Why didn't the Qing Dynasty rule China for 300 years eliminate Chinese and make Manchu the only official language?
Those who are familiar with the history of the late Ming Dynasty know that it was in that fact that the Manchus today completed integration and unification, and finally overthrew the Ming Dynasty and established the Qing Dynasty. After entering the Central Plains, in order to maintain their rule, the Manchu Qing nobles went to great lengths, in addition to the more famous shaving and changing clothes, they also joined forces with the Mongols to suppress the Han, and finally under various means, the Qing rulers achieved the purpose of exerting influence on the Han people to a certain extent.
But in human civilization, the core of a nation is his language except for words. According to relevant historical records, the Manchu script was created in 1599 by the order of the Later Jin founder Nurhaci to let Kagai and Erdene be created through Mongolian. Although during the qing dynasty's rule of China, many restrictions were placed on the Han chinese in the country, but it failed to eliminate the Chinese language and replace it with Manchu, and even in the ruling clique of the Qing Dynasty, there was no shortage of aristocrats with profound knowledge of Chinese.
So what is the reason for this? In fact, the reason is very simple. First of all, in Chinese history, there are not a few minority regimes that promote their own languages, including the Jin Dynasty that destroyed the Northern Song Dynasty, and vigorously promoted its national language, the Jurchen language, during its reign. It is also under the guidance of the rulers that the Han people in the Jin Dynasty have reached the point where they cannot speak their mother tongue, and this historical event, in Lu You's poems, has a record of "'Children in Dongdu make nonsense, often thinking about this angry'", which basically describes the current situation of the Han people in the Jin Kingdom, speaking Jurchen and forgetting Chinese.
But what is strange is that although the Rulers of the Jin Dynasty vigorously promoted the Jurchen language, and the effect was also very remarkable, the Chinese language was still preserved in their territory, and even in their ruling group, there were still a group of people who showed an obsession with the Chinese language, and the Chinese language was very proficient. From this we can see the strong charm of Han culture and Chinese language, and as the rulers of the later Qing Dynasty, they may have long been aware of this.
The second is the national character of the Qing rulers, the Manchus. In the process of entering the Central Plains, the Qing Dynasty can be said to be extremely bloody and brutal, and it is not an exaggeration to go everywhere the corpses are scattered in the wilderness, and the Qing Dynasty was established under the bloody butcher's knife. And in the subsequent "shaving hair and changing clothes", the Qing Dynasty also forced the Han people to accept this policy, and even put forward the slogan of "'hair without head'". From the above, the Qing rulers were more inclined to use rough methods to promote assimilation in order to consolidate their ruling authority.
Further ahead, before the Rulers of the Qing Dynasty entered the Customs, in fact, in the definition of the Huayi Debate, they were actually considered barbarians, so there were very few people who knew their language, and coupled with the fact that the Manchus were difficult to compare with the han Chinese, then in terms of cultural influence, they were in a disadvantageous position. The Han people had already promoted the imperial examination system in the Sui and Tang dynasties, which was more influential in cultural dissemination, and even children could casually recite an ancient poem.
Coupled with the Manchu lack of attention to culture, the spread of any kind of culture needs to have a communicator to take the lead, and the manchus are most lacking in this kind of disseminator, although among the Qing rulers, there is no shortage of fierce generals who can recruit good warriors, but among the civilian officials, there is much more lack, so after the Qing Dynasty ruled, a large number of Han officials were co-opted, after all, the Experience of the Han people in ruling a huge land has a history of thousands of years, which the Qing Rulers saw very clearly. At this time, it is obviously unrealistic to forcibly eliminate the Chinese language and promote the Manchu language, and it will even cause unnecessary strong resistance in The country, which is unwilling to face for the dynasty that originally decided the world.
Coupled with the fact that there were still resistance forces in the Qing Dynasty at this time, and there was also the Southern Ming regime on the southeast coast, the Qing Dynasty had enough headaches to solve these problems. What's more, at this time, the concept of anti-Qing and restoration of the Ming Dynasty is still buried deep in the hearts of the Han people, and if it is mandatory not to speak Chinese at this moment, then the chaos in the world will become an inevitable thing.
Therefore, the reason why the rulers of the Qing Dynasty did not "promote their own language and eliminate the Chinese language" as other ethnic minority regimes in Chinese history did, is that in addition to stabilizing the people and not causing trouble, they can further win over the Han people, help them consolidate their ruling position, and learn from the experience of the countries they rule. Of course, there is also a very important point, that is, the Chinese language and Han culture itself are very strong, otherwise it will not be able to multiply and flourish under the influence of several foreign invasions, and this is also an important reason why the Qing Dynasty ruled China for 300 years, why it did not eliminate Chinese, making Manchu the only official language.
Why didn't the Qing Dynasty rule China for 300 years promote Manchu and eliminate Chinese?