French paintings depicting the Qing Dynasty: Qing Army and French Army, look like the armies of two eras
During the last years of the Qing Dynasty, that period of time has been in a state of internal and external troubles. Although the Qing Dynasty has also made a lot of efforts under this phenomenon, they also hope to be able to do the final rescue, but the Qing Dynasty still has to face the fate of elimination in the end.
It should be known that the Qing Dynasty always exists in a backward state in the situation, and this state has been maintained for a long time, so that short-term changes will not play much role at all, and the world is developing so fast, the Qing Dynasty has no ability to follow its footsteps, so sooner or later this dynasty will be overwhelmed by time. So what was the view of the Western powers about the Qing Dynasty at that time? The following picture is from the hand of a Frenchman, who painted the Qing Dynasty, let's take a look at it together!
During the last years of the Qing Dynasty, that period of time has been in a state of internal and external troubles. Although the Qing Dynasty has also made a lot of efforts under this phenomenon, they also hope to be able to do the final rescue, but the Qing Dynasty still has to face the fate of elimination in the end. It should be known that the Qing Dynasty always exists in a backward state in the situation, and this state has been maintained for a long time, so that short-term changes will not play much role at all, and the world is developing so fast, the Qing Dynasty has no ability to follow its footsteps, so sooner or later this dynasty will be overwhelmed by time. So what was the view of the Western powers about the Qing Dynasty at that time? The following picture is from the hand of a Frenchman, who painted the Qing Dynasty, let's take a look at it together!
From this map, we can see that this area seems to be a coastal area during the Qing Dynasty. From the perspective of architectural style, it is probably in Fujian, which is still very good compared with the mainland at that time.
But at that time, the Qing Dynasty was very backward in the eyes of the great powers, especially in terms of weapons and equipment. It should be known that when the artillery ships faced coastal defense, all the resistance made by the Qing Dynasty seemed vulnerable. This kind of coastal defense only requires a few shells to break through the defensive line. The main reason for this is the backward weapons of the Qing Dynasty.
In this picture, there are some foreigners riding horses, but there are many Qing troops escorting them behind. If you guess, according to such a big rally, these foreigners should be merchants or messengers. The reason why the Qing army is so public is that it hopes that their safety can be guaranteed. But we can easily see that the Qing army is actually not very good, giving people a particularly scattered feeling, looking very dilapidated, and very untidy.
In this painting, it is about their own army, look at these well-ordered French soldiers, and compare them with the Qing army, it is obvious that one is mighty and the other is lazy. They seemed to be doing something into the city, and the people who followed the army were full of curiosity about the French army.
This picture is really very interesting, from which we can see that the place in the painting should be in the Great Tobacco Hall, you know that at the end of the Qing Dynasty, for the south, opium smoking was really a very popular behavior.
But this painting does not depict the Qing Dynasty people smoking opium, but he depicts opium smokers, although they are traffickers, but they smoke in the big smoke house. I have to say that this is really very interesting, because it is difficult to find in our history about the opium smoking of foreigners. However, the fact that such a picture actually appears in this painting is really surprising.
From these paintings, the Qing Dynasty can be well portrayed, and it is very obvious that this dynasty does not seem to be so far away from us, and this dynasty seems to be easily conquered by artillery fire. And these paintings also prove that backwardness will be beaten. No matter how brilliant it once was, as long as it is backward, it will become food on the chopping board of others.