That dynasty ruled China for nearly three hundred years, "never produced a single emperor", and every emperor was "dressed at night, diligent in government and loving the people". That dynasty took the place of China to expand its territory, quell the war, expand its territory, and create the "Prosperous Era of Kangqian".
Although it was followed by natural and man-made disasters, the people did not have a good life. Under the shroud of the golden light, the eighteen-year-old girl in Jiangnan was not clothed, and under the cover of the sunset, the people of the Central Plains could not eat.
There are more beggars than pedestrians, and everyone who walks is like a zombie. A ragged mother tied her newborn daughter to her chest and begged. A group of Chinese children with pigtails in pigtails are like monkeys snatching candy spilled by British noblewomen. Seeing these pictures more than a hundred years later, I can't believe that this is China.
In the pen of foreigners, the Chinese of the Ming Dynasty was confident, clean and beautiful. Every province has a long-lived old man, and every old man's face is filled with a happy smile; in the pen of foreigners, the Chinese of the late Qing Dynasty are sluggish, selfish and stupid.
Is this simply because China in the late Qing Dynasty suffered natural disasters?
First, why was the poor in the late Qing Dynasty
In fact, many historians say:
Until the outbreak of the Opium War in 1840, China's GDP was still the largest in the world at that time. Queen Elizabeth also once lamented that as a woman, Empress Dowager Cixi enjoyed more than she did. However, the rich people were the princes and nobles of the Qing Dynasty, and had nothing to do with the commoners at the bottom.
China introduced corn and sweet potatoes from the middle and late Ming Dynasty, temporarily solving the problem of famine.
There were several large-scale increases in population; by the Qianlong period, it had exceeded 300 million, and at the end of the Qing Dynasty, it had reached 400 million. The population has increased, and the land is still in the hands of a few people,
Peasant life became very difficult. In the event of a natural disaster, there was starvation everywhere.
In the past, during the Ming Dynasty, the state had a Huimin Pharmacy, a sanatorium, and so on. Usually, people who can't afford to see sick are given free medical treatment and homeless people are taken in. Although in the later period, due to the impact of the commodity economy, the Huimin Pharmacy was gradually replaced by a private pharmacy, but the nursing home can still operate normally.
During the Qing Dynasty, the population increased several times, and once there was a natural disaster, there were many displaced people, and the sanatorium could not play any role. In addition, local officials deliberately concealed reports for the sake of political achievements, and the result was to allow the victims to fend for themselves.
After the Opium War of 1840, the Qing government signed many unequal treaties and paid hundreds of millions of dollars of silver to the Western powers. The rulers passed on all these losses to the people of the Qing Dynasty.
It was already very difficult for the people to pay the landlord's taxes, and now that they have to pay additional reparations, most of them simply go bankrupt.
Before the Opium War, China's traditional handicraft industry was very popular in Europe. After the Opium War, Westerners ran to China to build textile factories, which directly destroyed China's small handicraft workshops.
Thus, it is not only the peasants who are bankrupt, but also a large number of craftsmen.
For these unemployed,
The Qing court neither had the ability to resettle nor thought about how to resettle. In the end, some of these people became the "Boxers."
The Boxer Rebellion had been ridiculed online a few years ago because
Many people only saw them carrying red lights, "jumping gods", shouting the slogan of "swords and guns are not entered", and vainly trying to save the Qing Dynasty by killing foreigners, but they did not know that these people were only for self-help.
After the opening of the Qing Dynasty, the traditional economic pattern was broken, and many farmers, craftsmen and boxers did not have food. The "Boxers" initially received Cixi's acquiescence, but in the end they carried the pot for her.
Second, what kind of poverty did the late Qing Dynasty become?
In the past, many people thought that the poverty of the late Ming Dynasty was far greater than that of the late Qing Dynasty. But
How poor the late Ming Dynasty was, we can't see the photos, but the late Qing Dynasty left a lot of shocking photos. At the very least, we can see that outside Beijing in the late Qing Dynasty, there was a crowded and dilapidated bungalow, and the streets were full of unkempt pedestrians.
After the two Opium Wars, coupled with the Taiping Rebellion, by 1902, just because of Gengzi's reparations, more than 1800 taels of silver were paid every year. The household department is apportioned to the provinces, and the provinces are apportioned to the counties and transferred to the peasants.
The peasants, suffering from the war, have not yet eased up, and they are being exploited by the government.
Plus
Prices have soared, grain prices have fallen, farmers have been farming for a year, they can't make ends meet, and even if they don't encounter disasters, farmers have to abandon their fields and flee. This famine is man-made, not a natural disaster.
According to the "Modern History of China" (Zhonghua Bookstore Edition), around 1905, nearly 100 million peasants in China were reduced to extreme poverty. Later, there was a natural disaster, and more than 300 or 400 prefectures and counties were affected at one time.
The area affected by the disaster reached 800 square miles and affected 15 million people. Even the richest jiangnan region, between 1910 and 1911, gathered more than 200,000 victims.
At that time, Chinese sold his girlfriend for only 2,000 yuan in order to survive.
In some places in northern Anhui, there is not a single wisp of cooking smoke to be seen within tens of miles.
I once read an essay written by a man at the end of the Qing Dynasty, and the author mentioned that he went to Nanjing to take the imperial examination. When I arrived in Nanjing, I got off the boat and smelled a smell of urine, and all the people defecated on the ground. He lived with several test takers he knew and was so poor that he had no extra pants to wear. I wore it during the day, washed it at night and dried it the next day.
At that time, most of the people who could participate in the provincial examination still had a little savings at home, but they were still too poor to wear pants, so ordinary people did not need to mention.
Therefore, when the British Magalney visited China and mentioned the prosperity of Qianlong and the fact that the big girl in Jiangnan could not wear pants, it was estimated that she did not deliberately slander the Qing Dynasty. After all, in the past, foreigners rectal, in the Ming Dynasty, they would also praise China as clean and beautiful.
China before the Qing Dynasty was still a paradise in the eyes of Westerners.
They argue that:
Chinese officials are all philosophers. Ordinary Chinese are very polite and kind-looking.
But when it came to the Qing Dynasty,
The impression of foreigners on Chinese leaves only numbness.
Some foreigners even felt that the Chinese at that time not only looked numb on the outside, but also had stupidity, selfishness and cunning in their bones.
Poverty in China in the late Qing Dynasty was not only material poverty. Even worse is spiritual poverty.
epilogue
The history books say that when the Eight-Power Alliance invaded China, there were local Chinese people who took the initiative to guide foreign soldiers. Because the Chinese people at that time did not have the concept of "country" in their hearts.
However, this does not blame the ignorance of the people at that time
。 After all, Guan Zi once said: "Cangmiao Shi" and then "know the etiquette". The most basic survival can not be guaranteed, the spirit has been castrated for hundreds of years, what about "concepts" and "home country"?
Fortunately, the era of the decadent Qing Dynasty is gone, let us relive the past and learn from the future.