Today is still hard to talk about this topic, about the understanding of the two dynasties of the Yuan and Qing dynasties, netizens have different statements. Today, I will also talk about the impact of the Yuan Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty on China's development, and ask your relatives to criticize and correct. However, I promise that I will come without any national position, please rest assured!
We all know that the Yuan and Qing dynasties were two non-Han dynasties in Chinese feudal society. Objectively speaking, if evaluated from the standpoint of the development of human society, the Yuan and Qing dynasties really caused China to miss the opportunity for common development with the world, hindered the mainland's social progress, and even interrupted the mainland's leading process in the world, resulting in modern China lagging behind the West. The author believes that there are three main reasons. I hope to join you!
Yuan Dynasty army
First, the loss of national unity due to cultural inherence has reversed the development of history
From the perspective of the ethnic systems related to the rulers of the Yuan and Qing dynasties, they all highly reflect the contempt for the main ethnic group (Han Chinese), and aggravate the contradictions between the ruling class and the people. The rulers of the Yuan and Qing dynasties were originally born into a slave tribal society, while the Han people in the Central Plains had long entered the feudal society. After they entered the Central Plains, they only considered themselves victors and did not understand the cultural gap between social forms. After ruling the Central Plains, he pursued a series of blatant policies of ethnic discrimination and oppression in accordance with his own national values. For example, the Yuan Dynasty divided people into four classes. The first rank was Mongol; The second level is the Seme; The third estate is the Northern Han Chinese; The fourth class is the Nanren, that is, the barbarian or Nanbarian. Among the ranks divided by rulers, the status of the Mongols is the highest, and the Han people, who make up the majority, have the lowest status.
Han Chinese can generally only serve as middle- and lower-level officials at the prefecture and county levels. People who commit the same sin, and the punishment varies according to the national hierarchy. The government imposed taxes on grain and livestock and taxes on the Han Chinese, with the exception of the Mongols. Differences between ethnic classes are also reflected in all aspects of social life. Also in the Manchu Qing Dynasty, the people were divided into three classes. The highest rank is Manchu Mongol; The second level is the Han bureaucracy; The third estate consists of other nationalities. It also implemented the Banner People's Separation (Eight Banners System), the Manchu and Han official system, the law of land enclosure, surrender and escape, and shaving and changing clothes. These policies also have a distinctly "slavery" character.
Kublai Khan and the Hill Machine
Some people will say that although the two dynasties of the Yuan and Qing dynasties were ruled by foreign races, they also reused a large number of Han officials and adopted a policy of "sinicization", how could they be backward? Yes, even the Yuan and Qing dynasties did use a large number of Han officials, but this was only a means of "ruling the Han with Han". Its fundamental purpose was to preserve the rule and national privileges of its nobility. The broad masses of the people, especially the Han working people, are at the bottom of society and suffer from heavy national oppression and class exploitation.
They paid lip service to sinicization and adopted "Chongconfucianism", but only selectively adopted those that were more effective for ruling the Han people, and even more rigid and extreme centralization, and the Qing Dynasty achieved the pinnacle of centralization. However, the "people-based thinking" of the prosperous rulers of the Han nationality was not well applied. "Mencius Leaves Lou Xia": "Mencius told Qi Xuan Wang Yu: 'A prince regards his subjects as brothers, and his subjects regard him as his heart; The prince regards his subjects as dogs and horses, and the subjects regard the prince as a countryman; The prince regards his subjects as earth, and the subjects regard the prince as a hater. "It is clear that this governing philosophy is premised on national unity. Therefore, the Han dynasties never had the practice of dividing the noble and inferior ranks according to ethnicity. However, even if the Manchu and Mongolian regimes adopted the "Han system", they did not give up national oppression. How can they sacrifice their national privileges? The Manchu regime originated from the primitive tribes of the Jianzhou Jurchens, and the Mengyuan rulers came from nomadic tribes, and when they were absolutely in a social advantage, their original cultural genes and ideology would dominate their mode of behavior.
The influence of traditional culture on slavery determined the policy of the Yuan and Qing governments towards the Han people. Even after becoming a ruler, he will naturally and unnaturally call himself a "conqueror". What ethnic equality and what people-based ideas are ignored, replaced by hierarchies, slave relations. Because they conquered the Han by force, they were worried about their accidental "success" and lacked self-confidence in whether they could make the Han people truly "sincere", so power politics and suppression of the Han became the first choice. Even after entering feudal society, a large number of peasants (Han Chinese) actually became "slaves". This inherent deficiency in backward national culture is bound to lead to the aggravation of ethnic contradictions and mutual antagonism between ethnic groups, increase the "involvement" among the people, and seriously hinder the development of productive forces and social progress.
Mongol soldiers of the Yuan Dynasty
Second, the backward concept of ruling inhibits the development of the petty bourgeoisie and misses the opportunity to develop capitalism
Throughout the history of world development, there was an "Axis Age" around the 5th century BC, during which there was no interrelated Eastern and Western worlds, and at almost the same time there were philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, Shakyamuni, Confucius, and Laozi, and human civilization made a major breakthrough and a leap in human collective wisdom. The "Renaissance" movement in Europe in the 14th and 16th centuries led to similar great development. The essence of the Renaissance was the bourgeois anti-feudal new cultural movement and a symbol of Europe's transformation from feudal society to capitalism. It promoted the development of world culture, promoted the awakening of the people, opened the journey of human modernization, and laid the foundation for the era of exploration and later industrial civilization.
At the same time, China, which is in the East, has also had such an opportunity. After more than a thousand years of development of feudal society in the Qin, Han and Tang dynasties, the Song Dynasty came to the Song Dynasty, which was an era of high prosperity in China's commodity economy, culture and education, and scientific innovation. At that time, the economic prosperity of the Great Song Dynasty was unprecedented, and there were major developments in manufacturing and handicraft industries such as printing, papermaking, silk weaving, and porcelain making. The navigation industry and shipbuilding industry have made outstanding achievements, overseas trade is highly developed, and trade with more than 50 countries in the South Pacific, the Middle East, Africa, Europe and other regions. The Song Dynasty also greatly developed water conservancy, opened up land on a large scale, improved mechanical agricultural tools, and developed agriculture rapidly. In particular, the domestic commodity economy and commodity exchange are quite developed, the petty bourgeoisie is in the ascendant, emerging capitalism has begun to sprout, and even professional businessmen with capital nature have appeared, the financial industry has flourished, and the world's earliest paper money (silver ticket, also known as arrogance) appeared in the Northern Song Dynasty. If you count from the Song Dynasty, China's capital generation is at least 200 years earlier than in the West.
Some people estimate that China's total GDP in 1000 was 26.55 billion US dollars, accounting for 22.7% of the total world economy, and the per capita GDP was 450 US dollars, exceeding the 400 US dollars of Western Europe at that time. The British historian of science and technology Joseph Needham believes in the "History of Chinese Science and Technology" that the scientific and technological development of Chinese feudal society has reached its peak by the Song Dynasty, and in many respects has actually exceeded the level of Britain or Europe before the industrial revolution in the mid-18th century. Since Western Xia blocked the Silk Road in the northwest, the ports on the southeast coast became new trade centers. In the late Southern Song Dynasty, Quanzhou became the world's largest port and the starting point of the Maritime Silk Road. Even if the military of the Song Dynasty is not strong, its military technology is still quite good. The firearms of the Song Dynasty entered the war stage, using firearms such as thunderbolts, heaven-shaking thunder, fireballs, iron artillery, rockets, fireballs, muskets, artillery and other firearms, and gradually entered the era of cold weapons and firearms. Due to the use of military machinery, such as trebuchets, vehicle guns, single-end guns, seven-tip guns and cyclone cannons also appeared.
Qingming upper river map
However, at the beginning of the Mongol khans' entry into the Central Plains, brutal massacres and plunders brought serious damage to the economy of the northern region. During the Mengjin War, he planned to kill all Han people and turn all cultivated land into pasture, but later the reason why Han people and agricultural production were retained was also for exploitation and taxation to ensure fiscal revenue. The rulers of the Yuan Dynasty who came from the slave tribes gave most of the official land to the royal family, nobles, meritorious ministers, and temples, and the princes and nobles could also occupy the people's land at will and turn it into their own pastures, so that most of the people lost their land and became slaves. "Driving mouths" are the products of the Yuan Dynasty, most of them are people who have been captured by war, and some have been sold out of poverty or because of crime.
In fact, it is a slave peasant, and there are official slaves and private slaves. Official slaves were mainly engaged in official handicraft labor; Private slaves are the private property of the master, and the descendants will always be slaves, and the master can buy and sell them freely. According to historical records, tenants in the Yuan Dynasty were appendages of landlords, and tenants became slaves when they gave birth to men, and maids or concubines when they gave birth to daughters. The official control of handicraft craftsmen in the Yuan Dynasty was concentrated on the production of daily handicrafts, and restrictive measures were taken against the social commodity economy and folk handicrafts and petty bourgeoisie. The exploitation and oppression of the majority of the population has seriously damaged productive forces and hindered economic development. The open and inclusive culture and developed economic situation of the Song Dynasty disappeared, and the society even became "serfdom", which is a typical historical retrogression.
In the Ming Dynasty, the folk handicraft industry continued to grow. The Ming Dynasty completed the evolution of the handicraft industry of the Song Dynasty from official to private in a relatively short time, and the changes were more radical. By the end of the Ming Dynasty, except for a few industries such as the salt industry, which were still implementing salt induction with merchants as the main body, some handicraft industries got rid of the control of the government and became private handicrafts. In the late Ming Dynasty, the private economic power of the private sector was far stronger than that of the West in the same period, when the British merchant handicraft owner owned tens of thousands of pounds to be considered extremely rich, it was already common for the Ming Dynasty private merchants and capitalists to use millions of taels of silver for trade and production, and the economic strength of the Zheng Zhilong Maritime Trade Group reached tens of millions of taels of silver per year, and the Dutch East India Company could not compete with it at that time.
The Qing Dynasty also pushed the absolutism of ancient China to its highest peak. Internally, restrictions on the development of the Han people were still adopted, and literary prisons were repeatedly set up to control the ideas of the scholars, represented by the Han people. The Qing Dynasty issued three land enclosure orders, and a large number of you (Han Chinese) became slaves of the new master. The national policy of closing off the country has separated China from the world. In order to prevent civil unrest, a ban on mining was also implemented, which hindered the development of industry and commerce and foreign trade. With the advent of the Great Age of Exploration, some Western capital began to invest in science and technology and manufacturing, and society entered the era of industrial civilization.
However, under the influence of the backward tribal culture and the core value system of serfdom, even with the implementation of Han Law, the manor-like concept of wealth of ethnic segregation led Chinese society backwards. The West of the world has gradually entered capitalism, while the empires of the East do not understand that if wealth becomes "capital", it will better promote social progress. In this way, the "capitalism" that had "sprouted" long ago in the Song Dynasty was strangled in the cradle. In contrast to capitalism in the West, the Eastern Empire returned to its pre-medieval period. As a result, we have not been able to board this ship for the development of capitalism and missed the opportunity to develop capitalism. Even though the wealth of the empire was ahead of the world at that time, the political and social backwardness was still absolutely backward.
The majesty of the Eight Banners of the Qing Dynasty
Third, the lack of self-confidence of backward nations has led to the rulers' fear of development
Those Manchu and Mongolian nobles who came from a slave society wanted to have more social wealth, but they could only pursue larger estates and more serfs. In order to maintain this state of affairs and maintain their existing advantages, they did not want progress, or even feared progress, and the "policy of ignorance" became the first choice of rulers. The civilization of the people (Han Chinese) will become the greatest threat to the ruling class, and it is necessary to impose comprehensive restrictions on Han Chinese in terms of policy. Since the Manchu and Mongolian rulers all belong to the Ma nation, they rely on fat horses and iron horses to achieve the "flipping" of backward culture, once the culture progresses, the Han people will be more progressive, once science and technology develop, the first to master will also be the Han people, which is of course their unacceptable result.
Therefore, on the surface, they also adopted the "Han system" or even "Sinicization", and also "reused" some Hanchen, but the restrictions on Han officials' positions, the constraints on Hanchen's development space, the control of Hanchen's power, and the suppression of Hanchen forces have always been accompanied. Including Liu Bingzhong, Zhang Rou, Zhang Hongfan, Zhang Jue and Shi Tianze of the Yuan Dynasty, Li Hongzhang, Fan Wencheng, Hong Chengzhuo, etc. of the Qing Dynasty, all of them are among the restrictions. In order to maintain the armed superiority of the Ma nation, the restraint in the manufacture of weapons and military equipment has been even more extreme. So much so that when the Western powers opened our country with the firearms that we had in the Song Dynasty, they were surprised to find that they were still stuck in the era of "cold weapons". Obviously, it was the rule of the Yuan and Qing dynasties that hindered China's progress towards a modern state, and how can we not be defeated when the Western powers reduce the dimension of our dimensionality!
The city gate of the Ming Dynasty
Of course, when we say that the Yuan and Qing dynasties "hindered" China's progress towards a modern state, we do not mean that these two dynasties did not develop, nor did we completely deny their achievements. If we look at the vertical dimension of Chinese history, the Yuan and Qing dynasties also promoted the progress of Chinese history. However, if we look at it from the horizontal dimension of world history, the backward rule of the Yuan and Qing dynasties makes us "turn victory into defeat", which is the main reason why the mainland lags behind the West. Even though the Yuan Qing Dynasty had made some or even great progress in culture and technology, it had left us far behind the great powers, including our close neighbor Japan. In a rapidly developing world, small progress is actually equivalent to regression, and we cannot use small development to cover up our own shortcomings. It is not difficult to find that the rulers violated the law of historical development and adopted a series of policies that contradicted historical progress, making China miss the opportunity to develop together with the world. Therefore, the Yuan and Qing dynasties hindered China's progress towards a modern state, and this is also the answer given by history. Do you agree with this view? Please leave your comments in the comment area.
I am "Nanshan Lao Li". Follow me and let's talk about history.