Preface
"Hulu has no luck for a hundred years!"
In 1367 AD, before Zhu Yuanzhang was in the Northern Expedition, he commissioned the famous scholar Song Lian to draft a Northern Expedition text called "The Imperial Expedition", which was spread for a long time in the following time.
However, hundreds of years after the publication of this document, the Manchu regime, established by ethnic minorities on the mainland, ruled the Central Plains for 276 years, thus making this famous statement useless.
So, what is the reason why the Manchu Eight Banners, with a population of only a few million, ruled over hundreds of millions of Han people for nearly 300 years?
The rulers of the Qing Dynasty attached great importance to the people's livelihood
When it comes to the history of the Qing army's entry into the customs, many people will naturally think of the history of the Qing army's killing of innocent people such as "Ten Days in Yangzhou" and "Three Massacres in Jiading".
In addition, in order to implement the rule, the rulers of the Qing Dynasty forced the Han people in the ruling area to carry out government decrees such as "shaving their hair and changing clothes", which made the Chinese people have an extra "braid" on their heads, and was ridiculed by foreigners in the following hundreds of years.
However, although the Qing rulers carried out a series of "iron-fisted measures" in order to maintain their own rule, at the same time, the Qing rulers also knew very well that maintaining their own rule must not put all Han people in opposition to themselves.
Therefore, in order to be able to rule better, the rulers of the Qing Dynasty attached great importance to people's livelihood.
You must know that from ancient times to the present, people's livelihood problems are the primary problems that a country has to face, like the Ming Dynasty before the Qing Dynasty, because of the great famine at the end of the Ming Dynasty, which caused the common people to live in a small area, and then buried the entire Ming Dynasty under the anger of the peasant uprising.
At that time, the rulers of the Qing Dynasty who entered the Central Plains naturally learned the lessons of the fall of the previous dynasty, and the total population of the Manchu Qing Dynasty was really "a drop in the bucket" compared to the Han people.
Under such circumstances, the Manchu court will naturally carry out a series of livelihood measures.
For example, during the Kangxi reign of the Qing Dynasty, the people in the Yellow River basin were attacked by floods all year round, and these raging floods greatly threatened the production and life safety of the local people.
Almost every flood will bring extremely tragic losses to the people in the Yellow River Basin, a large number of people will be killed as a result, and a large amount of farmland will be barren.
Faced with such a situation, the Kangxi Emperor still allocated a large amount of money every year to control the floods in the Yellow River basin when the Qing court's finances were very scarce.
After years of governance activities, the floods in the Yellow River basin on the mainland since the end of the Ming Dynasty have been effectively controlled in the early and middle Qing Dynasty, which has also stabilized the lives of the local people.
Throughout the more than 200 years of history of the Qing Dynasty, the number of Han Chinese has increased greatly compared to the last years of the Ming Dynasty, which also enabled the Qing Dynasty to further maintain its rule in the Central Plains.
The sinicization of the Eight Banners of the Manchu Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was a dynasty established by ethnic minorities, and it is precisely for this reason, coupled with the fact that some remarks about "Han nationalism" are very popular on the Internet, which makes many people not have a very high evaluation of the Qing Dynasty, and some people even think that the Qing Dynasty ruled for nearly 300 years, in fact, it was an era of barbarian rule.
But in fact, before the Qing Dynasty entered the Central Plains, it was actually a fishing and hunting people with long-term ties with the Central Plains, especially the Jianzhou Jurchens who started in the Qing Dynasty, and they were the fetters under the rule of the Ming Dynasty at that time.
Therefore, whether it is the Manchu nobles or the ordinary people of the Eight Banners, they all have a very good understanding of Han culture and are very willing to learn Han culture.
Under such circumstances, when the Qing Dynasty entered the Central Plains, the Manchu Qing began to continue to sinicize, and many Manchus even did not even speak their own Manchu language in the continuous communication with the Han people.
You must know that in order to demonstrate the dominance of the Manchus, the Qing Dynasty rulers at that time actually created many artificial obstacles in the Manchu-Han exchanges, and the Qing Dynasty rulers paid more attention to the use of Manchu among the Manchus.
However, even with so many means, due to the strength of Han culture, the cultural gap between the Manchus and the Han people continued to decrease.
Today, the difference between the Manchus and the Han may be just a difference between filling in the "Han" column or "Manchu" in the ethnic column.
For the Qing Dynasty in the feudal society, it was precisely because of the continuous sinicization of the Manchus at that time that the Qing Dynasty was able to rule itself.
The division of the rulers collapsed
As mentioned above, in the process of entering the Central Plains, the Qing Dynasty was actually constantly learning the advanced culture of the Han land, which made the Qing rulers very clear about what they needed to do to rule the Han people.
You must know that in ancient China, although there were officials sent by the imperial court to manage the localities, at that time, it was actually those literati and doctors who were in the main position.
For those literati and doctors at the end of the Ming Dynasty, the peasant rebel army was a more serious threat than the Qing army, after all, for these squires in the fish and meat village in peacetime, when the peasant rebel army came, they had the threat of being raided.
The rulers of the Qing Dynasty at that time saw such a point, so after the Qing army entered Beijing, the slogan they played was: Swing the Liukou and avenge the Ming Dynasty.
Although to the people of the time and to the people of today, this kind of statement is only a superficial statement.
But for those scholars and doctors at the end of the Ming Dynasty, the Qing Dynasty that entered the Central Plains played such a banner, which meant that these Qing troops from between the white mountains and black waters would not raid their homes like the peasant rebels.
Therefore, in the process of the Qing Dynasty to eliminate the remnants of the Ming Dynasty, these literati and doctors actually contributed to a certain extent, which also allowed them to continue to ensure their privileged position in the local area in the days to come.
The Qing rulers also had good relations with these gentry, so that the Qing Dynasty could better strengthen its control over the vast Han land, so that the minority Manchu government could rule over the Han land of hundreds of millions of people for nearly 300 years.
Guarantee of military power
Of course, although the Qing Dynasty was able to rule over a large area with a relatively small population, it inevitably needed to be supported by a strong army, in addition to some policies.
Although many people today have the impression that the Qing Dynasty army was mainly composed of the children of the Manchu Eight Banners, at most they just joined some Han green battalion soldiers.
Due to the influence of some TV series and other reasons, many people feel that the weapons and equipment of the Qing Dynasty army are very inferior, and there is not much combat effectiveness at all.
But in fact, the composition of the Qing army was very diverse, in addition to the Eight Banners Army and the Green Battalion soldiers, the Qing Dynasty would also recruit Sauron soldiers and Mongol soldiers to fight.
Many of the Sauron soldiers here are very familiar to them, and because they have lived in the brutal wilderness environment for a long time, their combat ability is very strong.
As for the Mongol soldiers, it was because the Qing Dynasty's ruling territory was very broad, and the vast ruling territory allowed the Qing Dynasty to rule the Han land and other frontier areas to varying degrees.
For example, the Mongol soldiers, in addition to incorporating some Mongols into the Mongolian Eight Banners, the Qing Dynasty also closely linked Mongolia and the Qing rulers by letting the Qing emperor marry a Mongolian princess.
Under these circumstances, the Manchu regime was able to pull in a large number of elite soldiers throughout the country to deal with the armed rebellion that broke out in Han China and other frontier areas.
In addition to the abundant supply of soldiers, benefiting from the Qing rulers' emphasis on social and people's livelihood, this enabled the Qing Dynasty to obtain sufficient financial revenue, which made the Qing Dynasty army's weaponry level very high.
Although it was not comparable to the Western capitalist countries at that time, among the surrounding countries, the level of weapons and equipment of the Qing Dynasty army was still very high, and weapons such as muskets and artillery were also equipped with the Qing army on a large scale.
Therefore, for most of the Qing Dynasty's rule, the Qing rulers always had a strong army in their hands.
Resources
"Qing Shilu"
《Manuscript of Qing History》