Anyone who reads history knows that the Qing Dynasty's closed-door policy led to China's backwardness. Backwardness means being beaten, especially in the late Qing Dynasty, which can be described as repeated defeats in wars in modern history, with land cut off and compensation, and humiliation. The backwardness of the late Qing Dynasty can be seen from the three absurd things below.
Erpin did not know about the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. In the summer of the fourth year of Guangxu (1874), Zhang Zuyi, a 25-year-old Wuxi scholar, came to Beijing to take the exam and was pulled by his classmates to attend a dinner party. At the same table, there was an old Mr. Alhun, the former deputy governor of Heilongjiang who had just retired back to Beijing, and when he heard that Zhang Zuyi was a southerner, he immediately opened the conversation box and asked what new things happened in the south more than ten years ago. Zhang Zuyi was shocked: "Don't you even know about the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom?" Briefly talking to him about the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, what Hong Xiuquan and Yang Xiuqing, the old man had never heard of, as for Zeng Guofan and Zuo Zongtang who "recreated the Jiangshan", the old man was even more unheard of. After a long conversation, the old man's eyes were straight when he heard it, and he exclaimed "strange, strange." Tangtang Daqing Erpin Vice Governor, a veteran of the battlefield, even the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom does not know? The classmates who participated in the "dinner bureau" explained awkwardly: This old Mr. Alekhun, don't look at it as a vice-capital, in fact, he doesn't even know the words, usually in addition to eating, drinking, and having fun, riding and hunting, the daily official documents are "all not read", and he really does not know the major events that have occurred in the country. Woohoo! Needless to say, "open your eyes to see the world", even "open your eyes to see the present", such as Alkhun and other high-ranking officials of the Qing Dynasty can not do it! No wonder it was beaten.
A mediocre official who never stops
It is difficult to learn mathematics than to go to the sky. During the two Opium Wars, the Qing Dynasty was beaten to the head and bloodied, and the backward "foreign affairs faction" in China also understood a fact: to strengthen the country, first strengthen mathematics. In 1866, Prince Gong Yibi went to the "Please Open the Arithmetic Library" and called for the establishment of modern mathematics education, but it caused a lot of scolding. In the view of the "conservative school" such as the university scholar Wu Ren, the "Four Books and Five Classics" is the serious study, arithmetic is the "miscellaneous" of the craftsmen, and Western mathematics is even more the "demon law" in the "miscellaneous", and the "demon" who learns mathematics is an official in the same dynasty, and the ministers and so on cannot afford to lose this person! Although after some games, the "arithmetic" of the Qing Dynasty was difficult to start, and Western mathematics was gradually popularized in China, the Qing government always believed that "mathematical symbols" were all "ghost drawings" sent by foreigners, and they were strictly prohibited on the grounds of "confusing people's minds"! It was not until 1911, when a gunshot rang out in Wuchang, that the students were able to learn mathematics in a dignified manner.
Only believe in feng shui
Use "training the heart" to resist the enemy. During the Guangxu period, japan, which was in its fledgling wings, brazenly invaded China's southeast coast, and the crisis in the maritime frontier intensified, and many people of insight strongly advocated the introduction of advanced Western shipbuilding and artillery technology and the establishment of a new navy, but they attracted opposition from the "conservative faction," of which Liu Xihong was the most popular. Liu Xihong was a man who had seen the world, had an arrogant personality, called himself a "Confucian Hero," was once an assistant to Guo Songtao, a leading figure in the "Foreign Affairs Movement," and later, on the recommendation of Guo Songtao, served as a minister stationed abroad for several terms, and had personally seen the strength of the Western powers, had a wide range of knowledge, and was even more shocking than the clichés of other "conservative factions." I admit that the ships and cannons of the European and American powers are more advanced than those of our Great Qing Dynasty, but we cannot do it, and if the whole country is full of guns and warships, if the common people create a rebellion, "I am afraid that the foreign bandits who will not wait for trouble will also be stirred up." What about foreigners calling? He was even more vocal: "The way to train soldiers is to train the heart first." "As long as the soldiers have the mighty spirit of benevolence, righteousness, and wisdom, they can kill the enemy with a burning stick!" "Practicing the mind" can kill the enemy, the result? No one killed the enemy with a burning stick, and they were beaten as usual.