After thousands of years of feudal rule, there have been more than 80 dynasties in detail, and various epic legends have been staged in the land of China. Among them, there are inimitable prosperity and there are also decays that have lost power and humiliated the country. How is prosperity and weakness judged? There are many aspects that can be compared, but the most obvious is the size of the territory.
Strong as the Tang Dynasty, prosperous as the Song Dynasty, the territory of these two periods is not very large. The weak Qing Dynasty was the largest period of China's territory. The protection of territory is inseparable from the role of the armies of each dynasty.
So the combat effectiveness of the Qing army can be seen to be extraordinary, once the Central Plains, conquest of Mongolia, the harvest of Xinjiang of the Great Qing Iron Horse really withdrew from the stage of history with the end of the Qing Dynasty? In fact, these armies did not completely disappear in 1912, but existed unknownly until more than seventy years later in 1987.
Is it inevitable or accidental that the Qing army can exist for so long after the fall of the Qing Dynasty? Apparently by accident. Let's compare how the armies of previous dynasties differed from the qing armies. The role of the army is nothing more than defense and offense, and their service object is the state, but not during the feudal period, mainly serving the rulers and those in power. But the situation changed, what happened to the army?
01
The change of difficulties
In the twenty-fifth year of Hongwu, the most important eldest son of The Ming Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang, the then crown prince Zhu Biao died of illness, whether he loved Wu and Wu was unknown, his son Zhu Yunjiao was made the emperor's grandson by Zhu Yuanzhang, Zhu Yuanzhang was also old, six years later Zhu Yunzhuo took the throne, changed the year name Jianwen, and became the second emperor of the Ming Dynasty.
During Zhu Yuanzhang's period, many clan kings were enfeoffed, and the power of these clan kings already threatened the stability of the capital, and at the same time, there was a special financial support for these clan kings every year, which aroused Zhu Yunjiao's vigilance.
After the reign, Emperor Jianwen plotted and implemented a series of policies to cut the domain with his loyal ministers. Within a year, five feudal kings, including King Zhou, King Dai, and King Qi, were deposed. Zhu Di, the King of Yan, did not want to sit still, and he was suspicious and took a series of measures to deal with the imperial court's cutting of the domain, but this did not dispel the determination of the imperial court to the king of Yan.
In July of the following year, Zhu Di raised an army and marched south, which lasted three years, and the Yan army invaded the capital. The defenders of the capital city naturally could not withstand the battle-hardened Yan army, dead and wounded, and surrendered. At this point, the Jianwen Dynasty collapsed, and Emperor Minghuizong disappeared. Zhu Di called the emperor Ming Chengzu and changed his era name to Yongle.
02
Wenwu ending
After Zhu Di entered the capital, he began to pay tribute to the "remnants of the former dynasty". After experiencing the war, the casualties of military personnel are naturally not a minority, and the Ming army in the Jianwen Emperor's camp has died as many as half a million, and the death of the battle may be their duty, which is included in the meaning of their existence.
The wen courtiers were obedient to the orders of their masters, and Zhu Di naturally could not forget the large and small courtiers who helped Emperor Jianwen plan to cut down the domain and other affairs, and the officials of all sizes who seduced Jianwen in his eyes were executed. There were also some civilian and military generals who refused to surrender and submit, and they could not escape the fate of being killed, and they felt that Zhu Di, who had caused chaos in the government and vainly attempted to usurp the throne, was the culprit.
There is still no shortage of casualties in the internal power change of dynasties, and the impact of dynastic changes on the army is even more "fatal". This has been the case for thousands of years, when a regime ends, the army will withdraw from the stage of history with this dynasty, but there is a special existence in this, that is, the last feudal dynasty on the mainland, the Qing Dynasty, when it left the stage of history, the army that once defended it continued for a period of time.
03
Abdication of the Great Qing
The weakened Qing Dynasty experienced several defeats such as the Two Opium Wars, the Eight-Power Alliance, and the Sino-Japanese Naval Battle and signed a series of unequal treaties. Patriots became dissatisfied with the Qing court and launched patriotic movements everywhere. After the Wuchang Uprising, many southern provinces declared independence.
The Qing court, whose fate was hanging in the balance, had to reactivate Yuan Shikai and appoint him as the prime minister of the cabinet. He was not a loyal and patriotic man, but extremely self-interested. Yuan ostensibly suppressed the revolutionary army and secretly contacted them for peace talks, and the Qing court became his chip. In 1912, the government of the Republic of China was established, and in the same year, Yuan Shikai used his chips to coerce the Xuantong Emperor Puyi to abdicate in order to obtain the position of president of the Republic of China, and the Qing Dynasty collapsed.
In the long-term historical process, the change of dynasties is not a rare thing, so why is the Qing Dynasty a special existence? Let's talk about why.
The first is because the abdication of Emperor Xuantong was not a Zen throne, but a helpless move to ascend to the throne as a child emperor who had taken the throne of a weakened empire and would fall into the country. The second reason was that the Qing emperor and Qing court officials were not persecuted.
The Republic of China government's "Preferential Conditions for the Qing Dynasty" retained the last face of the Qing Dynasty, and they could continue to live in the Forbidden City. And retained the eunuch palace guards who accompanied them, as well as institutions such as the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which could continue to exist. Outside the city is the Republic of China, inside the city or the Great Qing, like a dream. The Qing Dynasty clan, as rulers, and Qing court officials as assistants, were not sanctioned, so what about the Qing dynasty army?
04
Follow-up of the Qing army
The Qing army was also a special case among the armies of various dynasties. The fact that the Qing court can ascend to the main stage of Chinese history shows the bravery of the Qing army, and the decline of the Qing Dynasty in the later period certainly reflects the decline of the Qing army, but these armies did not disappear with the collapse of the Qing Dynasty.
By the late Qing dynasty, the main force of the Qing army had developed into Yuan Shikai's new army. At that time, the Qing court wanted to save the country and propose a constitution, which was very different from the republican voice of the people. The Selfish Intentions of the Qing Court were clearly revealed, and people found that this was just a cover, and many constitutionalists also lost confidence in the reform of the Qing Court. The people's movement was continuous, and a great revolution was on the verge of erupting.
At this time, the revolutionaries had already contacted and won over many Qing army insiders. In 1911, the Hubei New Army mutinied, and soon this revolutionary activity spread throughout the country, and the army supporting the Qing Dynasty was weak and unable to resist the menacing revolutionary army. The Qing court pinned its hopes on the Beiyang Army, but the Beiyang Army was also negotiating peace with the revolutionary army, and the Beiyang Army was retained during the Republic of China. During the warlord melee, the Beiyang Army was divided into many branches by various factions. After the change of the northeast, all of them were incorporated into the National Revolutionary Army. The history of the Qing army ends here.
There was a special army in it, which remained until 1987.
In the late Qing Dynasty, the British forcibly leased Hong Kong as a colony, but the Kowloon Walled City remained under the jurisdiction of the Qing court, with only one isolated city, and the city retained officials and some catchers to protect the residents and law and order in the city. This army still maintained the customs and laws of the Qing Dynasty in the city.
The Qing court's insistence may be waiting for the Qing Dynasty to become strong again, waiting for the re-mobilization of troops to regain its strength. But they didn't wait for that day. After the abdication, the Qing court naturally did not have the idea of managing this team, and this team has been stationed in Hong Kong.
The walled city is small for Kowloon, and Kowloon is also small for Hong Kong. The forces of all sides are tit-for-tat, and the influence of this team is minimal, and it is slowly forgotten by all parties and forgotten by history. Later, Hong Kong demolished the Kowloon Walled City, and the team disappeared with it.
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