"The sky does not speak and the four times move, the earth does not speak and a hundred things are born", everything has its own development law, for modern civilized society, the development of the country also follows a specific law.
We always say that history is a cycle. In fact, the Ming Dynasty on the mainland and the United States today have many similarities in the period of national establishment, development and even difficulties. Below, the editor has sorted out three points, let's study them together!
In fourteenth-century China, a mighty uprising broke out. This is the famous Red Turban Uprising that gathered tens of millions of poor civilians to overthrow the Yuan Dynasty. Zhu Yuanzhang is one of them.
Zhu Yuanzhang came from a humble background and experienced ups and downs. When he was a child, his family of five was crammed into a dilapidated house, surrounded by dissects. Later, a sudden natural disaster, drought and locust plague, took the lives of his parents and eldest brother. In order to survive and avoid the crusade of the Yuan government, he had to part ways with his second brother, who also survived. Go out and find another way to make a living on your own.
He traveled through the way, worked as a beggar, worked as a monk, and finally listened to the introduction of a beggar friend and learned that a rebel army of the people who wanted to overthrow the Yuan Dynasty was recruiting. Thinking of his innocent relatives and the hatred of this society since childhood, he joined without hesitation.
At that time, he was very appreciated by Guo Zixing in Guo Zixing's team with his outstanding leadership skills and resourcefulness. Later, Guo Zixing even promoted him and gave him his righteous daughter. Of course, that's all for later.
Half of his own strength, half of the opportunity, Zhu Yuanzhang eventually soared all the way and jumped to become the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty.
Looking at the North American continent in the eighteenth century, we can find that although the times are different, the establishment of the United States is much the same as the Ming Dynasty.
When it comes to the United States, one name that has to be ignored is Washington. He is to the United States what Zhu Yuanzhang is to the Ming Empire. Their early experiences also have many similarities.
His experience was equally bumpy: although he came from a noble family, he lost all love after the death of his father at the age of eleven. His mother did not regard him as her own flesh and blood, and did not have a trace of maternal love for him. He had to drop out of school because his mother refused to raise him. Fortunately, his brother who loves him has been silently supporting him.
Later, he was recommended to work as a surveyor at Fairfax, where he met a group of Indian friends and learned more about land surveying.
At that time, coinciding with the intensification of colonial rivalry between Britain and France, he coincidentally served in the military and later participated in the Anglo-French East Coast War. During the war, he also relied on his outstanding leadership skills and rich knowledge of the land, jumping from soldier to lieutenant, and finally led the people to establish the American Empire.
It can be said that Zhu Yuanzhang and Washington were both people with ups and downs in their early years, and finally became leaders who stood out among tens of millions of people through various efforts and some coincidences. The Ming Dynasty and the United States were both new states established by the violent overthrow of the former dynasty and former colonizers through war.
The most prosperous period in the history of the Ming Dynasty was nearly thirty years after Zhu Yuanzhang's death. After Zhu Yuanzhang's death, his descendants "infighted" and launched the Battle of Jingyan. This battle, which affects the lives of ordinary people and hinders social development, has finally ended after four years. After the victorious second son, Zhu Di, took the throne, he moved the capital to Beijing, forming a dominant position in the central Chinese government. After Zhu Di's death, his eldest son Zhu Gaojie carried forward the will of the people, rested and recuperated, so that social order and accumulation were gradually restored, and the people's lives slowly improved.
In the Xuande era when Zhu Zhanji came to the throne, foreign trade reached a new height - Zheng He went to the West, abolished the "sea ban", gradually integrated the Ming Dynasty with the world, and the development of foreign trade also stimulated the recovery of the domestic economy.
In addition, the rulers also implemented a policy of heavy agriculture, and the dominant agriculture remained the mainstay, and issued a series of measures to encourage reclamation and punish corruption, quickly dealt with a number of rebellions, and social order was stable and peaceful. During this period, the Ming Dynasty reached its peak both inside and outside, which can be described as the "Great Ming Dynasty".
Looking at the United States, its foreign policy and domestic policy are also similar to those of the Ming Dynasty. The mighty Civil War ended with the victory of the Union. At this time, the United States urgently needs to rebuild order and restore the economy.
At this time, Johnson came to power. In order to stabilize the society and strengthen the sense of public identity, he issued a reconstruction declaration in seven states and took a series of measures.
First of all, as an industrial country, the most important thing the United States needs to revitalize its economy is industrial production. Due to the deep history of previous British colonization, the United States mainland is still a source of British raw materials and has no independence. Therefore, the state began to vigorously support industrial operations, and carried out foreign trade, and obtained more autonomy in raw materials and technology through immigration and commodity transportation. The measures to support the defeated countries also allowed the United States to obtain a steady stream of wealth, and the accumulation of its homeland became richer and richer.
Since 1816, the tariff policy has gradually been liberalized, and foreign trade has also developed to a new stage. Business continues to take root in the United States, and the proportion of foreign investment is gradually increasing. At this time, the United States did not neglect agricultural development, and used a series of advanced technologies to support agriculture, so that its country formed a balanced development of industry and agriculture. These achievements laid a solid foundation for the later industrial revolution.
It can be seen that the Ming Dynasty and the United States both started with the most suitable aspects of the country - agriculture and industry, to revive the economy. Moreover, the proportion of foreign trade is very large, reflecting the great significance of linkages to development. Every country or region is not an island, and it must be connected and developed with its neighbors in order to gradually prosper.
The Daming Dynasty, from "self-made" to prosperous, and then destroyed by Li Zicheng and others, took 276 years. The reasons for not breaking through the "300-year mark" can be summed up by corruption, internal chaos, and natural and man-made disasters.
First, the Ming Dynasty simply did not abolish certain regulations that were not in line with the trend of the times, such as the land annexation system. It is no small blow to the enthusiasm of ordinary people to develop agriculture. In this case, the ruler did not care, but let it develop, and the expansion of the power of the landlords led to the people's livelihood.
Second, as we all know, the party struggle in the Ming Dynasty was very intense. Within the ruling class, there was no complete system to support it, so that in the later period, some courtiers and even eunuchs rebelled in power, overriding the royal power, and the dictatorship of eunuchs appeared. Such a flawed and extremely centralized system will naturally gradually spiral out of control in development, so that it will go to extinction.
The last reason is natural and man-made disasters. Seventy years of Xiaoice in the northern hemisphere have caused unprecedented disasters in the northern regions located in the mid-latitudes - plagues, reduced grain production, pest infestations... All this indirectly led to the loss of control of society in the Ming Dynasty.
In today's world environment, the situation of the United States is also somewhat tense.
First of all, as a capitalist country, the social contradictions in the United States are very fierce. In the presidential transition in the United States, many unreliable news of former presidents is not uncommon. Second, party rivalry in American politics is still chaotic. Many of the violent incidents in Occupy Capitol Hill are fueled by partisanship.
Today, many parties in the Western world are on the verge of moving, and if the government does not use a series of remedies and let it develop, the United States may be headed for a similar end to the Ming dynasty.
In fact, the law of historical development always has traces to follow. What we can do is to carefully absorb the experience and lessons of the development of those predecessors in history, and use them to better develop ourselves, which is the best use of historical laws.