Text/Gibb
It is said that at the end of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, the people in the land of China were worried about internal and external troubles, the people were not happy, the great powers exploited the poor and smoked opium, all kinds of numb spirits filled the entire dim society, and the people at the bottom were like lambs to be slaughtered, and people simply could not find a way out.
The whole country has lost hope, so in the context of such extreme social contradictions, irreconcilable contradictions between China and foreign countries, contradictions between the government and the people, and so on have intensified. In addition, at the end of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, there were many benevolent people who were ideologically advanced and wanted to reform and save the country, which prompted the rapid disintegration of the Manchu Qing authorities.
However, since the First Opium War, the decadent and incompetent Manchu Qing was forced to sign various unequal treaties with the great powers and owe huge sums of money, so if the "reparations" they owed after the fall of the Manchu Qing dynasty were not paid, should the next authority inherit the debts? This has become a concern for many future generations.
The Manchu Qing authorities signed 343 unequal treaties! This is why later generations called the Manchu Tartars the most humiliating dynasty in Chinese history.
Objectively speaking, the problems faced by the Manchu Qing in that period were still different from those faced by previous dynasties, and although the changes of other dynasties were also caused by the intensification of various irreconcilable contradictions, they eventually led to the subjugation of the country, but on the whole, they were all infighting between the Chinese nation, and even the change of dynasties did not reach the point of losing power and humiliating the country.
Speaking of this, many friends may think that in the middle school textbooks, it is not only written that the Manchu Qing only signed a dozen treaties with the great powers, but the most famous treaties of Beijing, Nanjing, Maguan, Xinugu and so on are recorded in history books.
However, in history, the cold facts will make everyone marvel, according to historical records, the Manchu Qing authorities have signed no less than 340 unequal treaties with various powers, and countless kinds of wealth have been forcibly plundered.
The words on the unequal treaties are all real gold and silver, these 343 "shackles" are constantly operating, and the Manchu Qing can only transfer this huge pressure to the people, such a huge and high repayment pressure, for the dying Manchu Qing, it is impossible to compensate.
After the signing of these treaties, the Manchu qing debt was as high as 1.3 billion silver, and the Manchu Qing Manchu at that time was full of efforts to squeeze the people's annual tax revenue of tens of millions, and this debt made the Manchu Qing authorities breathless.
Who will pay the remaining compensation? Because of the huge amount of reparations, the Manchu Qing authorities made many shameless decisions, among which there was naturally an increase in the people's taxes, and also set up a "gold system" to put heavy pressure on the people in the country, and the people's oppression was raised to the highest.
This "gold system" for merchants is equivalent to cutting a scale on the scale, and in each transaction, ten to twenty percent of the profits are handed over to the authorities, which is naked exploitation. After the fall of the Manchu Qing, this system no longer applied.
However, according to the treaty, this "debt" needs the Republic of China to continue to compensate, because the Manchu Qing's evil debts are too huge, the weak Republic of China as the successor, it is completely unable to withstand such pressure, the early days of the Republic of China not only to stabilize the social order, but also need to deal with various Western forces, really dare not provoke them, years of contradictions and conflicts, China and foreign countries have long reached the point of smoke and smoke.
At that time, China was weak and sick, and when it came to developing the national economy, it was basically a matter of negotiating reparations with the great powers. Anyway, the great powers kept asking for money to exert pressure, and the Republic of China really had no money to pay back, so it dragged on until the eve of the outbreak of World War II.
Among the Gengzi indemnities, the two countries that China wants to compensate the most are Germany and Austria.
Although some pressure has been alleviated, the reparations of other countries still have to be compensated, and the great powers stipulate that China should be paid off one by one within 10 years.
After the establishment of the Republic of China, the relations between the authorities and other countries were relatively good, and the maneuvering of diplomats made many countries stop claiming our debts, and some unequal treaties were directly abolished.
For example, Britain, Russia, the United States and other countries later decided to use China's compensation silver two to invest in China's construction, production, education, etc. For China, which was exhausted at that time, although most of the interests were occupied by them, this could also allow some domestic recovery.
In the end, China still paid a total of about 570 million silver to the powers, and the mess left over from the Manchu Qing Dynasty still had to be paid by future generations, and later because of the war, many countries needed to carry out strategic cooperation with China, which made part of the reparations not to be repaid. After the founding of New China, the Chinese people stood up and directly repudiated the various unequal treaties that lost power and humiliated the country.
References for this article: "The Invasion of China by Great Powers", "Unequal Treaties", "CNKI Related Literature - Various Unequal Treaties Signed by Western Powers for Aggression against China", "Modern History"