The heyday and decline of the Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty, as the last chapter of the Chinese feudal dynasty, has written a brilliant legend in the long history. In 1635 A.D., the brilliant Emperor Taiji officially founded this new empire and named it the all-important "Qing".
After several generations of wise monarchs, the Qing Dynasty was dazzling and quickly rose to become a powerful empire that attracted the attention of the world.
At that time, the Qing Dynasty could be described as a "dynasty of all nations", not only possessing a vast territory, but also many vassal states submitted to it. The people lived and worked in peace and contentment, the national strength became increasingly prosperous, and the status of the Qing Dynasty reached an unprecedented peak.
The Qianlong Emperor even turned a blind eye to the advanced technology of the outside world, believing that he was the core of the world, but this prosperity did not last long.
In 1838, an insignificant spark quietly ignited, completely upending the fate of the Qing Dynasty. This is why the British dumped opium on the mainland on a large scale in the name of "Fushou ointment". At that time, the people were still ignorant of the dangers of opium, and soon became addicted to it.
Coupled with the huge annual outflow of silver, the Qing court had to take decisive measures.
Emperor Daoguang immediately appointed Lin Zexu as a minister to Guangzhou and ordered the destruction of the hoarded opium. This move undoubtedly offended the interests of the British, thus triggering the First Opium War that shocked China and the rest of the world.
Eventually, the Qing government was forced to sign the humiliating Treaty of Nanjing, which opened the door to China once and for all.
Since then, the Qing government has been repeatedly invaded and oppressed by Western powers. The Second Opium War in 1856 led to the Treaty of Tientsin and the Treaty of Peking, and the Sino-Japanese Naval War of 1895 forced the Qing government to cede the Penghu Islands and the islands of Taiwan.
Until 1900, the Eight-Nation Coalition Army brazenly invaded the capital, creating a series of horrific atrocities, forcing the Qing government to become a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society.
It can be said that these successive setbacks gradually devoured the national strength of the Qing Dynasty, and finally irretrievably collapsed. However, many at the time did not perceive the deep roots behind this, and instead blamed the fall of the Qing Dynasty on the changing times.
However, as mentioned at the beginning of this article, the demise of the Qing Dynasty was far from as simple as one might think.
Closing the country has led to the disaster of technological lag
If we talk about the direct cause of the fall of the Qing Dynasty, it is undoubtedly the impact of the Opium War and foreign invasions, but to trace the root causes, we need to delve into the various problems that existed within the Qing Dynasty.
At that time, the Qing emperors were already proud of the others, and they even sneered at foreign exchanges. In the eyes of Emperor Qianlong, his empire did not need to bow to other countries.
This policy of closing the country not only blocked the influx of advanced science and technology, but also made the Qing Dynasty drift away from the development trend of the world.
While the British army was armed with sophisticated firearms, the Qing army was still using primitive weapons such as swords. Such a huge disparity in equipment undoubtedly indicates that it will be difficult for the Qing army to achieve victory on the battlefield.
The root cause of this lies in the Qing government's indifference to external technology.
Emperor Qianlong was extremely conceited, believing that he was the center of the world, and naturally did not want to learn Western technology. Even at the outbreak of the Opium War, the Qing government failed to recognize the seriousness of the problem.
On the contrary, they have only blindly fought against foreign countries, without taking any substantive reform measures.
It was this concept of seclusion that kept the Qing Dynasty at a disadvantage in competition with the Western powers. Even in the face of Lin Zexu's successful feat of destroying opium, the Qing government did not learn from it, but instead provided the British with a pretext for aggression.
It can be seen that the closure of the country not only failed to preserve the Qing Dynasty, but became its Achilles' heel.