introduction
In the voluminous history of China, the peasant uprising is a paradoxical phenomenon that comes one after another and appears continuously, and there is even a saying in the textbook that "the peasant uprising promoted the process of historical development", which seems to have become a classic historical law in the minds of the Chinese people. Therefore, many people think that the reason why people are human beings is that "when things are uneven, they will sound", "where there is oppression, there will be resistance", and the peasant uprising is not a unique feature of China, but a common phenomenon in world history.
In fact, the successive peasant uprisings in China's history are almost unique in the world.
A unique phenomenon of peasant uprisings
In ancient Chinese history, the number, frequency, intensity, and devastation of peasant uprisings are unique in the world.
Almost every change of dynasty was accompanied by a massive peasant uprising that swept across the country, and all of which aimed to overthrow the regime. At the beginning, Qin Shi Huang, who swept through Liuhe and unified the world, could not have dreamed that just two years after he died on the way to the East Tour and was buried in the luxurious mausoleum of Lishan Mountain, in Daze Township, PuXian County (present-day Liu jiaji, southwest of Su County, Anhui), a rebel uprising led by Chen Sheng and Wu Guang broke out. The Chen Sheng and Wu Guang uprisings were the first large-scale peasant uprisings in China's history, and although they failed after only 6 months, they could be described as spinning and disappearing, but the fierceness of their comings, the fierceness of the resistance, and the far-reaching influence of history were all unprecedented.
The demonstration effect brought about by the uprising of Chen Sheng and Wu Guang cannot be underestimated. Since then, it seems to have forged an irreversible crazy historical law, and the peasant uprisings, the rich and splendid cultural heritage left by each dynasty in history, and the huge achievements in politics and economy have all been destroyed and even wiped out in the earth-shattering waves set off by these rebels from the bottom.
After Chen Sheng and Wu Guang, there were the Green Forest, the Chimei Uprising, which broke out at the end of the Xinmang (Western Han Dynasty), the Yellow Turban Rebellion that broke out at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, especially the Yellow Turban Uprising of Taiping Province, which occurred in the lingguang of the Eastern Han Dynasty and the Seventh Year (184), which gathered millions of people, stirred up the overthrow of Liu's jiangshan society for more than 400 years, and completely destroyed the foundation created by Liu Bang, the ancestor of Han Gao. Later, larger peasant uprisings included the Wagang Uprising at the end of the Sui Dynasty, the Huangchao Uprising in the middle and late Tang Dynasty, the Fang La Uprising at the end of the Northern Song Dynasty (the Song Jiang Uprising was not at all in the flow), the Red Turban Army Uprising at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, the Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong Uprisings at the end of the Ming Dynasty, and the Taiping Rebellion in the late Qing Dynasty.
These are all large-scale peasant uprisings that are well known to the people of the country, with a large number of participants, "millions of people at every turn"; the peasant army, like the officers and soldiers who suppressed them, has also used extremely harsh means, basically destroying the original social structure and public order and good customs.
In addition to these large peasant uprisings that enabled the rapid decline of various feudal dynasties, there were countless small and medium-sized peasant uprisings, which can be called endless books of history, almost every chapter in Chinese historical texts.
It is worth noting that almost all of the limited and loosely organized peasant uprisings occurred during the more stable period of dynastic rule. According to incomplete statistics, smaller peasant uprisings occurred 50 times during the Three Kingdoms period, 19 times in the Western Jin Dynasty, 28 times in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, and 22 times during the Five Hu and Sixteen Kingdoms periods. 24 times in the Southern Dynasty Liu Song Dynasty, 9 times in the Southern Qi Dynasty, 32 times in the Liang Dynasty, and 2 times in the Chen Dynasty. There were 92 peasant uprisings in the Northern Wei Dynasty, 30 times in the Eastern Wei and Northern Qi, and 22 times in the Western Wei and Northern Zhou, and as many as 330 peasant revolts in the entire Wei and Jin Dynasties and the Northern and Southern Dynasties were recorded in historical records. During the Years of Hongwu and Yongle, when the feudal economy of the Ming Dynasty was relatively prosperous, 103 peasant uprisings of varying scales broke out (Ming Shilu). In the middle and late Qing Dynasty, due to internal and external troubles, peasants' revolts intensified. According to the "Draft History of the Qing Dynasty", in the more than ten years before the Second Opium War, there were more than 110 large-scale uprisings, and in 1847 alone, there were 26 peasant uprisings.
Such a long period of frequent group violence of a certain scale is also extremely rare in other countries and other ethnic groups in the world, which seems to be incompatible with the hidden tolerance, humility and national collective disposition that are characteristic of Chinese.
It is no exaggeration to say that peasant uprisings run through almost the entire Chinese feudal dynasty.
Combining historical materials, you will find that peasant uprisings in Western Europe are very rare, and from the 8th century to the 16th century, there are only 8 peasant uprisings recorded in the historical records. Moreover, the peasant uprisings in Europe were more like protests, less like rebellions, less for the purpose of overthrowing regimes.
Why do peasant uprisings rarely occur in other countries?
Peasant uprisings in Japan and Korea in East Asia were small in number and small in scale. The Middle East and India are also rare. There were many peasant uprisings in Russia, some of which were also for the overthrow of Tsarist rule, but the overall number was still thousands of miles worse than that of China, and there was never a phenomenon of peasant uprisings overthrowing the regime.
Unlike Chinese peasants, who want to "kill Tokyo and seize the bird seat" at every turn, peasant uprisings in other countries are more like a protest than a violent seizure of power.
This very different kind of protest activity between the East and the West deserves in-depth study.
Peasant uprisings have risen one after another, and the destruction has been fierce, and the reasons are complex, but the landlords cannot all be left to bear the pot
The much-maligned "land annexation system" is not the root cause of the peasant uprising. Increasingly heavy taxes, lack of minimum guarantees, and lack of basic rights may be the crux of the matter ... That is to say, the number of peasant uprisings in China's history, the fierce suffering, is not all caused by the landlord's heavy exploitation, but there are deeper reasons, can not let the landlord carry all the pots. Due to the limitations of the level and the lack of information, the discussion can only end here.
Many glorious historical legacies cannot avoid the fact that the creator of a miracle was never its enjoyer or direct beneficiary, but in turn had to make great sacrifices for it that the individual or family could not bear.
For a certain period of time, when the thoughts of people who suffer from violence will become very practical, it is not that they lack the same speculative mind as philosophers, but after being forced into a desperate situation by a difficult life, man, the most evolved intelligent animal in nature, will only be left with the only survival, foraging instinct - to survive to death, to resist.
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