Zhu Chengru: Why was Western learning able to spread in the Qing Palace during the "Kangqian Prosperous Era"?
China News Service, Beijing, March 14 Title: Why was Western learning able to spread in the Qing Palace during the "Prosperous Era of Kangqian"?
Author Zhu Chengru Deputy Director of the National Qing History Compilation Committee of China, Former Vice President of the Palace Museum (presided over the affairs of the Academy)
The Forbidden City, which has traveled for more than 600 years, is a precious traditional cultural heritage of the Chinese nation and a famous world cultural heritage. It has witnessed the development of China as a unified multi-ethnic country and carries rich historical information and cultural imprints.
But what most people don't know is that the Forbidden City has also carried out rich and diverse cultural exchanges between Chinese and Western science and technology in history. This history of Interaction between China and foreign countries is of great significance in the history of human civilization.
During the "Kangqian Prosperous Era", Western learning was able to spread in the Qing Palace, where Chinese and Western science and technology culture met. From the primitive hand-cranked computer, which was the product of scientific and technological exchanges between the East and the West in the early Qing Dynasty, to the documentary works drawn by Western court painters, including the "Great Reading of the Qianlong Emperor", these historical materials have become the empirical evidence of people's understanding of the history of China in the 18th century, and have also become the witness of the exchange of human civilizations.
Copper gilded disc hand cranked computer Courtesy of the author
The strong national strength of the "Prosperous Kangqian Dynasty" is the foundation of cultural exchanges and mutual learning between China and the West
The Kangxi Dynasty laid the foundation for national unification, and the Yongzheng Dynasty carried out drastic reforms and reached its peak in the Qianlong Dynasty. After three dynasties, China has strengthened the stable and effective governance of the border ethnic areas, and has also communicated the ties between the various ethnic groups in the frontier and the Han ethnic groups in the Central Plains, laying the foundation for its territory. The stable political situation of great unification during the Kang Yongqian period was conducive to the stable development of society.
During this period, a new situation of economic development and population growth appeared in China. The area of cultivated land in the country exceeded 1 billion mu for the first time; during the Qianlong period, the silver stored in the household treasury remained at 60 to 70 million taels all year round, and the national treasury silver was one and a half times the total annual financial income of the country, which was unprecedented in China's financial history; in the fifty-fifth year of Qianlong (1790), the national population exceeded 300 million, the population doubled in less than 50 years, and the total population reached an unprecedented peak. In a way, the Kang Yongqian period laid the foundation of China's current population base and its position in the world's population pattern as a whole.
At that time, China was also the world's largest export manufacturing country. According to the research of Mr. Dai Yi, an expert in Qing history, there were 10 large cities with a population of more than 500,000 in the world in the 18th century, of which China accounted for 6. Urban development promoted the development of manufacturing, and a large number of Chinese porcelain, silk, and tea were exported to Europe and Southeast Asia. In the 18th century, China's share of the world's total manufacturing output exceeded that of Europe. In the process of globalization of the world economy, China's manufacturing industry made a lot of contributions at that time.
The opening up of maritime traffic has led to cultural exchanges between the countries of the East and the West that originally operated along different tracks. From the beginning of the Qing Dynasty to the Qianlong period, France, Portugal, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Britain, Russia and other countries sent a large number of missionaries and missions to China.
"Silk Road Sails" - the Maritime Silk Road Fine Cultural Relics Exhibition attracted the public to visit the exhibition. Formed in the Qin and Han Dynasties, developed from the Three Kingdoms to the Tang Dynasty, prospered in the Song and Yuan Dynasties, and transformed into the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the Maritime Silk Road was an important shipping route for trade and friendly exchanges between the southeast coastal regions of ancient China and East Asia, Southeast Asia, Europe and African countries. Photo by Liu Xin, a reporter of China News Service
The strength of national strength makes China both attractive and resistant, which is also the foundation of cultural exchanges and mutual learning between China and the West. Compared with Paris, London, Moscow and Rome at that time, Beijing had obvious advantages in terms of urban size, population, economic wealth and cultural prosperity. It should be said that in the 18th century, the capital of the Qing Dynasty, Beijing, the Forbidden City, the Imperial Palace, and Europe were relatively open.
The spread of Western learning in the Qing Palace is a testimony to the history of human civilization
Western missions and missionaries came to China as the advance team of early Western colonial expansion, but they also brought Western religious, cultural, and scientific and technological concepts with them, making up for the shortcomings of Chinese intellectuals in public opinion, astronomy, and mathematics. Western-style churches, such as the famous Catholic Church of east, west, south and north, appeared in Beijing, allowing people to see another world. Jesuit missionaries began translating and publishing Western books on astronomy, mathematics, and geography.
The Kangxi Emperor himself was familiar with ancient Chinese texts, including celestial phenomena, earth opinion, history, music, economy, horse archery, medicine, and Mongolian, Western, and Latin scripts. What is even more valuable is that he attaches great importance to Western science, and introduces Jesuit missionaries who understand Western science (that is, "skilled people") into the inner court, and teaches Western learning in shifts every day.
When the Kangxi Emperor went out on a tour, he was even accompanied by some Western scholars to make astronomical observations and geographical surveys. China has long been able to draw maps, but there are no longitude and latitude lines, and the recorded mileage is also wrong. The Kangxi Emperor personally assigned Chinese, together with Western scholars, to map and map by province, and it took 30 years of work to draw a "Comprehensive Map of Imperial Opinion" with much more precision than the previous generation.
With the support of the Kangxi Emperor, the missionary Nan Huairen designed and manufactured the zodiac theodolite, equatorial theodolite and celestial body instrument for the Beijing Observatory, and the missionary Ji Li'an produced a European-style horizon theodolite for the observatory. These astronomical knowledge and techniques have advanced the development of Chinese astronomy.
Tourists visit the Clock And Watch Hall of the Palace Museum in Beijing. In the eighteenth century, the Qing court made extensive use of mechanical clocks. Most of these watches are British products, but also France, Switzerland and other Western countries, as well as China's own manufacturing. Photo by Du Yang, a reporter from China News Service
The Kangxi Emperor also studied Western mathematics from the French Jesuit missionaries Zhang Cheng and Bai Jin who came to Beijing, and his "Essence of Mathematics" compared Western mathematics with traditional Chinese mathematics, not only analyzing ancient Chinese mathematics, but also absorbing the Western mathematical knowledge that had been transmitted to China at that time, becoming a work representing the highest level of mathematics in China at that time.
During the Qianlong period, attention began to pay attention to the introduction and imitation of mechanical clocks and watches, and the advanced machinery manufacturing technology at that time was used to "robots", and the clocks and watches set multiple functions such as time walking, chimes, music, and character activities. This reflects the impact of European machinery manufacturing on China.
In the exchange between China and the West, in addition to the western scientific and technological knowledge, Western art, especially painting art, also had a far-reaching influence in the three generations of Kang Yongqian.
The Italian Lang Shining Kangxi came to China in the last year and was hired as a court painter, and the three dynasties of Li Kangyongqian engaged in painting in China for more than 50 years. He is good at painting imperial figures, rare birds and animals, strange flowers and flowers, and can integrate Western painting methods with traditional Chinese brush and ink, and his painting style has a far-reaching influence. He left behind masterpieces such as "The Great Reading of the Qianlong Emperor" and "Hundred Juntu", and was a famous court painter with the most handed down works in the Qing Dynasty. And Lang Shining before and after the court of the painters Wang Zhicheng, The Italian Andeyi, bohemian Ai Qimeng and other painters who were good at painting oil painting figures, portraits, animals, flowers and birds, they settled in the Qing Palace, collectively known as the "Four Oceans Painters", painted many documentary paintings reflecting the major historical events of the court and the portrait of the empress.
The audience uses a magnifying glass to view Su's embroidery works based on Lang Shining's "Hundred Juntu". China News Service reporter Zhang Hao photographed
From Tang Ruowang's new FaDi Ping Daydial Instrument to Nan Huairen's Armillary Celestial Sphere, from the publication of a large number of Western scientific knowledge works translated by Western missionaries, to the large number of practical paintings of foreign painters in the court, from the hand-cranked computers made by Westerners to study mathematical sciences in the Qing Palace for the Kangxi Emperor, to the original row-chip computers later... These scientific instruments that have survived inside and outside the court today show that the spread of Western science and technology in the Qing Palace during the Kang Yongqian period has important value and significance. The exchange and mutual learning of Chinese and Western scientific and technological cultures is a witness to the history of human civilization.
Exchanges and mutual learning between China and the West are inevitable in the historical process of human civilization
In the face of the advanced science and technology culture of the West, it was a wise move for the emperor of the Qing Dynasty to accept and learn, but he only learned the skin, and did not fundamentally change the concept of "Western learning in the source", and the advanced Western manufacturing technology did not take root in China. The front of the Main Hall of the Forbidden City, Taihe Hall, is still a sundial, not an advanced mechanical clock. The documentary paintings of Lang Shining and others are still inferior in the face of Chinese freehand ink painting. The accumulation and inertia of history.
At the same time, Western missions and missionaries also brought Chinese culture to the West, and China's history and culture, astronomical geography, mountain and river scenery, and urban and rural life customs attracted wide attention from Western academic circles. Exquisite ceramics and silk textiles became luxury goods for Western aristocrats, triggering the "Chinese style" and "Chinese tide" in Europe in the 18th century.
Citizens visit the exhibition "Porcelain On The Garden - The Influence of Chinese Gardens on Europe from the Perspective of Export porcelain". China News Service reporter Zhao Jun photographed
In the cultural exchanges between China and the West, the fine works in China's excellent traditional culture, especially the traditional crafts, are the accumulation of thousands of years of cultural inheritance of the Chinese nation and have rich technical content. European missionaries and Russian merchant groups learned Chinese ceramics making techniques and returned to China for imitation. Silk, dyeing and lacquerware techniques also spread to Europe.
Looking back at history, the history of cultural exchanges and mutual learning between China and the West is an inevitable in the historical process of human civilization. Due to the limitations of the times and history, the collisions and obstacles in communication are only temporary, and there is no need to be harsh on the ancients by the standards of the present. Under the pattern of globalization, it is even more necessary to further promote international scientific and technological and cultural exchanges. (End)
About the Author:
Zhu Chengru: Deputy Director of the State Qing History Compilation Committee, Editor-in-Chief of the Qing Dynasty Volume of the General History of China (New Edition), Professor and Doctoral Supervisor. He once served as the president of Liaoning Normal University, the vice president of the Palace Museum (presiding over the affairs of the academy), the director of the academic committee, the professor and doctoral supervisor of the History Department of Peking University, and the president of the Forbidden City Society of China. Leader of the review team of the major projects of the National Social Science Foundation, and the chief editor of the multi-volume "General History of the Qing Dynasty" and "Prehistory of the Qing Dynasty".