In the eyes of the vast majority of Chinese, the ethnic problems and people's livelihood problems in the last years of the Qing Dynasty have collapsed to the extreme, and even many people believe that the ethnic and people's livelihood problems of the Qing Dynasty have always been major historical issues affecting social development.
But is it really like this? Was the nation and people's livelihood of the Qing Dynasty really a mess? Was the politics of the Qing Dynasty really as rotten as the average person imagined?
Mr. Yi Zhongtian once said in his book "The End of the Empire": The nation and people's livelihood of the Qing Dynasty were basically not a problem. So, does this make sense? In this article, we will analyze this problem and look at the nationality and people's livelihood of the Qing Dynasty, whether it is as bad as we think?
First of all, before discussing the issue of nationality and people's livelihood, let's first look at the general form of rule of the Qing Dynasty. In fact, the qing dynasty's rule before encountering the Western powers developed relatively smoothly, and the overall situation was also very impressive, its national rule was relatively long, and its politics were relatively close to the people.
In the Qing Dynasty, there were no eunuchs who caused trouble to the imperial court, no foreign relatives interfering with the regime, and there were very few absurd and tyrannical monarchs, and there were no incidents of the empress being deposed and killed for no reason.
The rulers of the Qing Dynasty, whether it is the emperor or later regents, are also mostly diligent, except for the three festivals and two birthdays, which are only festivals, that is, in addition to the Spring Festival, the Dragon Boat Festival, the Mid-Autumn Festival, the birthdays of the emperor and the empress, the emperor of the Qing Dynasty basically works day by day, and can also do the day of the day, and approve hundreds of pieces of music every day.
Therefore, most of the good emperors of the Qing Dynasty are also considered to be good emperors.
At the same time, when history developed to the Qing Dynasty, the feudal system was already quite perfect, and under this mature political system, the efficiency and confidentiality of officials were relatively high, so in the Qing Dynasty, the system from the central to the local level was strict, the structure was complete, and the orders were smooth.
It is precisely for this reason that although the Qing Dynasty is also constantly causing disasters, it rarely fundamentally shakes the foundation of the country and causes division, so the overall development trend of the Qing Dynasty is relatively good, that is, the people have a stable living environment, and there are also the basic conditions for the national peace and security.
Then, on the basis of having the prerequisites and the background of the environment, what was the issue of nationality and people's livelihood in the Qing Dynasty?
In fact, the nationality and people's livelihood of the Qing Dynasty are indeed basically not a problem, of course, the basic standard of not a problem is the standard of benevolence and wisdom, if you must give it a standard, it can be said that the state of people's livelihood and ethnic relations are above the average, in the historical feudal dynasties are not the worst, has not yet reached the level of officials forcing the people to rebel.
In feudal history, officials forced the people to rebel, for example, in the last years of the Qin Dynasty, it was because the tyranny of Qin II led to a peasant uprising, because the officials forced the common people too much, so when the Dazexiang uprising, the world would gather to respond, win grain and follow.
This situation also occurred in the Song Dynasty, although it was not as exaggerated as described in the Water Margin, but the situation of the song dynasty's officers and soldiers rebelling against the people was by no means in the minority, and many peasant uprisings originated from this.
But this was not the case during the Qing Dynasty, in fact, the rulers of the Qing Dynasty lived relatively frugally than the emperors of the previous dynasties, according to statistics, the expenditure of the imperial family during the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty was only 30,000 taels, while the average expenditure of the Ming Dynasty before the Qing Dynasty was about 1.61 million taels, that is, the emperors of the Qing Dynasty rarely levied tyranny, which can also show from the side that they attach importance to the issue of people's livelihood.
In addition, the Qing Dynasty's policy on people's livelihood was relatively relaxed, and during the Kangxi Dynasty, the policy of "sharing the land into acres" was implemented, and later a "never added endowment" was added, and in the 189 years from Kangxi to Daoguang, the life of the common people was basically rich, and many people could maintain the level of moderate prosperity.
Even during the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, the national economy of the Qing Dynasty had an astonishing performance. You know, under the destruction of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, half of the Qing Dynasty had fallen, but even with the interference of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the economic development of the Qing Dynasty did not fall, but could remain at a high level; even under the continuous aggression and interference of the Western powers later, the economic system of the Qing Dynasty still did not collapse.
According to historical records, from 1895 to 1913, although the Qing Dynasty was frequently interfered with by Western powers, its national capital industrial development rate could still reach an average annual average of 15%, so the overall level of development of the Qing Dynasty was not low.
Of course, this is a relative result, because the Qing Dynasty is also a feudal dynasty no matter what it says, and since it is a feudal dynasty, it must have the centralization of the monarch's power, and when a monarch concentrates most of the power of the state in the hands of individuals, the leadership or bureaucracy derived from the monarch will inevitably cause oppression to the commoners of the lower class.
The high level of economic development of the Qing Dynasty does not mean that the lives of the vast number of ordinary people in the Qing Dynasty are not difficult and difficult, but compared with many previous dynasties, the people's livelihood of the Qing Dynasty, although bitter, is also much better than the previous generation.
Before the Qing Dynasty, such as the last years of the Qin Dynasty and the last years of the Han Dynasty, the people were living in the depths of the waters, and later the late Tang Dynasty, the end of the Ming Dynasty, etc. were natural disasters and man-made disasters in parallel, catastrophes and civil changes at the same time, that era was the real hunger everywhere, the disaster victims were full of people, and the real people rose up.
The Qing Dynasty did not, although it was often constantly invaded and oppressed by foreign tribes, but its people's livelihood did not collapse, until its demise was not caused by people's livelihood problems.
The same is true of the national question. In ancient Chinese history, there was no dynasty that did not have ethnic problems, and like the people's livelihood problems, the situation of the Qing Dynasty was better than that of many previous dynasties.
Although the Han Dynasty and the Tang Dynasty did not interrupt their external expansion and conquest, the final result was both defeated, so during the Han Dynasty and tang Dynasty, princesses and relatives were very common things.
The Song Dynasty was laissez-faire, and many times had to pay old coins to external forces; although the Ming Dynasty had a tough attitude, it was ultimately unable to fight back, and the country was destroyed.
The situation of the Yuan is the worst, and it is also the only dynasty among many historical dynasties to openly implement a policy of "ethnic discrimination", and the fundamental reason for the short reign of the Yuan is the national issue.
But the Qing Dynasty is different, it treats many nationalities, the Qing Dynasty, both soft and soft, soft and hard, most of the time can turn enemies into friends, and even win more with less. It successfully created a situation of "Manchu, Mongolian, Han, Hui, and Tibetan" five ethnic republics.
In the Qing Dynasty, the Mongols were relatives, and the Manchu and Mongolian nobles were long-term intermarriage; the Han chinese were the people, who implemented the policy of Manchu-Han integration during the Kangxi Dynasty; Tibet was a vassal, and the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama were all crowned by the Qing Emperor; Xinjiang was its jurisdiction, and later it was officially set up as a province; and for the Eastern Goryeo, it also submitted to the rule of the Qing Dynasty...
That is to say, in the management process of the Qing Dynasty, whether it was the Central Plains people, or barbarians or foreign enemies, they eventually became Chinese and their own people, is this not a great thing?
Of course, there were also ethnic contradictions in the Qing Dynasty, and in the early period there were anti-Qing and restoration, and in the later period, there were the expulsions of the Tartars, but the reason for this kind of ethnic contradiction was not only the problem of the Qing Dynasty; as mentioned above, there were ethnic contradictions in every historical dynasty, and there were many reasons for this, some of which were because the Chinese nation had a deep-rooted idea that "if it is not of our race, its heart must be different", and part of it was because sometimes the treatment between various nationalities was unequal, so the Qing Dynasty also had irreconcilable ethnic contradictions.
Even so, the ethnic contradictions during the Qing Dynasty did not develop to the extent of national uprisings, on the contrary, in the face of the invasion of Western powers, the people of all ethnic groups were still able to hate the enemy, unite with the outside world, and go to the country together.
Like the people's livelihood issue, the ethnic contradictions of the Qing Dynasty from beginning to end did not reach the point of irreconcilability, and its demise was not due to ethnic problems.
As Mr. Huang Renyu said, the Qing monarchs conformed to the Chinese tradition far more than the emperors born in the previous dynasties, and the functions they exercised were better than those of previous dynasties, and within the framework of the imperial system, the Qing was quite good, it was no worse than any previous dynasty.
But the problem is that the Qing Dynasty was at a point in time when the system alternated.
If we sum it up in simple terms, it is this: a better reign meets a better rule. That is to say, although the rule of the Qing Dynasty was good, it was only limited to the premise of the feudal system, and no one would reject a better way of life and ruling system.
It was obvious that the Qing Dynasty's rule could not give the common people a better way of life, and it did not have any advantage in the process of confrontation with capitalism, so when the better way of life was known, the Qing Dynasty began to gradually disintegrate.
The demise of the Qing Dynasty did not stem from its own ethnic and people's livelihood problems, but from the collision of systems and the choice of history to choose a better way of development.
The attitude and practice of the Qing Dynasty toward the Western powers in the last years really made people angry, it made our Chinese nation suffer great hardships, and it also made us lose many cultural treasures, but we cannot deny all the actions of the Qing Dynasty because of these things.
In fact, the feudal system is always going to perish, but the collision between the feudal system and the capitalist system just happened to appear in the Qing Dynasty, that is to say, if the Qing Dynasty is replaced by any previous dynasty, at that point in time, they may not be better than the Qing Dynasty.