与对确定性的渴望。“君臣共治”本质上是一种复杂的博弈模型。它意味着决策成本高、效率低、且结果往往是妥协的产物。在2020年及随后的不确定性时代（后疫情时代的经济波动、社会内卷），中国民众对这种低效的民主失去了耐心。相比之下，《太平年》提供的独裁明君模型简单明了：君主全知全能，指令自上而下，问题迎刃而解。这种对确定性的渴望，压倒了对程序正义的追求。中国人潜意识里认为，只有依靠一个强有力的手腕，才能在充满敌意的世界中生存下去。

其次，功利主义的历史观和成王败寇的升级版。“好大喜功”在传统儒家语境下是一个贬义词，往往与劳民伤财联系在一起（如汉武帝晚年）。但在《太平年》的叙事中，这一概念被彻底洗白。 剧作通过精密的视听语言（CCTV-1黄金档的背书、电影级的特效、宏大的配乐），构建了一套“发展主义合法性”。即：只要结果是“太平”的、版图是扩大的、国家是强大的，那么君主个人的野心（好大喜功）就是值得被歌颂的雄心。这种逻辑极大地降低了观众对权力的道德要求，使得依附强者成为一种理性的生存策略。

最后，从“内圣”到“外王”的焦虑转移。宋仁宗代表的是“内圣”路线——关注内部治理、文化建设与百姓生计。赵匡胤代表的是“外王”路线——关注外部征服、军事胜利与版图扩张。当代中国社会的关注点正经历类似的转移。随着经济增速的放缓，单纯依靠内部生活水平提升来获得满足感变得越来越难。因此，将视线投向宏大的地缘政治胜利、投向万邦来朝的历史荣光，成为了一种心理补偿机制。观众需要在《太平年》的宏大叙事中，获得在现实生活中稀缺的集体效能感。

从君臣共治沦落为纳土归宋，从社会学的角度来看，它精准地描述了一种范式的崩塌。所谓沦落，并非指电视剧制作水平的下降，而是指政治想象力的贫困化。在《清平乐》中，我们尚且能看到一种关于“如果皇帝不那么独裁会怎样”的思考，虽然这种思考被处理得很纠结，但它至少承认了多元政治力量存在的合理性。然而到了《太平年》，这种思考被彻底抹平了。历史被简化为一条通往大一统的单行道，君主成为了驾驶这辆战车的唯一司机。

这种演变标志着公民意识的退潮：观众不再代入那个敢于直谏的范仲淹，而是代入那个渴望被明主收编的钱弘俶。这同时也意味着独裁依附的固化；好大喜功不再是缺点，而成为了领袖魅力的核心来源。人们不再相信制度可以带来安稳，只相信强人的意志可以带来太平。“纳土归宋”的故事被重新挖掘，不仅是为了怀古，更是为了规训。它在2026年的屏幕上反复播放，仿佛在对所有的观众进行一场关于顺从的集体催眠。最终，《太平年》所营造的那个太平盛世，剥离了《清平乐》中那些虽然嘈杂但充满人性的争吵，留下的是一片死寂般的整齐划一。这或许就是当代中国人心目中明君梦的最终归宿——不再梦想成为权力的合伙人，只梦想成为权力治下那个安分守己、感恩戴德的幸存者。中国人最悲惨的境界仍未到来。

From Serenade of Peaceful Joy to Swords into Plowshares – The Further Slide of China’s ‘Benevolent Ruler’ Ideal

By Yang Xinghua

From Serenade of Peaceful Joy, which romanticised a polity of shared rule between monarch and officials, to Swords into Plowshares, which extols the ‘peaceful submission’ of a regional kingdom to the Song, China’s cultural industry has lost even the last scraps of freedom in how it sings its praises. This shift marks more than a change in artistic fashion. It reveals a deeper mutation of the contemporary ‘benevolent-ruler dream’: a longing once directed towards a humane sovereign – one who could tolerate dissent, abide by rules, and even appear a little soft – has degenerated into psychological attachment to a power-hungry strongman who monopolises authority. Under this new paradigm, the highest political virtue is no longer ‘benevolence’ or ‘restraint’, but ‘unity’ and ‘order’; the highest wisdom of subjects is no longer dying to remonstrate, but ‘offering up territory’ and ‘going with the tide’.

In China’s mass cultural sphere, period costume dramas have never functioned as mere entertainment. They carry heavy contemporary allegory. As a modern variant of the ‘court historian’ tradition, television constructs a popular political philosophy by dramatising dynastic rise and fall – an accessible theory of what counts as ‘good governance’ and what makes a ‘wise ruler’. Every blockbuster historical drama maps precisely onto the social psychology and political aesthetics of its time. If Yongzheng Dynasty in the early 2000s resonated with a desire for a hard-driving strongman during a period of difficult reforms, and if Nirvana in Fire (2015) embodied the middle class’s idealistic yearning for due process and the clearing of wrongful convictions, then the evolution of historical dramas across 2020 to 2026 reveals a more complicated – and more dangerous – turn in the collective psyche.

Serenade of Peaceful Joy (2020), set in the reign of Emperor Renzong of Northern Song, centres on the institutional dilemma of ‘co-governance’ and the emperor’s own emotional repression. Its keywords are ‘benevolence’, ‘endurance’, and ‘suffocation’. Swords into Plowshares, broadcast in early 2026, takes as its theme the Wuyue Kingdom’s ‘submission of territory to the Song’ at the end of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms era. Its narrative revolves around ‘unification’, ‘ending chaos’, and ‘political decision’. Its keywords are ‘grand unity’, ‘great peace’, and ‘the courage to let go’. The leap from Serenade of Peaceful Joyto Swords into Plowshares signals a substantive sinking of the ‘wise-ruler dream’. In 2020, the public could still feel stifled by a ruler constrained by the civil bureaucracy, yet retain sympathy for him – suggesting a residual, subconscious acceptance of the modern ethic that power ought to be caged (even if that acceptance came with frustration at inefficiency). By 2026, however, Swords into Plowshares elevates ‘submission to the Song’ into a sanctified act and constructs a new political theology: for the grand vision of ‘peace’, individual dignity, local autonomy, even a family’s honour and shame must be offered up unconditionally to absolute central power. Viewers no longer seek checks on authority; they attach themselves fervently to the dictator who can pacify the realm and carve out eternal glory.

Serenade of Peaceful Joy was, in intent, an unusually ambitious experiment. Unlike the many historical dramas fixated on conquest or palace intrigue, it trained its camera on a ‘maintenance emperor’ of consolidation: Zhao Zhen, Emperor Renzong. Even its title hints at a tepid, gentle political atmosphere – peaceful, steady, and short of drama. In the series, Renzong becomes a tragic figure of intense moral self-awareness who, for that very reason, loses personal freedom. His adversaries are not treacherous ministers or foreign enemies, but the vast civil-official establishment embodied by ‘immortal names’ such as Fan Zhongyan, Ouyang Xiu, and Han Qi – along with the ancestral rules and Confucian rites that this establishment represents. The drama devotes significant attention to how the remonstrance system operates. Whenever Renzong seeks to promote the relatives of his favoured consort Zhang, or to protect his beloved daughter Huirou from a disastrous marriage, he is met with a barrage of impeachments. These attacks do not stem from private gain, but from the defence of ‘law’ and ‘balance’. The structure touches the central paradox of ‘shared rule’: a ruler who strictly follows procedure must, in personal will, become a castrated monarch. The series tries to ennoble this ideal of ‘achieving good order through self-restraint’, yet it suffered a communications defeat.

‘Stifling’ became the most frequent verdict on social media during the show’s broadcast. The popularity of the word revealed a deep contemporary intolerance of limited power. Audiences accustomed to the dopamine logic of web fiction – instant retribution, swift justice – grew impatient with the prolonged courtroom-like debates and memorial readings. Data suggested that complaints about ‘slow pacing’ dominated the negative reviews. In the classical Confucian narrative, Renzong’s endurance is a saintly virtue. In a modern commercial society that celebrates jungle logic and ‘wolf culture’, endurance gets recoded as incompetence. Viewers asked: ‘What’s the point of being emperor if you can’t even protect your own daughter?’ That question marks a psychological departure from the ideal of benevolent rule, and a turn towards the craving for a power that can smash rules and deliver catharsis. In Serenade of Peaceful Joy, the scholar-official group– revered in textbooks – often functions as the antagonist within the drama’s conflicts. Fan Zhongyan’s uprightness becomes moral coercion; Sima Guang’s stubbornness even helps propel the princess’s tragedy – much as suggested by the title of the original novel, Lonely City Closed.

This treatment inadvertently flatters a strain of anti-intellectualism and anti-elitism. It implies that the literati, forever mouthing benevolence and morality, are in practice obstacles to the efficient operation of the state machine and obstacles to the supreme leader’s will. The creators may have intended to show the complexity of ‘harmony without sameness’, yet within an atmosphere dominated by ‘stifling’, it accelerated the collapse of the co-governance ideal. Audiences began to loathe this endless parliamentary-style politics and, subconsciously, to summon a strongman who could make everyone shut up. The series’ historical exploration was cautious. It sought, without violating the record, to deconstruct grand narratives by excavating inner lives. Yet this microscopic perspective clashed with the discourse environment of 2020. China was in the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic: society was highly mobilised, collectivist sentiment surged. A drama about an emperor bound by institutions and struggling in loneliness appeared too ‘petty-bourgeois’ and insufficiently forceful. Its failure effectively proclaimed the end of the introspective historical drama and cleared an ecological niche for the return of grand narrative.

In the years after Serenade of Peaceful Joy, China’s film and television sector underwent a deep supply-side overhaul and content remoulding. Understanding this transitional period is key to understanding why Swords into Plowshares took the form it did in 2026. Over that time, the National Radio and Television Administration issued a series of guidance documents opposing ‘palace-intrigue dramas’, ‘boys’ love adaptations’, and themes linked to ‘historical nihilism’. Creative space was squeezed to an extreme. One could no longer safely shoot palace romance (as in Ruyi’s Royal Love in the Palace), nor portray an emperor’s weakness and incompetence – insufficiently ‘positive energy’. The only remaining path that was both safe and actively encouraged was the ‘grand unification narrative’: heroic stories about those who pursued national unity and ethnic integration. As the international environment grew harsher, external pressure translated into an internal craving for ‘security’ and ‘unity’. Cultural products were assigned the task of forging consensus. Against that backdrop, the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms – an era of ‘great fragmentation’ – and the early Song’s project of ‘grand unity’ became a perfect historical mirror. It allowed creators to dramatise the pain of division and the inevitability of unification, striking precisely at contemporary patriotism’s most sensitive trigger point.

Swords into Plowshares can be read as a comprehensive repudiation of Serenade of Peaceful Joy. If the latter concerned ‘restraint’, the former concerns ‘conquest’ and ‘submission’. Its chosen entry point is the Wuyue ruler Qian Hongchu’s historical act of ‘offering up his realm to the Song’. In traditional popular storytelling, surrender is shame. In this drama, it is elevated into supreme political wisdom and moral sacrifice. Qian Hongchu, played by Bai Yu, is framed as a saint who ‘relinquishes the glory of one house and one clan to secure the lives of millions’. The screenwriter Dong Zhe, known for major ‘main melody’ films such as The Founding of a Party, deploys sweeping strokes to portray Qian’s inner journey. The drama argues that Qian’s greatness lies not in how well he governed Wuyue (though Wuyue was indeed prosperous) but in his ‘knowing the times’. He recognises the Zhao-Song as the ‘orthodoxy’ and the ‘trend of history’, and therefore voluntarily abandons sovereignty. The narrative carries a dangerous implication: when confronted with a stronger centralised power, local autonomy, cultural distinctiveness, and even political dignity become secondary. A truly ‘wise ruler’ should know how to become a vassal with grace.

Zhu Yawen’s Zhao Kuangyin, by contrast, embodies another ‘wise-ruler’ template: the glory-seeking conqueror. Where Renzong hesitates, Zhao radiates the swagger of ‘though ten million oppose me, I go’. The series uses grand battle sequences to legitimise unification by force. What might once have been condemned as ‘craving merit and greatness’ is reframed as ‘opening peace for ten thousand generations’. In the name of this ultimate ‘peace’, the killings, intrigues, and purges along the way are endowed with sanctity. Viewers are guided to worship a power that ‘solves problems’, not to interrogate the legality of its means.

In Serenade of Peaceful Joy, dissenters – the remonstrating officials – are protagonists. In Swords into Plowshares, dissenters are mantises trying to stop the cart of history. Within the plot, Wuyue officials who oppose submission are depicted as short-sighted, selfish, or hidebound. This binary arrangement erases political complexity. It tells viewers that before the absolute truth of ‘grand unity’, all debate is superfluous. The very basis of the ‘shared’ in ‘shared rule’ is extracted, leaving only the monarch’s unilateral decision and the officials’ execution.

A comparison of the two dramas’ female characters reveals an equally clear regression. In Serenade of Peaceful Joy, Empress Cao is politically astute and at times can contend with the emperor as an administrator in her own right. She represents a form of personal independence that women could still possess within the Confucian political order. In Swords into Plowshares, Sun Taizhen is described as a ‘daughter of the sea’, a ‘warm and powerful touch of red’ beside Qian Hongchu. Her function returns to the traditional roles of ‘comforter’ and ‘companion’. Some commentary even likens her to the Little Mermaid – a figure who sacrifices voice and self for love or for a higher cause. This softening and depoliticisation of the female role mirrors the drama’s overall insistence on ‘compliance’.

From the ‘hating him for failing to be strong enough’ directed at Renzong in 2020 to the reverent worship of Zhao Kuangyin and Qian Hongchu in 2026, this evolution reveals three key displacements in contemporary Chinese collective psychology.

First, fatigue with complexity and a hunger for certainty. ‘Shared rule’ is, at bottom, a complex model of bargaining: high decision costs, low efficiency, outcomes produced through compromise. In 2020 and the subsequent age of uncertainty – post-pandemic volatility, economic wobble, social ‘involution’ – many Chinese lost patience with this kind of ‘inefficient democracy’. Swords into Plowshares offers a simpler model: the omniscient, omnipotent ruler; top-down commands; problems resolved at a stroke. The hunger for certainty overwhelms the pursuit of procedural justice. At a subconscious level, many conclude that only a strong hand can ensure survival in a hostile world.

Second, a utilitarian view of history, and an upgraded version of winner-takes-all. In traditional Confucian language, ‘craving merit and greatness’ is pejorative, associated with exhausting the people and draining the treasury (as with Emperor Wu of Han in his later years). In Swords into Plowshares, the concept is scrubbed clean. Through meticulously crafted audiovisual rhetoric – the endorsement of CCTV-1 prime time, film-grade effects, swelling music – the drama builds a ‘developmentalist legitimacy’: if the result is ‘peace’, the territory expands, the state becomes strong, then the ruler’s personal ambition is noble aspiration worthy of praise. This logic lowers the moral demands viewers place on power, making ‘attaching oneself to the strong’ appear a rational survival strategy.

Third, an anxiety shift from ‘inner sageliness’ to ‘outer kingliness’. Renzong represents the route of inner governance: internal administration, cultural construction, and people’s livelihoods. Zhao Kuangyin represents the route of external triumph: conquest, military victory, territorial expansion. Contemporary China’s attention is undergoing a similar migration. As growth slows, it becomes harder to draw satisfaction from improved living standards alone. Turning towards grand geopolitical victories and fantasies of ‘all nations paying tribute’ becomes a compensatory mechanism. Viewers seek, in Swords into Plowshares’s vast narrative, a scarce sense of ‘collective efficacy’ absent from daily life.

From shared rule to ‘offering up territory’, the story describes – sociologically – a precise collapse of paradigm. The ‘slide’ does not refer to declining production quality, but to the impoverishment of political imagination. In Serenade of Peaceful Joy, one could still glimpse a thought experiment – however tortured – about what might happen if the emperor were less autocratic. It at least acknowledged the legitimacy of plural political forces. By Swords into Plowshares, that possibility is flattened. History becomes a single-lane road leading inevitably to ‘grand unity’, and the monarch becomes the sole driver of the war-chariot.

This shift signals the ebbing of civic consciousness. Viewers no longer identify with a Fan Zhongyan who dares to remonstrate, but with a Qian Hongchu who longs to be absorbed by an enlightened master. It also indicates the solidification of authoritarian attachment: ‘craving merit and greatness’ is no longer a flaw, but the core of leadership charisma. People stop believing that institutions can provide stability; they believe only the strongman’s will can bring peace. The story of ‘submission to the Song’ is resurrected not merely to savour the past, but to discipline the present. Replayed again and again on screens in 2026, it resembles a collective hypnosis in obedience. The ‘great peace’ conjured by Swords into Plowshares strips away the noisy yet humane quarrels of Serenade of Peaceful Joy and leaves only the dead silence of uniformity. Perhaps that is the final destination of today’s ‘wise-ruler dream’: no longer dreaming of becoming a partner in power, dreaming only of being a compliant survivor under power’s rule – grateful, well-behaved, and still breathing. For the Chinese, there is always a worse path.