The backward and beaten modern history of China is the incomparably hard-hearted memory of many Chinese people. Speaking of this period of history, our first impression is often related to "defeated", "backward and beaten", and "national shame". But if we read carefully, some historical photographs of that era that captured important moments. Perhaps we can better appreciate the historical lessons. For example, the following three photos make us feel incredibly heartbroken.
One: the victims of the Ding Pengqi wilderness
From 1877 to 1878, during the reign of the Guangxu Emperor of the Qing Dynasty, a foreign missionary named Yili also took a picture of the people crowded in the pavilions of local temples in Shaanxi, waiting for relief in the cold weather. Yili also wrote an explanatory note for this purpose, saying that from the city of Beijing to the local area of Shaanxi, porridge shacks were set up to help the victims, but because there were too many victims, some of the victims were trampled to death while grabbing porridge.
And if we look at this picture alone, what we see is a hungry people who are skinny and struggling on the line of death, what will be their fate? Almost dare not think.
But if we look back at the background of the era, we can see the misery behind the photo: this is not an ordinary famine, but the famous "Ding Pengqi Famine" in the late Qing Dynasty, an unprecedented famine that spread throughout Shaanxi, Shanxi, Zhili, and Henan. In the Qing Dynasty, more than 200 million people were affected, more than 20 million displaced people fled the famine, and more than 10 million people died of famine. Even in the world at the time, it was a disaster of unprecedented proportions.
Such a disaster has both natural disasters and natural disasters, but more serious is man-made disasters. For example, why did it cause such a large-scale famine? Because in Shanxi and other places in Shaanxi, which are the hardest hit areas, in order to pursue huge profits for many years, a large number of local fertile fields have been replanted with opium smoke. This not only caused the northern land to be flooded with tobacco and poison, but also led to a large-scale reduction in grain production. In the sigh of Zeng Guoquan, the governor of Shanxi, he said that the famine was "really up to personnel."
Even, even with such a drastic disaster, the Qing Dynasty still did not forget to extort and extort money, and when the official Shangshu Encheng transited through Shaanxi, he knew that the local disaster was fierce, but he still extorted extortion. With such an attitude of disregarding people's livelihood, what kind of relief can the victims who are struggling under the death line in the photo get?
Two: Qing weapons captured by the Eight-Power Alliance
On July 14, 1900, the Eight-Power Coalition captured Tianjin. The Qing army stationed in Tianjin collapsed in its entirety, and the previous Qing forces were also occupied by the Eight-Nation Alliance. Then, a heart-wrenching photograph was left: Russian troops in the Eight-Power Alliance guarding captured Qing guns.
Speaking of this war, which is known as the "Gengzi National Disaster", posterity often talks about the backwardness of the Qing army's equipment and other aspects. However, this photo gives us a completely different historical information: the equipment of the Qing army is not only not backward, but very advanced. Looking at this photo alone, there is equipment such as the world's most advanced rapid-fire guns at that time. This is the legendary Qing army with backward equipment?
In fact, if you look closely at the real information, you know that the Qing army participating in this battle is really not badly equipped: for example, the Qing Dynasty's "Wuwei Left Army" and "Wuwei Right Army" that resisted the Eight-Nation Alliance were equipped with advanced "Cruz 75 cm field guns" and "Krupp 75 cm field guns", in addition to various advanced firearms. However, such a well-equipped unit has an unsightly combat quality. In the battle in Tianjin, the common routine of the Qing army was to shoot and fire at the opponent desperately, but it could not hit several enemies at all, but the enemy charged, but the Qing army immediately collapsed...
The Qing army, which had advanced weapons in the air, staged a humiliating scene in this way, turning a large number of advanced weapons into the spoils of the Eight-Nation Alliance.
Three: Wuhan in the yangtze river in 1931
Speaking of 1931, what comes to mind, just the 918 Incident? In fact, there is also the yangtze river that shocked the world.
In the summer of 1931, an unprecedented flood broke out in the Yangtze River Basin, Wuhan became a hard-hit area, and the former bustling Hankou South Central Street became a ze country, and the original street could only be used by boat, and the whole city was soaked in water. And that's just the tip of the iceberg of this catastrophe.
In the face of this unprecedented flood, all provinces along the Yangtze River have been devastated. In the case of Hubei Province, 46 counties in Hubei Province were submerged, more than 60,000 people died, the Wuhan collapsed, and the entire city became a water city. In the annual disasters, as many as 50 million people were affected in the sixteen affected provinces, and more than 3.7 million people died...
Why is such a tragic disaster so unknown in the history of the Republic of China? Because the real culprit of the disaster is still man-made disaster. At that time, the National Government of Nanjing misappropriated a large amount of funds for disaster prevention and prevention, and even when the flood occurred, He Chengjun, the chairman of Hubei Province at the time, was still playing mahjong with his subordinates. This indifferent attitude is the black hand of this disaster, and it also vividly illustrates the "Nanjing National Government" during the "Golden Decade" period, and that little bit of ability to govern the country.