Why China Collapses on Schedule — The Mandate of Heaven

Why Chinese dynasties repeatedly rose and collapsed in predictable cycles for 3,000 years.

INTRO — THE ORIGINAL PERFORMANCE REVIEW SYSTEM

Most empires collapse eventually.

China collapses repeatedly, on a schedule, like a badly optimized game engine hitting a memory leak every 200 years.

For 3,000 years, Chinese dynasties followed the same loop:

1. New dynasty rises in glory

2. Peace & prosperity

3. Corruption increases

4. Taxes rise

5. Natural disasters hit

6. Peasants revolt

7. Dynasty collapses

8. New dynasty takes over

9. Repeat forever

And underlying it all is one core idea:

Heaven approves good rulers.
Heaven punishes bad ones.
The people decide when Heaven is angry.

This is the Mandate of Heaven — the longest-running political legitimacy system in world history.

Let’s break it down.

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