Most of the ancient Central Plains dynasties were established by the Han people, as Han people, it is natural to rule the country composed of Han people, but history has also appeared that ethnic minorities have established political power in the Central Plains, during the Wuhu Chaohua period, the Xiongnu, Xianbei, Qiang, Qiang, And many other Hu tribes established several regimes in the northern part of the Central Plains, alternating and alternating, chaos, and later there was the Xianbei ethnic group to unify the north, that period was a disaster for the Han people, and then there was even a great unified dynasty established by ethnic minorities. For example, the Yuan Dynasty established by the Mongols and the Qing Dynasty established by the Manchus have left a strong mark in Chinese history.
The rapidly rising Mongol Empire successively attacked and destroyed the Western Liao, Western Xia, Huarazimo, Jin Dynasty and other regimes, Kublai Khan, that is, after the Khan took the throne, established the "Great Yuan" regime, and soon after completely destroyed the exiled regime of the Southern Song Dynasty, ending the long-term chaotic situation since the end of the Tang Dynasty, realizing the unification of the Central Plains, "dividing the central plains for a long time", the establishment of the Yuan Dynasty is in line with the trend of history, but unfortunately the Yuan Dynasty did not implement good political reforms, first tired of foreign conquests, exhausting military force, and then the succession to the throne is disordered, coups are frequent, Sinicization is delayed, and development is stagnant. Then there was political corruption, the interference of powerful ministers in government, the intensification of ethnic and class contradictions, and eventually the outbreak of peasant uprisings and the overthrow of the rule of the Yuan Dynasty.
In the less than a hundred years of the Yuan Dynasty's reign, the most critical Sinicization policy was not successful, could not appease the people and attract people's hearts, the people of the Central Plains had no sense of belonging to it, but instead always oppressed the peasant people, imposed taxes, oppressed Han officials, no wonder that even if the peasants were oppressed by power, there were still large and small peasant uprisings in the past hundred years. The reforms of Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei at that time were fruitful, and the rulers of Northern Wei had always urgently demanded the implementation of the sinicization policy, which promoted the great integration of nationalities and created conditions for the Sui and Tang dynasties to unify the country. The Qing Dynasty's Sinicization policy has made the Great Unification Dynasty last for 268 years, and today we will talk about how the Qing Dynasty integrated Manchu culture with The Central Plains culture.
Before sinicization, the rulers of the Qing Dynasty first imposed that "the officials and people of the whole country shall be limited to ten days inside and outside the capital, and the direct subordinate and provincial localities should also be limited to ten days in buwen, and all hair should be shaved." In fact, as early as the time outside the Guanwai, the Manchu rulers demanded that the conquered Han people be forced to change their hairstyles and change their clothes, and the Ming Dynasty soldiers who surrendered must also shave their hair and change their clothes, which is a sign of submission, and after entering the Customs, the large-scale "shaving and changing clothes" was strongly dissatisfied and resisted by the Han people.
However, the rulers of the Qing Dynasty were determined to promote "shaving their hair and changing clothes", adhering to the standard of "leaving their heads without hair, leaving their hair without leaving their heads", and under the power of power, they still achieved certain results. Why did the qing emperor insist on "shaving his hair and changing clothes"? Because the Yuan Dynasty did not force the Han people to "Mongolize", causing the Han people to disobey, coupled with the tyranny of the Yuan Dynasty, the Han people's uprisings were repeatedly prohibited, and the Yuan Dynasty ended prematurely.
In fact, it was precisely because of the compulsory "shaving of hair and change of clothes" in the early Qing Dynasty that a large number of Han people weakened the sense of resistance and national consciousness, and ideologically enhanced the Han people's sense of identification with the Manchus, so that the peasant uprisings during the Qing Dynasty were few and could not threaten the imperial power established by the Manchus.
Changing the Han people from their hair and clothes, increasing the Sense of Belonging of the Han People to the Qing Dynasty, gradually enslaving them, softening their bones and morale, this move is undoubtedly the right move for the Qing rulers.
Since there are lessons from the past, why did the rulers of the Qing Dynasty not think of turning Chinese into Manchu and making manchu spoken throughout the country, and what "cultural invasion" could be more successful than changing the mother tongue? At the same time, it was also possible to force Han officials to switch to Manchu, so that Manchu officials occupied an important position in the dynasty, which was more able to maintain the rule of the Qing Dynasty. Compared with these advantages, the benefits of allowing the Han people to continue to use Chinese are more, otherwise the shrewd rulers will surely enforce the Manchu language, even if they will be rebelled by the Han people.
Let's see why the rulers allowed the Han chinese to change their language, even the Manchu language they spoke, to Chinese. The rulers of the Qing Dynasty want to permanently gain a foothold in the Central Plains, Manchu and Chinese compared with the two languages, Manchu is obviously not suitable for the inheritance of culture, Manchu is only popular in the upper class, the folk will not write Manchu, relying on word of mouth, if it is popularized among hundreds of millions of people, it is not convenient at all, and the cost is too high, and the Chinese language that has been passed down for thousands of years has continued to evolve, profound, practical and convenient, and it is a perfect language system.
This point, the Rulers of the Qing Dynasty deeply understood, the backward Manchu language is not worth expanding at all, as early as the Kangxi Emperor, he was able to read the Chinese classics, the Qianlong Emperor made countless poems, which can be completed by borrowing Chinese, until the Jiaqing Emperor, the Qing Emperor basically did not speak Manchu.
Manuscript of romance of the Three Kingdoms
From the above manuscript of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, it can be seen how inconvenient the Manchu script is, almost comparable to the difficulty of the oracle bone, and the cost of popularizing it is too high, which is not conducive to maintaining the existing rule.
Moreover, for the Qing rulers who want to promote Sinicization, they do not intend to oppress Han officials, but to reuse them, the imperial examination has developed over thousands of years, is the most effective way to select talents, folk students are familiar with the Four Books and Five Classics, if they suddenly change to Manchu, I am afraid that the imperial court will not be able to recruit talents, for the Qing Dynasty that is urgent to integrate into the Central Plains, this is absolutely impossible, in the Qing Dynasty's hundreds of years of scientific and technological examinations, most of them are Han students into the list, Let us not ignore the unbreakable ruling throne in the hearts of Chinese scholars and cultural people, Confucius is simply an uncrowned emperor, above the imperial power, and the carrier of Confucius is Chinese, so it can be seen that the status of Chinese is unshakable in the Central Plains.
Although manchu language does not spread to all corners of China, in the northeast region of the birthplace of the Manchus, Manchu language has been developed, integrated with the northeast dialect, and become part of the northeast dialect, which shows the strength of the Chinese language, can be integrated and accept new cultures, so that the ethnic minorities that invaded the central plains in ancient times were eventually transformed by the central plains culture.