Today, we continue to discuss the ethnic origins, nature of the state, and state construction of the Qing Empire. In the previous two articles, we respectively explained the historical origins of the founding ethnic group of the Qing Empire, that is, the Manchurian Zhushen, and clarified the relationship between Nurhaci and the Ming Empire and the nature of its military uprising.
In 1619, Houjin defeated the Ming army at the Battle of Salhu
Through these two articles, everyone should make it clear that the Jurchens of Jianzhou should belong to a fairly important and close part of the ancient Chinese state system from any point of view, and the war between the Jin and Qing Empires and the Ming Empire should naturally also belong to the dynastic succession war of the "Mandate of Heaven" in ancient China, and the "invasion and anti-aggression" war since the formation of the modern nation-state is essentially incompatible.
Rumors are widespread
However, some people may be dismissive of Ivan the Great, and the materials they have prepared are also very "sufficient", "completely able to explain" the identity of the "outsiders" of the Qing Empire: for example, it is said that the Shunzhi Emperor once said, "If you can keep this part of China, if you can keep it, we will run away"; the Kangxi Emperor said: "The Yongzheng Emperor also said: "The king of Manchuria has become the lord of China"; the Qianlong Emperor also said, "The Emperor of Yidi, the non-Chinese person" Not to mention Cixi Lafayette's famous phrase "Bao Daqing does not protect China".
These remarks are circulating everywhere on the Internet, at first glance, good guys, people themselves do not recognize themselves as "Chinese", we still have to agree with the legitimacy of the Central Plains Dynasty of the Qing Empire, this kind of operation is not a typical hot face pasted on people's cold ass?
However, if Ivan the Great is asked to evaluate the remarks of these Qing Monarchs, there are four big words: the poison is very widespread. Quite simply, after we have consulted relevant historical experts in many ways, the above many remarks are either unsubstantiated, or taken out of context, or even excerpted from the novel. For example, the so-called Shunzhi Emperor "always ready to run away" is from the eighteenth time of Mr. Jin Yong's novel "Lu DingJi", the original text is: "Xingyi (the legal number after the Shunzhi Emperor became a monk)... Tell him: The affairs of the world must be taken with nature, and must not be forced. It is best to benefit the life of the Central Plains. If the people of the world want us to go, then where we come from, we will go back there."
Yongzheng's "The Mystery of the Great Righteousness" systematically expounds his views on the so-called "Huayi Debate"
The Yongzheng Emperor's remarks are from the famous "Mystery of the Great Righteousness", the original text is: "This dynasty is the king of Manchuria, and the lord of China... Shun is the person of Dongyi, the person of King Wen of Xiyi, how did he lose to Shengdehu? Obviously, it was a counterattack against the so-called "orthodoxy theory", and the semantic changes greatly after taking the meaning out of context; and there is also Cixi Lafayette's "Bao Da Qing does not protect China", which comes from a letter from Yu ShiWen to the Guangxu Emperor during the Peng shu change: "I was ordered to unite loyalty to the king and patriotism as one thing, and not to put me out of the qing in vain to protect China, Kang Youwei also seems to regret it" It is clear that it is to educate Kang Youwei to be loyal to the king and love the country and to unite into one; as for the remarks of the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors, they are not recorded in serious historical materials, but the famous "Treaty of Nebuchu" begins: "The Great Emperor of China..." And the Qianlong Emperor grinned and called himself "Yidi", which was even more unimaginable in the context of the strong Confucian culture of ancient China. So these statements are actually two words: rumors.
The orthodoxy of the Qing Dynasty
That being the case, what was the state construction of the Qing Empire in terms of ethnic relations and the self-identification of the Qing Empire's monarchs? On the contrary, from the beginning of the post-Jin dynasty, it has been constantly strengthening its own dynastic legitimacy. As early as the qing dynasty (that is, emperor Taiji) Tiancong, the so-called "China" has appeared in the manchu old files, but at this time, "China" does not refer to our current "China", but takes the meaning of "the country of the central government, the kingdom of heaven", referring to the Ming Empire located in the Central Plains.
The current Temple of Heaven Prayer Hall was built during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, and the name "Prayer Hall" was also qianlong
At the same time, Emperor Taizong of the Qing Dynasty also declared: "The ancient Liao, Jin, and Yuan all became emperors in small countries." Is there a reason why a person with a surname ascends to the throne of the emperor and never changes it? He also called the Qing Empire the "Northern Dynasty" and the Ming Empire the "Southern Dynasty", clearly expressing its attitude of building dynastic legitimacy and "competing for the Mandate of Heaven" with the Ming Empire. In 1644, after the Qing army entered the customs and entered Beijing on a large scale, the Shunzhi Emperor immediately followed the example of the "Suburban Sacrifice Temple Truth" of the previous emperors, sacrificed to the ancestors of heaven and earth, and declared that "only the heavens and the heavens are dependent, with the people's feelings", "Dingding Yanjing, with appeasement of China", "Relying on the Mandate of Heaven, pacifying China", completely replacing the legitimacy of the Ming Empire's Mandate of Heaven and becoming a new generation of legitimate rulers of the Central Plains Dynasty. From here, we can fully see that at the beginning of the establishment of the Qing Empire, the ruling class had placed itself to a considerable extent in the position of the orthodox Central Plains Dynasty in terms of self-identity and state construction.
The relief on the monument of the Duolun Huimeng reproduces the scene of the Kangxi and khalkha chieftains feasting, and is also a vivid embodiment of the concept of "Great China" in the Qing Dynasty
It is undeniable that at the turn of the Ming and Qing dynasties, the Manchurian military aristocracy did cause panic among the Ming dynasty masters and landlord classes in the Central Plains to a certain extent because of their "barbarian entry into the Central Plains", which was represented by the remarks of Wang Fuzhi, Gu Yanwu, Huang Zongxi, and other "ming dynasty elders", and the works of these people did reflect a part of the vague "pre-nationalist discourse system". However, this kind of "ethnic group" and "identity" ideology with the vague "Huayi distinction" as the boundary itself has great defects, and at that time it failed to break away from the ancient Chinese world system, and naturally could not have too strong appeal.
The Temple of Emperors in Beijing enshrines 188 Chinese emperors from the Three Emperors and Five Emperors to the Chongzhen Emperor at the end of the Ming Dynasty
According to the research of relevant Ming and Qing historians, the mainstream of society at that time basically followed Cheng Zhu Lixue's "living in the mandate of heaven" since the Song and Ming dynasties, and most scholars soon adopted a favorable attitude towards the Qing Empire. Therefore, although from the current point of view, it seems that the Ming and Qing Dynasties had a strong national element, in the ideology at that time, the Qing Empire undoubtedly belonged to the dynastic succession of the Ming Empire that undertook the Mandate of Heaven to replace the Ming Empire.
The Qing Emperor's View of "China"
After the Qing Empire fixed Beijing and established its rule, after the three dynasties of Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong, the Qing Empire continued to expand its territory of establishing direct rule through the east of Taiwan, the north of Tsarist Russia, the west of Mongolia, and the south of Qinghai, and the pace of Qing Empire's rule was the continuous extension of the concept of "China".
In the previous article, we have pointed out that the "China" in the ancient Middle Chinese, according to Mr. Fei Xiaotong, has three meanings, one refers to "the place where the Son of Heaven dwells", which is opposed to the princes around the royal city; the other refers to the "center of the world", which in the Western Zhou partition system refers specifically to the area directly ruled by the zhou tianzi in the capital Luoyang (that is, present-day Luoyang) and the surrounding areas; and the third refers to a nation formed by the fusion of the Xia, Shang, and Wednesday ethnic groups, that is, the so-called "Xia people". As inscribed in the Western Zhou He Zhu inscription: "If the King of Weiwu is a Merchant of Dayi, then the court will tell Yu Tianyu, Yu Qi's residence in China, from the people", "China" here refers to the meaning of the Son of Heaven living in Luoyang and ruling the Xia, but in any case, for a long time, the so-called "China" refers to a very small piece of Central Plains land. The Qing Empire extended this concept considerably.
The small dark area is the land of the Central Plains
As early as the thirteenth year of Shunzhi, in the official documents between the Qing Empire and the Erut Mongols, the word "China" has appeared explicitly: "When The Former Ming Dynasty belonged to the Mongol Tribute, that is, it was under the jurisdiction of Mongolia, and if it was the former Ming Dynasty, it should be subordinated to China for the people." It is worth mentioning that the "China" here does not refer to the hinterland of the Central Plains, but to the entire ruling area of the Qing Empire, including both the Han Dynasty and the marginal ethnic regions on the outer edges; and when the Qing Empire and the Russian Empire clashed on the border and signed the Treaty of Nebuchu, the text of the Treaty was full of the word "China", and even became a synonym for the Qing Empire, which not only showed that the Qing Empire had deeply identified itself as the orthodox dynasty of ancient China, but also showed that the meaning of "China" had gone beyond the central plains. The beginning of the signing of a treaty with a nation-state that was not in the ancient Chinese tianxia system can be called the "first" of the modern nation-state.
In the later years of the Kangxi Emperor, in the face of the expansion of the Russian Empire in the north, he even had a sense of national crisis for the first time: "Russians are quite talented, but their sexual paranoia is paranoid, and their reasoning is also stagnant... Overseas countries such as the West, thousands of years later China is afraid of being affected by it", began to transition from a traditional "dynastic state" to a "modern nation-state"; not to mention the "Mystery of the Great Righteousness" written by the Yongzheng Emperor, which directly pointed out: "And since the unification of ancient China, the territory cannot be wide, and those who do not turn to the chemist are dismissed as Yidi." For example, there are more than three generations of Miao, Jingchu, and Xi, that is, the land of present-day Hunan, Hubei and Shanxi. In today's eye, Yi Di Ke Hu? Not only did he have a clear attitude against the narrow "Distinction between Huayi and Yi", but he also expressed the advanced idea of incorporating the traditional "barbarian land" into the chinese territory; while the Qianlong Emperor said: "The unity of China is endlessly like a line", "Dongyi Xirong, Southern Barbarian Northern Di, named after the place, is different from Jiangnan Hebei, Shanzuo Guan right? Mengziyun, Shun is the person of Dongyi, and King Wen is the person of Xiyi. There is no need to hide this, and there is no need to hide it: "The husband of the world, the world of the world, is not the private gain of the north and the south, China and foreign countries." It not only recognizes that ancient Chinese civilization and state system have never been broken, but also unifies all the terms of "inside and outside" and "barbarians" in ancient China into the Chinese concept.
The Guangxu Emperor issued the "Ming Ding Guo is the Edict", which constantly mentions words such as "China", "Yixia", and "Chinese and foreign"
Here we can see that by the Qianlong period, the self-identity and state construction of the Qing Empire and its rulers had begun to transition from the "Central Plains Dynasty identified as orthodox" at the beginning of the founding of the government to the "Central Plains Dynasty that was both an orthodox Central Plains Dynasty and an external whole" with a certain national state nature. However, all this has not really ended, with the infiltration and attack of the Western powers at the end of the Qing Empire gradually increasing, the "self-identity" and "self-integration" of the Qing Empire have even been further strengthened, and even truly become the difference between the "Chinese" of the modern nation-state and the "foreigners" or "foreigners". For example, the Jiaqing Emperor rebuked the British for invading Macao in the name of "protecting Sino-British trade": "If you think about the submission of the Heavenly Dynasty to China and foreign countries, Yixia Xianbin, and Yi'er Yibang, why should it be on a par with China?!" The Daoguang Emperor said in his edict appointing Lin Zexu as the minister of Qincha and going to Guangzhou to ban smoking: "If you want to be a secretary of state, you will be able to understand the heart of the decay, and it will be a big problem for China." The poor Xianfeng Emperor, on the other hand, wrote helplessly after Beijing was captured by the Anglo-French coalition forces: "China is suffering from the arrogance of the world, and it is suffering from the rebellion of stupidity. As for the sonorous and powerful words of the Guangxu Emperor, who was determined to change the law and save China, they still echo in the annals of history: "I want to save China's ears, if I can save the country, then although I have no right to hinder it?!" ”
The No. 1 Boundary Monument of the Great Qing Dynasty, erected in the sixteenth year of the Qing Dynasty, is the most famous of the countless national boundary monuments erected in the Qing Dynasty
This voice of arrogance, or worry, or pain, or heroism is not only the Qing Empire's identification with its own "China" identity, but also the first step for the Qing Empire to gradually break away from the identity of the ancient Chinese dynastic state, transform into a modern nation-state under the name of "China", and begin to stagger forward on the international stage.
From the above facts, we can fully conclude that the successive ruling classes of the Qing Empire themselves have a strong "dynastic orthodoxy view", and all the efforts to implement the state construction of the Qing Empire are oriented by the "Central Plains Orthodox Dynasty". At the same time, the process of the establishment and development of the Qing Empire was also the process of the continuous extension and expansion of the concept of "China" in ancient China, and even the transition from the classical dynastic state and the Tianxia system to the modern nation-state system, and the Qing Empire undoubtedly became the first regime in China to enter the modern nation-state system.
The Treaty of Reconciliation and Commerce between korea and the United States signed by North Korea and the United States in 1882 clearly marked the words "China Guangxu", indicating that in the eyes of foreigners, "Great Qing" is equal to "China"
From this point of view, where can we see the rumors that "the Qing Dynasty does not regard itself as orthodox" and "the Emperor of the Great Qing Dynasty does not regard himself as a Chinese"? However, in the face of the Qing Dynasty's "non-north, Foreign and foreign private gains", the little ninety-nine in the hearts of some narrow nationalists seemed extremely obscene, right?