Text/Bureau of Knowledge of Everything
All of the information stated in this article is based on reliable sources of information and is detailed at the end of the article
In the late Qing Dynasty, the invasion of Western powers, and after the defeat of the First Opium War, the West forced China to sign a series of unequal treaties, and the Qing government at this time, in all aspects, began to show signs of decay.
The Qing government faced the dual pressure at home and abroad, and there were also some voices of resistance within the Qing government, and with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement and the Boxer Rebellion set off by the peasant class, the Western forces and the Qing government were dealt a certain blow.
Although it is said that the invasion of foreign forces is not conducive to China's development, to a certain extent, these have also integrated the advanced culture of the West into Chinese culture, and promoted the development and innovation of Chinese culture.
In the late Qing Dynasty, what kind of situation was China, maybe you can't know from the TV series, after all, the TV series has a certain amount of exaggeration and fiction, the following old photos, maybe subvert your perception of the Qing Dynasty, let us feel the history together, understand the real history.
Judging from the photos, the two women are dressed and do not look like the servants at home, as can be seen from the photos, it is a flag personality who washes the clothes, she spreads her thighs, and is washing her clothes proudly.
In that exquisite era, it was very uncivilized for a woman to wash clothes like this, and next to the woman who washed clothes, there was a woman.
Although this is a photo of the late Qing Dynasty, we don't know the identity between them, but we can guess that the woman who lifts the curtain may be the wife of the family, and the one who sits down to wash clothes may be the concubine of the family.
In the later part of the Qing Dynasty, there was serious corruption within the Qing government, and there were many natural disasters during that period, so the peasant class had to make a resolute resistance, and various peasant class struggles came into being.
The peasant class movement, to a certain extent, also had a certain impact on the rule of the Qing Dynasty, which became more and more shaky.
Before the Opium War, the Qing government had already had serious problems, such as economic depression and serious land annexation.
The land was not in the hands of the peasants, but in the hands of the bureaucrats and nobles of the time, and in that period, natural disasters were rampant, so the life of the common people was very pitiful.
It is this situation that makes the people of the Qing Dynasty, the gap between the rich and the poor is getting wider and wider, the rich are particularly rich, and the poor are very poor, and at this time, the Qing Dynasty came into being and gave birth to the usury industry.
For some peasants who are no longer able to survive, they can only choose usury, and you can imagine what happened next.
The more there is no knowledge, the more pitiful the situation of people's survival, at the end of the Qing Dynasty, natural disasters often endanger the local people, in 1875, the Central Plains suffered a great drought, the disaster came, it can be said that whether there is money or no money, whether it is animals or people, will experience an unprecedented catastrophe.
In order to survive, people even eat some discarded items, and the most terrible thing is that some people still eat human flesh alive. According to statistics, nearly 200 million people were affected by this disaster, of which more than 10 million died of starvation.
"Disaster is ruthless, people have affection", in the face of disaster, our great Chinese nation has demonstrated unprecedented solidarity and mutual assistance, in the most serious disaster in Shanxi, the Li family of Rishengchang, donated 50,000 taels of silver, in order to solve the problem of eating for the people, the businessman himself organized a grain purchase team, and at this time, the imperial court, sent troops to escort.
Although it is said that this period of history has passed, it can show that in the period of crisis, everyone in the Chinese nation is doing what he can to help the country survive the disaster.
In the last decades of the Qing Dynasty, the lives of the common people can be said to have reached the darkest period, and in the following photo, several beggars without clothes are shown.
In them, there may really be nothing of value, or maybe in their eyes, the rice bowl in their hands is the only thing of value.
For some poor people, they can only live in low stone houses, because the space inside is very narrow, they can only put their own eating bowls, outside the door of the house, in the picture, two people sitting in their door, as if talking about something.
If the current crops are watered with animal manure, it is a pollution-free food, and if this situation is placed in the late Qing Dynasty, it is generally the people at the bottom of the society, because there is no money, and use cow dung and sheep dung to cook on the fire, in the past, those who could afford firewood were generally rich families.
In the photo below, an old man is picking up cow dung by the river, and now farmers use chemical fertilizer to water their crops, if you want to eat this pollution-free manure watering, it will have to pay a high price to eat, do you also think it is strange, the past and the present are just reversed.
In the late Qing Dynasty, due to the incompetence of the Qing government, coupled with the habit of living a luxurious life, even if the land was ceded and the compensation was paid, it could not let its consumption level decline, so that these needed to be borne by the people.
In the photo below, an older sister with two younger sisters can be seen from the photo, the youngest sister can't walk, can only be carried by the eldest sister, maybe their parents have also starved to death.
Judging from the age of the three children, even the eldest one is only more than seven or eight years old.
In the evil old society, in order to win the aesthetic needs of men, they even asked women to bind their feet, in their eyes, the three-inch golden lotus is a perfect woman must have, sometimes, only women with this three-inch golden lotus can marry into a good family.
Women have to wrap their feet at a very young age, which can be said to be a very cruel thing, whether it is spiritual or physical, it is undoubtedly a great harm.
Maybe at this time, because they are young, they don't understand what it means, but when they grow up, this kind of behavior will bring serious inconvenience to their lives and bring lifelong disabilities.
This is a tea shed, where the people of the past will stop, in order to rest and rest, in the corner of the city wall, a master who shaves his head, is shaving the head of the guests.
At the end of the Qing Dynasty, the life of the common people was miserable, and some people would solicit guests on the streets in order to live better.
By the end of the Qing Dynasty, electric lights had appeared on the streets, and this situation was very common in the Forbidden City. The emergence of this situation is also a manifestation of the entry of Western culture into China.
In modern cities, the streets are lined with various night markets, and this kind of fireworks is the most desirable life for every Chinese.
In the late Qing Dynasty, in order to live, people also put up snacks on both sides of the street, and the following photo is a vendor selling various snacks.
The history in the TV series is always beautiful, but in reality, at the end of the Qing Dynasty, it was a lack of names and displacement, whether walking on the street or in the alleys, the people everywhere showed that they were skinny and wearing shabby clothes.
The arrogance and lasciviousness of the Qing government are very prominent, in that period, the rich family, but also really very rich, the following photo, is really the gap between the rich and the poor in the late Qing Dynasty vividly shown, this is a large landowner's family, from the photo, he married a total of seven wives and concubines.
Although he has so many wives, but from the picture, they all don't care about each other, just imagine, a man is with seven women all day long, and I don't know whether his heart is really happy, or fake happiness?
At the end of the Qing Dynasty, almost all people were immersed in the "happiness" of opium, unable to extricate themselves, every time night fell, there would always be some places, filled with the smell of opium, and the people who smoked opium were from the rich people at the beginning, and finally spread to all the people.
We know that opium is actually what is now called drugs, and China's zero tolerance for drugs is also due to the hatred of opium during this period.
If a person smokes it for a long time, it will become lifeless, and eventually opium will eat your life little by little. I really hope that all people can stay away from drugs.
This picture is a fisherman by the river, and it can be seen from the picture that his home is actually a dilapidated tent, and outside the tent is all his belongings.
At the end of the Qing Dynasty, in order to compensate the Western powers, local officials did everything possible to loot the people, but they still lived a luxurious life.
In the late Qing Dynasty, in order to better control the people, the Qing government increased the punishment of punishment, and the following photo shows a group of prisoners who are about to be exiled.
We don't know what kind of punishment the specific prisoners committed, but we don't have to put a wooden plank weighing more than 10 pounds around their necks.
There are some prisoners who do not commit crimes to death, and in the process of exile, they will be tortured to death by this plank. In the late Qing Dynasty, it can really be described as purgatory on earth.
In general, in the late Qing Dynasty, the people were displaced and miserable, and the people in the palace may not be very happy, after all, the contradictions in society are so prominent.
In the later period, due to the invasion of foreign powers, the Qing government was unable to continue to maintain, so there is one word to describe this era, that is, "internal and external troubles".