In recent years, the call for dreaming back to Datang has become louder and louder, and the reason is that I want to experience the prosperity of Datang, to experience the all-encompassing Tang culture, and to experience the daily life of the people of Datang.
Speaking of the prosperous world, there are three famous prosperous worlds in Chinese history, one is the "Kaiyuan prosperous era", one is the "Hanwu prosperous era", and the other is the "Kangqian prosperous world".
This article starts from the Tang Dynasty, but this time we will not discuss the "Kaiyuan Prosperous Era" and the "Hanwu Prosperous Era", which are veritable prosperity in the eyes of the editor.
Today we come to discuss the closest to us "Kangqian prosperous world", after the end of the Kangqian prosperous era, the Qing Dynasty only took a few decades, after several generations of monarchs, the Great Qing was knocked on the door by the Western powers, can't help but draw a big question mark, just experienced the "Kangqian prosperous world", so quickly defeated?
Then we must talk about how much wealth has been accumulated by this "Kangqian prosperous world" to the Qing Dynasty, and what level of living can the living standards of the people who survive under the aura of the "Kangqian prosperous world" reach?
The real Kangqian prosperous world
"Kangqian's prosperous life" is the result of the efforts of the three emperors of Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong, and the small editor simply summarizes these three emperors, Kangxi laid a foundation and exchanged the silver in the treasury for land and dignity.
Kangxi reigned for sixty years, cutting the Three Domains, conquering the Desert, ruling mongolia, heavy agriculture, and water conservancy, laying the foundation for the prosperity of the Great Qing Dynasty.
At that time, the territory of the Qing Dynasty reached 13.16 million square kilometers, second only to the Mongolian Yuan Period, and even the Mongolian regions that were plagued by generations of emperors were within the territory of the Qing Dynasty.
This big map is like a big yard of a rich man's house, but only the people inside know how their lives are.
During the kangqian dynasty, China's population grew explosively, breaking through the 300 million mark and becoming the most populous country in the world.
Isn't this the standard of the prosperous world, a vast territory, and the world's largest population, which has also become the capital that the Rulers of the Qing Dynasty boasted about to the outside world.
The reason why this goal can be achieved has a lot to do with the corn, soybeans and sweet potatoes that attracted people in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, and these crops can have a good production capacity and are easy to store in harsh climates.
Most of the poor are able to meet the problem of food and clothing and have thus made some achievements in terms of population. But in addition, what else is left behind in the "Prosperous Era of Kangqian", which the Great Qing is proud of?
They developed a closed-door policy, thus lagging behind other countries of their time in terms of economic and cultural exchanges. In terms of science and technology stagnation, we who already had firearms in the Ming Dynasty were knocked on the door by the Western powers.
During this period, the rulers were imprisoned and tens of thousands of intellectuals were persecuted. The Manchu Qing's rule of a large Han community by a small group was itself fraught with lack of self-confidence, and the rise of the literal prison was intended to strengthen its rule, but the result was contrary to expectations.
In addition to the death of many people, it does not seem to add color to the rule of the Qing Dynasty.
Among these three emperors, Yongzheng was a zhongxing lord, known as the most diligent emperor of the Qing Dynasty. On the one hand, he cleaned up the mess left by Kangxi, tightened his belt to live, and finally accumulated some capital, and the people's livelihood was improved, and then he handed over the country to the loser Qianlong.
In addition to the hundreds of poems that Qianlong left to the world, he was left with seven affairs in Jiangnan, and every time he went down to Jiangnan, he consumed a lot of manpower and material resources.
Even the favored courtiers and courtiers around them can be rich enough to rival the country. Qianlong is a typical style of the second generation of the rich, Qianlong Huohuo for decades, the wealth accumulated by Yongzheng was exhausted, forcing Jiaqing to kill Andan to save the emergency.
How is the life of the people?
In the diary of the foreign envoy Magarni, it is said that most of the people during the prosperous period of Kangqian were poor, but in fact, it is not limited to a few places, but the people of the whole country are like this.
In the old City of Beijing, at the foot of Tianzi, the streets were full of beggars, and in addition to the prosperity around the Imperial City, there were even large areas of wasteland, covered with wild grass.
Except for the manchu qing officials who could eat at once, with fish and meat, there was no middle class at all. The people at the bottom could not eat at all, and only relied on coarse grains to survive.
In the later period of Kangqian's prosperity, there were nearly 9,000 abandoned babies in Beijing every year, not to mention natural disasters.
When a person who has starved to death appears in people's field of vision, there is no sympathy in people's eyes, no pity, not even a little expression, which seems to them to be too common.
The lie of the prosperous world
In such a prosperous world, there is no world to congratulate, there is no wolf to live in, some are just the beautiful dreams of closing the country and the big country, and there is the pride of Lao Tzu who is the first in the world.
The rulers spent their days drinking, and the people of Li were always mixed in the subsistence line, most of them like beggars. The economy has stagnated, culture and technology have not made progress, and such a prosperous world is shameful.