In today's life, the costume TV series of the Qing Palace can be described as countless, but does this really reflect the real life of the Qing Dynasty? At least the hairstyle is not right, after all, before the end of the Qing Dynasty, men's heads are all ugly money rat tails, and on the other hand, the lives of ordinary people in film and television dramas, although those group actors wear patched clothes, they are still healthy, full of food and clothing, is the real situation really so? If you have heard the older generation talk about a hard life, you certainly wouldn't think so, how sad were the poor in the past? How poor were the poor in ancient times? The Qing Palace drama is deceptive, and this set of old photos from a hundred years ago cannot bear to look at it directly
Historically, many historians have called the period of Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong the prosperous era of Kang Yongqian, while the West called it "high qing", during which the Qing Dynasty had the strongest national strength, social stability, and rapid population growth, laying the map of today's China.
So the people of the late Qing Dynasty were worse off than the kangqian period? Not necessarily, during the Qianlong period, the Qing government's annual fiscal revenue reached a maximum of 80 million taels of silver, but during the Guangxu period, the qing dynasty's productive forces after the Restoration Movement were liberated, and the average of 90 million in the second half of the 19th century was 90 million, and later it was hundreds of millions, which shows that regardless of the great powers, the domestic economy remained stable overall.
This is a photo of a family of 7 in the Qing Dynasty, which in fact reflects the most basic appearance of the poor peasants at that time, their bodies were wrapped in torn cotton, there were two or three children or even barefoot, unclothed, and the woman in the picture did not wrap her feet, this bad habit, most of them only existed in the rich and noble families, and the residents at the bottom, including women, had to engage in agricultural production. At that time, there was no suitable contraception method, which led to the family getting poorer and poorer, barely maintaining balance.
When the Qing Dynasty people first saw the camera, their faces were not frightened, there was curiosity, the camera was first invented in 1839, and the time from entering China was not long, in 1846 by the French who worked in the customs brought in, and later more and more missionaries used the camera to shoot folk customs, but most of them were resisted, because of the relationship between the Qing court, the image of these missionaries in the folk, was first rendered as a demon who can eat children, and the instruments in their hands can also seduce people's souls. Therefore, many residents refused to take pictures, and by the Guangxu period (1871), there were still many people who had not seen the appearance of the camera.
The two men in the picture above are two beggars, who have just come out of a large family begging, and it is not difficult to see from their skinny bodies that they should not have eaten a full meal for a long time, and the large bowl in their hands is empty.
It was an old man up close, with a haggard face. Front teeth are also scarce, clothes are tattered, it can be said that they are completely broken, and people can't help but feel sad.
At the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, the population of the Qing Dynasty ushered in a large-scale outbreak, breaking through the 100 million population mark at the end of the 17th century, and exceeding 300 million in the Qianlong Jiaqing period in 1800, reaching 400 million in 1850, although due to foreign wars and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the population of the late Qing Dynasty shrank slightly, but still maintained more than 400 million.
Some people may ask, since the population has increased so much, it means that the food of the people has always been sufficient, why do the people in the photos look weak and weak? The growth of the Population of the Qing Court was first due to the implementation of the policy of "breeding people and never adding endowments" in the early Qing Dynasty, and second, the introduction of high-yielding and drought-resistant crops such as corn sweet potatoes from the West.
The most basic solution to people's rations, but it must be pointed out that these crops, also only to survive, if you eat it all, it will still cause malnutrition, and even edema on the body, it is no wonder that most of the people in the photo have vegetables.
I also hope that people will not use TV dramas to interpret history, but from the history books, they will learn about the painful life in the past, and take this as a lesson.