In the late Qing Dynasty, a series of reforms and bloody conflicts broke out, such as the Opium War, the Taiping Rebellion, the Westernization Movement, the Reform Reform, and the Boxer Rebellion. We have to admit that this is the closest time we have integrated with the world, but this integration ended with the signing of a traitorous treaty that humiliated the country and the complete failure of the late Qing Dynasty.
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In most people's perceptions, the reason why China lagged behind the West for more than 100 years was due to the Qianlong Emperor's policy of "closing the country to the outside world", in fact, it was more than that, the Qianlong Emperor pushed the Qing Dynasty to the peak during his reign of more than 60 years. At the same time, however, he announced that he would not trade with foreign countries, and that he would not allow all ships to go to sea to carry out economic cooperation with other countries, and that there would be no forgiveness for violators! The reason why he did this was entirely to maintain the rule of the Qing Dynasty, not to allow ordinary people to study, and to promote the "literary prison" was also one of his main policies, because he was afraid that the common people would know about the outside world, and the West at this time had already begun the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the Industrial Revolution, and embarked on the road of capitalism. The national strength was thriving, and by the Xianfeng and Tongzhi periods, the Manchus were far from being the opponents of the great powers.
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However, I would like to say that China's backwardness in modern times did not begin with the Qing Dynasty, but began in the Ming Dynasty It is not the first initiative of the Qing Dynasty, but in the Ming Dynasty did not allow people on the southeast coast to go to the sea to trade, the entire Ming Dynasty, the last time it was opened to the outside world was Zheng He's trip to the West, in the Yongle years, Tianbao eunuch Zheng He was reused by Zhu Di, so that he led a team to the West seven times, it is said that it was to find the missing Emperor Jianwen, but Emperor Jianwen never found the whereabouts of Emperor Jianwen, the motive is doubtful, everyone can make up for it by themselves.
Zheng He's fleet took tens of thousands of people out each time, starting from today's Shanghai Port, passing through Asia, Europe, South America, and even the farthest Oceania, almost across four oceans and five continents, bringing countless gold, silver, jewelry, and nautical instruments to establish friendly relations with many small countries. It is said that Zheng He's voyage to the West was more than 500 years earlier than Columbus's discovery of the American continent, which shows that the Ming Dynasty at that time was well developed in navigation and had superb ship berthing skills!
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The main reason is that it is too expensive, and it takes a year and eight months to go out once, and the maintenance costs of the soldiers on the ship can be worth the sum of the three years of taxes paid by the Ming Dynasty, and finally, a departure is still in the period of Zhu Zhanji, Zheng He died of illness on the way back, and the imperial court felt that the expenses were too large and the income was too small to be cost-effective, so it gave up maritime trade since then, and at the same time did not allow any ships to go to sea, and violators were punished by the nine clans! So, in modern times, we have lost the great opportunity to accumulate wealth through colonial trade, as in the British Age of Discovery.
Although the Ming Dynasty did not get along and did not pay tribute, it was the most backbone dynasty in the history of the mainland. However, due to the poor vision and pattern, they refused to trade by sea, so they gradually distanced themselves from the West.
To say that China's most powerful, powerful, and world-leading dynasty is none other than the Tang and Song dynasties, which conquered the world from the beginning of Li Shimin, Taizong of the Tang Dynasty, and various countries have called Taizong "Heavenly Khan". Today, Japan and Korea were once vassal states of the mainland. At that time, the mainland was equivalent to the United States in the world, and the Song Dynasty pushed the mainland's economy and culture to its peak. Those two eras were stronger than other countries in all aspects, until the gap between the Ming and Qing dynasties began to gradually widen, and the middle of the Qing Dynasty was even more backward, with a difference of more than a century.
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Britain has been open to the subway since 1863, and the United States in 1900 has been full of high-rise buildings, banks, cars, household appliances, and airplanes, but at this time the mainland is still an agricultural society, people can't eat enough, the means of transportation are still rickshaws or even board cars, most people still live in thatched houses, no wonder Li Hongzhang, who has been to the United States, was silent after coming back. Such a gap in reality is a wake-up call for people all the time.