Xiaobian sorted out 10 old photos to reproduce the scene of social life in the late Qing Dynasty. Since the advent of photography, the past has not been like smoke, it has left many fragments, enough for us to piece together a picture of the past life.
In the old photos of the late Qing Dynasty, there are more records of the appearance of the Shanghai concession, and there are fewer about the county seat of Shanghai, so this photo is very precious. In ancient times, the general county town only had four city gates, but the county town of Shanghai was different, and there were ten city gates successively.
The soldiers were dressed in uniform, and the weapons in their hands were different, some with spears, some with large knives, and some with three forks. In short, their equipment is not much different from their peers 200 years ago, and even in terms of combat effectiveness, they are not as good as their counterparts 200 years ago.
In the late Qing Dynasty, the mainstream weapons and equipment in the world were rifles and cannons, which means that it had already entered the era of hot weapons. The Qing army, on the other hand, was stagnant, not only did not catch up with the trend of equipping guns, but once despised guns, regarded them as "strange tricks", and regarded horse archery as the most effective way to win. Later, he woke up and imported and made some advanced weapons, but due to inadequate training, he did not form a strong combat effectiveness. History has proved that such an army loses more than it wins in a war against aggression.
From left, they are: Zheng Guotai (specific position unknown), Jiang Tingxiu, general commander of the Beiyang Water Division, Zheng Chongyi, commander of the Beiyang Water Division, and Huang Chunyuan, deputy battalion commander of the Beiyang Water Division. The Beiyang Marine Division was formed by Li Hongzhang, the governor of zhili, and was completely destroyed in the Sino-Japanese War.
Can you tell what she's busy with? That simple wooden tool, probably used for spinning thread weaving.
This woman has exquisite makeup and exquisite clothes, and her family's economic conditions are superior to the upper class. But because the posture was not well placed, the head leaned forward, making her eyes and expression look stiff.
The chief surgeon in the second right of the photo is named Gershom Whitfield Guinness, an Englishman who began practicing medicine in Kaifeng, Henan Province, in 1897. In order to facilitate contact with the local people, he shaved his hair and braided it, and changed into a long shirt and a horse coat. He runs a hospital that is well known for having hundreds of surgeries a year, albeit in poor condition.
The photo was taken in 1902, when Yuan Shikai was promoted from inspector of Shandong to governor directly under the administration, and concurrently served as the minister of government affairs and the minister of military training, becoming another hot feudal official after Li Hongzhang, influencing the administrative decisions of the imperial court.
The man on the left is smoking a dry cigarette, and the man on the right is half lying on the ground, smoking opium. In the late Qing Dynasty, opium was rampant, there were many smokers, and the whole society did not think it strange, the high-ranking officials and nobles smoked, the soldiers and soldiers smoked, and the peddlers and pawns also smoked. Some people would rather eat one less meal than smoke less opium. Opium smoke houses opened on the streets of large and small towns are as common as tea houses.
He holds a hookah in his hand and a whole set of opium smoking tools such as a smoking lamp and a smoking gun in front of him, and is obviously an addict. The proliferation of opium worsened the social atmosphere and accelerated the demise of the Qing Dynasty.