"Forty million people wept together, where is the divine state at the end of the world?" ——Tan Sitong, "Feeling"
In the tragic period from the late Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China, the prestige of the country fell to the bottom line of history, and even if others slapped us, we had to accept it with a smile.
The understanding of that period of history made many people resist modern history, and even when studying history, they were unwilling to memorize it more. Because it was a pain from the heart, a despair for the country of that era.
Therefore, whenever we read history, we have a deep sense of disgust for the great powers of that period. However, it stands to reason that in modern society, the words backwardness and beating seem to have left us. However, the Western powers of that year were still making trouble because of certain things.
1. Ownership of the shipwreck
There is a group of fishermen in the South China Sea who are fishing, and they still follow the usual rules to cast their nets, and then collect the nets and return to get their own livelihood capital. However, in the process of casting the net this time, they made a new discovery, because they did not catch more fish, but fished out the traces of a shipwreck.
This boat was a ship that had sunk for a long time, and later invited someone from the Cultural Relics Bureau to come and check it out, and found that it was a cultural relic from a hundred years ago.
And in the process of careful salvage, people were also surprised to find that this hundred-year-old ship was not only a cultural relic, but also a witness to the humiliation of that year.
This was a robbery item carried by the Eight-Power Alliance invading the Qing Dynasty government. The Yuanmingyuan was completely destroyed by these people, and the items on the ship are likely to be the cultural relics in the Yuanmingyuan.
When this ship was salvaged, many people had a strong sense of humiliation in their hearts, because after all, it was a testimony to our depravity. However, before everyone could express their national feelings, suddenly the British stepped forward, and they directly proposed that the shipwreck belonged to the British, and they also demanded that the ship be handed over to the British Chinese.
As soon as this matter came out, it immediately caused an uproar, and many people accused the British of going too far, and the ship obviously carried Chinese cultural relics on it.
Everything in this ship is the heritage of Chinese, and this is still a testimony to the robbery of the British, it should be a crime and humiliation, how can they do this?
But the British ignored it and continued to make demands on China, which suddenly became a hot topic, and everyone was scolding and grinning, and there were all kinds of arguments.
Second, the humiliation of a hundred years ago
In fact, when it comes to the history of this shipwreck, we have to talk about the past that happened a hundred years ago.
In the historical records of the late Qing Dynasty and the account of "1901", during that period, Empress Dowager Cixi and the Qing government completely lost their minds, and they actually declared war on 11 countries, and finally they were invaded by the Eight-Power Alliance, and as a result, Beijing completely fell. With the fall of Beijing, the people of Beijing were taken captive, and the Yuanmingyuan was completely destroyed, and countless cultural streams were taken away.
At that time, many Western scholars accused the Qing government of provoking incidents, deliberately waging war against Western nuclear countries, and killing foreign priests.
But in fact, as far as this matter is concerned, the reason why Empress Dowager Cixi opposed the foreigners at that time was not only because he wanted to depose the Guangxu Emperor, but also because the foreigners were too much to do whatever they wanted in Chinese soil.
The massacre of China by foreigners, the humiliation of China's sovereignty by the people, and the plundering of China's wealth have made all the people have a deep hatred for them.
But these Westerners beat snakes to trees, and they used this as an excuse to accuse China of being a barbaric country, so they burned and looted.
If you have watched the documentary about the Yuanmingyuan, you can feel the pain, countless cultural relics have been destroyed, and countless Chinese historical and cultural heritage have been auctioned off on the spot. The British, the Indians, the French, they all reveled in the Forbidden City, trampling China's national sovereignty under their feet.
Therefore, in terms of the historical background and records of that year, the behavior of these Westerners is simply heinous.
Third, the right and wrong of the incident
Having said the background, I still have to go back to the event itself. If, according to the Western view, private property is sacred and inviolable, this is the basis of the spirit of the Western contract. So it seems that this shipwreck was a British ship, and no matter how long it has been, it should also belong to the British property.
But if we think about it, we will also find loopholes in it, that the sanctity of British private property is based on the spirit of the contract. That is to say, trade in goods on the basis of contracts or on the basis of law can only determine the ownership of property.
However, these shipwrecks were looted by the British in the form of robbery, so there was no spirit of contract at all, and there was no legal constraint. Therefore, such property should be illegal property, which cannot be guaranteed by law at all, and there is no principle of the sanctity and inviolability of private property.
Therefore, as far as the incident itself is concerned, the British want to obtain the shipwreck, which is itself an illegal act, and the so-called sanctity and inviolability of private property is even more absurd pretext.
Moreover, even from the perspective of moral standards aside, the wreck of the British is essentially evidence of the British's crimes, and it is already remarkable not to use these things to condemn the British for their moral criticism of him internationally.
If the British still want to use this as an excuse to gain their own interests, it will only show that the British have no historical responsibility, and this move is only self-inflicted humiliation.
So in the final analysis, this shipwreck can definitely belong to China, and cannot be taken away by the British. If some appropriate concessions were to be made, I personally felt that the wreck could be attributed to the British, but all the artifacts inside should belong to China, and the British must apologize, after all, this is a criminal evidence.
Fourth, the sentiment of the event
Therefore, we should not be overly excited about this event, we just need to lay out the facts and show our ability to make the British shut up. And everyone also needs to understand the root of this incident, from the historical experience of that year, we have been able to cover up, in the international community can often rely on not only legal justice, but also their own strength. In the late Qing Dynasty, the government had no strength, so it could only be beaten by the Eight-Power Alliance, and even countries such as Italy and Australia could benefit us.
But in modern society, we already have a much stronger power, a military power comparable to that of the Soviet Union and Russia. So the British will make a request to us, rather than just grab it with a knife, a gun and a sword.
epilogue
To sum up, although the relationship between countries must have a historical basis, it is still the first strength of that sentence. If we had enough strength, even if the qing government in the late Qing Dynasty was unreasonable, it could have avoided the invasion of China by the Eight-Power Alliance. But if the national strength is not enough, even if the Qing Dynasty has been ravaged to the point of death, the result of rebellion can only be considered barbaric.
Of course, on the road to the pursuit of strength, we must also abide by international conventions and speak in terms of legal facts. Because if too much emphasis is placed on strength, the result will only become rogue countries like Britain and the United States, and everything is spoken with fists. On the one hand, we should show our muscles, and on the other hand, we should emphasize our moral correctness with history and facts, so that we can convince people with reason and govern people with force.
Therefore, for these events, in the future, everyone should still correct their mentality, rather than spending more time angry, it is better to spend more time remembering the historical development strength, and then speaking with facts.