After the Manchu Qing Dynasty entered the customs, in order to consolidate its political power, it implemented a policy of high pressure and softness, on the one hand, to deter the people by force, and on the other hand, to buy the people's hearts by means of inducement. Focusing on high pressure, it may repeat the mistake of the rapid demise of the Great Yuan, focusing on Huairou, and it may be difficult to control the Han people with a high level of culture, so the Manchu Qing Dynasty adopted a combination of rigidity and softness.
In terms of high-pressure measures, the bloody massacre of the city and the strict shaving of hair are the two most important. In the early years of Shunzhi, the Manchu Qing Dynasty occupied the Yellow River valley and raised troops to the south, in order to fight the will of the southern people to resist, there were Yangzhou for ten days, and then there were three massacres in Jiading, and a large number of people were killed, thus disintegrating the resistance of the Han people. In addition, in the early years of Shunzhi, the Manchu Qing Dynasty used hairstyles as a symbol of obedience, and spread the slogan of keeping the head without hair, and leaving the hair without leaving the head, which impacted the concept that the Han people's body hair and skin were subject to their parents (at that time, almost shaved hair and only kept pigtails), thus eliminating the national will of the Han people.
In terms of Huairou measures, the main purpose is to improve the economic conditions of the people. After the Manchu Qing Dynasty entered the customs, the three salaries of the late Ming Dynasty were abolished to reduce the tax burden of the people. In the early years of Kangxi, the policy of enclosing fields was prohibited, and the fields that were forcibly occupied needed to be handed over to the landlords. In Kangxi's later years, he announced that he would take Kangxi's 50-year distribution of Ding silver as the standard, and promised that he would never increase the endowment of Ding in the future. These policies not only had the effect of stabilizing society, but also helped the people to accept rule, offsetting to some extent the discontent brought about by the repressive policies.
From a positive point of view, whether the people were forced to submit to the rule or were willing to accept the rule, it was conducive to the establishment of a stable social environment, which not only consolidated the political power in the early Qing Dynasty, cooperated with military operations, and smoothly unified China, but also raised the economic level, which became the foundation of Kang Yonggan's prosperity over the past century.
There are also negative criticisms of the policy of combining rigidity and softness, mainly referring to the fact that the Manchu Qing had the color of tribal rule and was the political trick of the minority regime. So, from the perspective of policy commentary, the question that should be asked is the appropriateness, such as the Huairou policy, which succeeded in reviving the economy in response to the economic collapse of the late Ming Dynasty. Wouldn't it be a win-win situation for the people to benefit and the government to take office?
As for the high-pressure policy to deepen the ethnic hatred of the Manchus and Hans, especially the bloody actions such as the Ten Days in Yangzhou, it was a wound in history and became the justification for calling for anti-Qing sentiment in the future. However, is this kind of hatred really so profound? This is precisely the effect of the combination of rigidity and softness, when the people live and work in peace and contentment, the wounds are easier to heal, and although anti-Qing activities have come and gone, they have not become the mainstream of society. As for following the Manchu hairstyle, it gradually became a custom, and in the early Republic of China, in turn, the people had to be forced to cut their braids by high-pressure means.
Therefore, the implementation of high pressure and Huairou in the early Qing Dynasty was not two independent policies, but coordinated with each other. Or tribal rule and despise, or rule wisdom and praise. But the author prefers the latter.