The Qing Dynasty was the last unified feudal dynasty in Chinese history, beginning with the entry into the customs in 1644 as a national power, the 9th dynasty and 10 emperors, and the 268th year of the State Order.
Because the Qing Dynasty is the closest to the present, and spans the two time periods of ancient and modern times, in the face of western shocks, it is obviously lagging behind the forest of the world, so it has a lot of blood and tears, and has a lot of land-cutting indemnities, so the evaluation is not high.
Because of this, many people think that if the Qing Dynasty did not enter the customs and did not become the last unified dynasty, then it would be able to avoid the decline of modern times and not fall behind.
First of all, even if it is not the Qing Dynasty, it will not avoid backwardness by changing to other dynasties, but there is also a difference, that is, the gap will not be too big.
Because of the ruling logic of the ancient Chinese dynasty, to put it bluntly, it is centralized and centralized, and the focus of everything is to maintain the supremacy of imperial power.
In this case, in order to make the country forever solid, the people at the bottom are also restricted in a clever and stupid way, that is, they have been struggling on the subsistence line, so as not to "be full of warmth and lust", and they will struggle on the subsistence line all day long, and they will not have the heart to think about other things, such as rebellion. And this has caused an extremely bad negative effect, that is, the class solidification of the whole society is too serious, there is no vitality, there is no innovation, and there is no vitality, no innovation, which means that society can only develop slowly.
As for the ruling class further up, in ancient times, the emperor and the bureaucracy did not have a supportive attitude toward scientific and technological innovation, but mostly dismissed it, believing that it was a side-door technique, and even that innovation in science and technology was also a factor of instability, which may become a potential threat to the rule.
Of course, although the overall vitality of society is lacking and innovation is difficult, it is also possible to rapidly develop science and technology through points and areas, and this point is war.
A lot of science and technology, especially the upgrading of weapons, are developed with the needs of war, but not that there is war, there is scientific and technological development, driving innovation is the need for large-scale, continuous continuous war, we look at the trend of the development of ancient Chinese dynasties, like the Eastern Han Dynasty after the Three Kingdoms, two Jin, The Great Chaos of the Southern and Northern Dynasties, after the Tang Dynasty, there are five generations and ten kingdoms of chaos, but the more to the back, the division period after the fall of the dynasty is less and less, like the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing, all of which were the demise of the last dynasty. Even if there is a war, it is partial, and the time will not last too long, in this case, the rapid development of science and technology with war as the driving force is also no space.
Therefore, if you look through the essence of the development of ancient dynasties, you will find that under this system of family and world, centralization prevails over everything, even at the expense of fooling the people, so that society has no vitality and no innovation, in this environment, even if the Qing Dynasty does not enter the customs, even if it is replaced by other dynasties, it is still impossible to avoid entering the decline of modern times, so that backwardness will be beaten.
Of course, although the overall trend is so, if it is replaced by other dynasties, not the Qing Dynasty, there is a great chance that even if it is backward, the gap will not be too large, and it will catch up quickly.
The key here is that the Qing Dynasty because of the particularity of the common point with the Yuan Dynasty, the defense of the inside is actually greater than the defense of the outside, and too much of the defense of the inside, it makes the society lifeless, innovation does not have to think, like the Kangxi period, because of frequent wars, firearms technology has been improved, but then it has regressed, after all, firearms this kind of thing, the lethality is too large, but also to make up for the number of people, is a great instability factor, if it falls into the hands of people with anti-heartedness, it is not a good thing for the rulers.
It was precisely because it was too defensive, so at that time, everyone was selectively blind and unwilling to open their eyes to the world. For example, the first Opium War occurred in 1840 and ended in 1842, the Second Opium War began in 1856 and ended in 1860, with a gap of more than ten years, it is reasonable to say that after the First Opium War, the Qing government should have been greatly touched and would change, but it did not, until after the Second Opium War, it was beaten too painfully, and only then did it start the foreign affairs movement, and wasted more than ten years in the middle, which is too defensive, long-term self-isolation, and unwillingness to face the consequences of reality.
Compared with the Qing Dynasty, which lost the war and did not immediately learn to change, the Ming Dynasty before the Qing Dynasty, but won the battle, will also learn from the advantages of the other side's firearms, the gap can be large.
Like the powerful red-clad cannons of the late Ming Dynasty, they were made of imitation of the advanced firearms of Europe at that time, and it is said that the imitation cannons were salvaged by the Ming Dynasty and the Netherlands after the victory of the Battle of Zhiluo Bay in the late Ming Dynasty.
Whether it is or not, in the last years of the Ming Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty did not suffer losses in foreign naval battles, like the Netherlands at that time, it was a "sea coachman", and its status was equivalent to that of the later rising Britain, but after the Ming Dynasty defeated it, in the face of the advantages of Western firearms, it did not pretend to be self-contained, but learned from imitation.
With this reference, if you change to other dynasties, the Qing Dynasty did not enter the customs, under the excessive centralized system of the family world, the lack of vitality and innovation in society, although in modern times will still decline, but other dynasties will most likely not be as defensive as the Qing Dynasty, too old-fashioned, so in the face of the advanced west, naturally will not be so defeated and will stand still for more than ten years, be completely hurt, only to begin to study incompletely, must be timely learning, timely change, so that the natural gap will not be too large, and even catch up quickly. This can be referred to the Meiji Restoration of Japan, which had the same experience as the Qing Dynasty at the beginning, but learned in time to change.
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