Preface
The Kangqian era was the last prosperous era in ancient times on the mainland.
Regarding such a prosperous era, some people believe that this is the golden age of the Chinese nation, while others believe that this prosperous era is nothing more than an empty appearance, and people can only barely fill their stomachs during this period, so the prosperous era of Kangqian is just a "prosperous era of hunger" with no appearance.
So, is the prosperous era of Kangqian really in vain?
The criteria for judging the ancient prosperous times
When looking at the ancient prosperity of the mainland, we should first have a sober understanding, that is, the ancient feudal society of the mainland is not as good as the modern society with highly developed productive forces in any way.
Therefore, we cannot judge and measure the achievements of ancient China through the eyes of modern people.
In addition, some people like to compare the Qing Dynasty with the British, and show the backwardness of the Qing Dynasty through the comparison between China and Britain in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Admittedly, as the last feudal dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing Dynasty itself was self-contained, which led to China's gradual backwardness from the rest of the world, and ultimately led to the crushing defeat of the Opium War in 1840.
But the problem was that Britain at that time was not only the British mainland, but with their strong maritime supremacy, the British controlled a quarter of the total land area of the earth.
In addition, Britain itself has already entered the capitalist era, and capitalist society has a "dimensionality reduction blow" to feudal society.
Therefore, it is undoubtedly unfair to compare Britain with the Manchu Qing Dynasty, which was still in the feudal era, because the Western society at that time was at the leading level in the world in all aspects.
If the Qing Dynasty at that time could really be almost the same as the British, then China's century-long history of humiliation in modern times would also undergo great changes.
Therefore, we should still look at the situation under the rule of the Qing Dynasty through the eyes of the time, rather than looking at the Qing Dynasty with the standard of modern judgment.
Kangqian prosperous times
During the prosperous period of the Kangqian period, the mainland actually made a lot of achievements in the economic and military fields.
The first is economically, although many people today often refer to this prosperous era as the "prosperous era of sweet potatoes" when looking at the prosperous era of Kangqian.
The reason is very simple, because during this period, due to the deepening of global trade, crops such as corn, sorghum, sweet potatoes and other crops became popular in China.
Therefore, many people believe that the reason for the prosperity of the Kangqian era was only because of the cultivation of these high-yield crops, which further increased the grain yield per mu in China at that time, coupled with the continuous expansion of the cultivated area, so that the Qing Dynasty could produce a prosperous era and greatly increased the population at that time.
But in fact, although the planting area of high-yield crops such as sweet potatoes and corn in the Qing Dynasty increased compared with that in the Ming Dynasty, it was not actually the main source of food.
According to relevant data, even in the Republic of China period after the fall of the Qing Dynasty, the proportion of high-yield crops such as corn was only about one-tenth of the country, while in the Qing Dynasty, this proportion was obviously much lower.
Therefore, it is somewhat one-sided to summarize the prosperous era of Kangqian with "sweet potato prosperity".
In addition to a series of external factors, the stable social environment during this period and the policy support of the Qing Dynasty were also major factors.
In the more than 100 years from Kangxi to Qianlong, there were no large-scale wars in the traditional Central Plains (Wu Sangui fought as far as Hunan), so during this period, the Central Plains was relatively peaceful.
You must know that a period of stability of more than 100 years is very rare in ancient China, although such a prosperous era as the Kangqian era has appeared many times in Chinese history, but such a prosperous era as the Kaiyuan era and the reign of Wenjing is only a few decades.
During the Kang Yongqian period of the Qing Dynasty, in addition to the relative stability of the society, there were two major ruling classes within the Qing Dynasty at that time, that is, the Manchurian aristocracy dominated by Manchus and the scholar class dominated by Han scholars.
This made the Qing Dynasty able to implement and implement far-reaching policies such as changing the land and returning it to the stream, and spreading the land into acres.
After all, policies such as changing the land to the stream and dividing the land into acres were by no means invented during the Qing Dynasty, but before the Qing Dynasty, these policies were difficult to implement because they would face huge resistance in the process of implementation.
Fortunately, during the Qing Dynasty, because the Manchu Qing Dynasty had two relatively opposing ruling groups, which enabled the Qing Dynasty at that time to implement these systems, which greatly improved the Qing Dynasty's economy and population.
Of course, although China in the Kangqian era could be called a "prosperous era" in ancient society, at the same time, the development form of the world was indeed changing with each passing day, and in the face of the vigorous development of Western countries, the backwardness of the Qing Dynasty became more and more obvious.
More importantly, despite the large increase in the Chinese population during the Qing Dynasty, the Qing Dynasty did not carry out corresponding universal education throughout the country.
As a result, although the population of the Qing Dynasty increased significantly, the overall quality of the increased population was very low, and they could only operate some production activities related to agriculture.
However, China's cultivated land area is still a little stretched compared with the large increase in population, so when the grain yield per mu in the feudal period reached the bottleneck, with the large increase in population, the per capita grain of the Qing Dynasty people continued to decline.
Therefore, this led to the fact that the grain output of the Qing Dynasty could only barely keep up with the population growth rate, so that the rations that the people of the Qing Dynasty could obtain could only barely maintain food and clothing, so it is also reasonable to say that the Kangqian era was actually a "hungry and prosperous era".
epilogue
The prosperous Kangqian era during the Qing Dynasty was naturally incomparable with the rapidly developing West at that time, and such a prosperous era hid many "stubborn diseases" of the Qing Dynasty to a large extent, and these "stubborn diseases" caused great harm to later China in modern history.
But we should also be soberly aware that the widening gap between China and the West at that time was not caused to a large extent by the Qing Dynasty itself.
In the face of Western capitalism, which is much more advanced than the feudal system, it is difficult for any feudal dynasty to stop.
Resources
Beijing Social Sciences: "Does the "Kangqian Prosperous Age" Really Exist?—— Analysis Based on Economic Data Calculation", September 22, 2013
Jiang Gongtao: General History of China, History of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Chapter 6: The Extreme Prosperity and Decline of the Qing Dynasty
"Dai Yi: How to Know the "Prosperous Era of Kang Yongqian" - A Reply to Mr. Zhou Siyuan
"Qing Shilu"
《Manuscript of Qing History》
"Corn and sweet potatoes from the Americas created the prosperous era of Kangqian?"