We all know that the government of the late Qing Dynasty was the most corrupt period in the history of our country, and although the strength of the early period was very strong, due to the influence of the policy of closing the country to the outside world, there was a huge gap between the comprehensive strength of our country in modern times and the world powers.
Even in the middle of the Qing Dynasty, there was a Kangqian prosperous era, but this was only a flash in the pan, when the Qing government at that time faced the tide of foreign countries, it said to foreigners that I was a great treasure between heaven and earth, which was the most ridiculous sentence.
It is precisely because of the self-righteousness of the Qing government that a serious gap between China and the Western powers eventually occurred, and when the Western countries carried out the first industrial revolution, China was still in the traditional mode of the old sleeve, and eventually the gap between china and those countries became larger and larger, and finally caused a series of tragic histories. On the one hand, the corruption of the Qing Dynasty was the influence of the closed-door policy.
On the other hand, the self-righteousness of those in power at the time, seeing their own country as the most powerful, ultimately led to this tragedy. In the last years of the Qing Dynasty, in the face of oppression and insults from foreign powers, on the other hand, due to the influence of the domestic Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, the qing dynasty rulers were still addicted to eating, drinking and having fun, abandoning the government, and making their own country step by step to perish.
At that time, the country was already devastated and dilapidated, so what level of economic strength was the late Qing Dynasty? We all know that to measure the strength of a country, the first thing to look at is the economic ability, if the Qing government does not have enough ability, then when Empress Dowager Cixi held a birthday banquet, where did she spend the money to hold such a grand banquet?
Then some people will say that in order to hold a grand birthday banquet for himself, Emperor Cixi did not hesitate to use the money of the state treasury and looted a large amount of people's fat and people's anointing, so that those in power could not let their country go to ruin? To measure a country's economic level, we must not only look at the country's cool economic ability, but also look at the living conditions of the people at the bottom. At that time, the Qing government was a large agricultural country, and its main economic source was to rely on the people to grow crops to obtain the economy.
According to the records in the history of the Qing Dynasty, when Zeng Guofan, a heavy minister of the late Qing Dynasty, was a Qipin official, he had 45 taels of silver in a year, plus the welfare paid by some countries to officials, and he could get more than 100 taels of silver a year. At that time, more than 100 white clouds were converted into the current words, one or two white clouds were equal to 200 yuan of yuan, that is, Zeng Guopan had more than 100 silver at that time, which was equivalent to more than 20,000 yuan a year.
Xiang Guopan, such a heavy minister, he only had a mere 100 taels of silver a year, not to mention other officials, but the officials of the Qing Dynasty generally had a characteristic, that is, they were ruthless in their search for the people's fat and people's ointment. At that time, the people were already living in the depths of the water, and in the face of such heavy taxes, many people did not have the strength to work, so the country's productive forces had been in a state of stagnation, where did their economy come from?
At that time, Cixi was the supreme ruler of the Qing Dynasty, so how many Feng Lu did she have in a year? Cixi was an extremely talented politician, and his means of rule also allowed the ruined Qing government to continue its life, and during the Tongzhi period, her Feng Lu had already reached 100,000 taels of silver, but the Tongzhi Emperor increased her feng lu to a height of 200,000 taels of silver for the sake of filial piety to her mother.
The imperial court official Zeng Guopan only had more than 100 taels of silver a year, while Cixi's annual Feng Lu could reach as high as 200,000 taels of silver, which is an astronomical number. However, when Cixi really came to power, the annual financial expenditure of the Ministry of Internal Affairs became more intense, because he often had to hold some large-scale events, and behind each banquet, there was a lot of money.
The most famous thing is that Cixi used the money of her own treasury in order to hold a grand birthday feast for herself, and the treasury itself was in a state of loss, so in order to curry favor with Cixi, the officials plundered a large amount of people's fat and people's ointment, which made the people's life more difficult.
This is also the drawback of feudal society, in the dynasties, there is a set of laws to formally regulate the behavior of officials, although it is said that the son of heaven has committed the same crime as the common people, but these actual rulers in order to consolidate their rights, even if they make mistakes, no one dares to point it out. During the Guangxu years, Cixi had already become the supreme ruler of the Qing Dynasty, but the two empresses, Cixi and Ci'an, had always been at odds.
Therefore, in the struggle for power, because of Cixi's strong background, she won the battle perfectly. In the face of the invasion of western powers, the Qing government also sent Zeng Guopan and Li Hongzhang to sign a series of unequal treaties against the Western powers, and behind each treaty, the life of our people was more difficult, so Zeng Guopan and Li Hongzhang were regarded as sinners in modern history.
summary:
The modern history of our country is full of hardships, because this is precisely the reason for the existence of many factors in the transitional period from feudal society to socialist society in our country, which makes us understand the reality that backwardness will be beaten. Today's China is a peaceful and prosperous era, and the efforts we have made from the past to the present are unimaginable.
The present peace is the result of the struggle of the Chinese nation, but the current world is not a peaceful world, and there is still a huge gap between us and other countries. If we want to gain a foothold in today's world, it is precisely the need for us to make continuous efforts to continuously promote the development of our country.