Territories have been an indispensable part of a state since ancient times.
For us today, when it comes to the issue of national territorial sovereignty, it is even more necessary to adhere to the concept of fighting for every inch of land. However, during the Qing Dynasty, some people proposed to the emperor to raise funds to implement the change of law by selling the national territory. Perhaps to us today this idea is both absurd and ridiculous, but in that period, people's views on this practice were mixed, with some agreeing and some opposing.
After all, you can't ask an ordinary person to have a high level of political consciousness, but when such an idea comes from a member of the imperial court, it seems a little ridiculous and pathetic.
Having said all this, everyone must be curious, who is the person who put forward this absurd idea?
Everyone must remember the poem "I smiled at the sky from the horizontal knife, and went to leave the liver and gallbladder for two kunluns." "Yes, he is the representative figure of the famous reform school in the history of our country: Tan Sitong. Perhaps in the hearts of many people he is a hero, for the sake of the country's transformation and efforts to become stronger, for the reform and restoration of the head, spilling blood, not afraid of sacrifice. However, it was precisely such a national hero in the eyes of the world who, in order to realize his so-called great cause of changing the law, put forward a ridiculous proposal to the Guangxu Emperor to "sell land to raise money".
It can be said that if the Guangxu Emperor agreed to this matter, then the vast lands such as Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Tibet, and Qinghai may no longer be owned by China.
So, what's going on here?
In the last years of the Qing Dynasty, China's national strength was declining. We all know that the world we live in has always prevailed in the natural law of "the weak eat the strong", and when a country does not have a stable political situation and a strong force to protect itself, then it must face the fate of being divided up by the strong.
At that time, the Qing Dynasty was encountering such a crisis, and when watching its country as helpless as duckweed, there would always be a group of people with lofty ideals who stood up and hoped to save the country from danger through their own efforts.
This group of people is divided into two categories:
The first type always thinks of blocking thousands of iron horses with their own strength. They often want to change the situation of the whole country through their own strength, and the result is always unsatisfactory, about this kind of person, let's call him a brave and resourceful type. Maybe their intentions are good, but they use the wrong method, so they often do more with less.
The second type of people, their means of saving the country are much more advanced than those of the first type of people. They often do not make senseless sacrifices, and they do not try to save the country from fire and water through their own strength. In fact, they see deeper problems and always try to save their country from the most fundamental.
For the second category of people, they can call it the "Reformers" of the Fa.
Usually, this kind of person has a bigger picture view, they often see the core of a country's ills, and have been trying to fundamentally solve this problem. Therefore, the most fundamental way for them to solve this problem is to change the law, and they try to make their country stronger through the change of law. Only when our own strength is enhanced can we not be afraid of the aggression of foreign enemies.
In fact, from a personal point of view, I very much agree with their ideas and practices. But in fact, there is often a big gap between imagination and reality. There is nothing wrong with the change itself, but in the process of implementing the change, we must use the right method. Only with the right approach can we solve the problem we want to solve from the root. If we use the wrong method, we will go further and further away from our original intention.
In my opinion, Tan Sitong used the wrong method in the process of changing the law.
So, when he first changed the law, why did he come up with the idea of raising funds by selling territory? This is actually very closely related to the historical background at that time.
In fact, the Qing Emperor Guangxu at that time had been trying to solve the growing problems in The country by implementing the reform of the law, but due to the huge strength of the conservative faction at that time, their activities to change the law were greatly hindered. Moreover, at that time, the Sino-Japanese War was defeated, and as a defeated country, the Qing Dynasty was facing a huge indemnity of 20,000 taels of silver. And this is undoubtedly worse for the difficult change of law activities.
The implementation of the policy of changing the law, which originally required a large amount of money, is now facing such a large amount of compensation. So, where should the imperial court go to raise so much silver?
At this time, someone proposed to the emperor to sell Xinjiang and Tibet to Russia and Britain to raise funds. There are two main people who made this suggestion: one is Tan Sitong and the other is Kang Youwei. Although the two men, as the mainstays of the law change school, made this proposal, their ultimate purpose was the same, that is, to raise funds for the change of law.
Tan Sitong wrote to the Guangxu Emperor that:
According to the current situation in the country, it is already a very difficult thing to raise such a huge amount of money. Therefore, their best bet is to sell Xinjiang to Russia and Tibet to England. Although these two places are very vast, the land is very poor. Guarding such a barren place, the state not only does not collect any taxes a year, but also spends millions of troops to defend it.
As a result, the state spends more money in both places each year than its actual income. Therefore, for such a chicken rib-like existence, instead of spending most of the money to raise it, it is better to sell it to other countries at a low price. Russia and England have been coveting these two places for a long time, and once the two countries want to fight for these two places through war, in fact, our country does not have enough troops to guard it, so it is better to sell this hot potato and make a profit.
In addition, he also believes that this has another advantage for our country, that is, we can not only get a lot of money by selling land, but also win the favor of these two countries. On the one hand, we can compensate Japan with the money obtained from the sale of land, and on the other hand, we can also use the remaining money to build schools and railways, so as to continue our great cause of changing the law.
At the same time, if these two countries have acquired a large piece of land as large as ours without a single soldier, their governments will be very happy. In this way, we can take the opportunity to commit these two countries to protect our country for a decade free of charge. However, this kind of protection does not require the presence of troops in our country, but only the two countries to speak out and show that they are willing to protect us. Thus they used the power of their country to negotiate with Japan, to withdraw from our treaty ports, and to take this opportunity to abrogate the unequal treaties that our country had signed before.
In addition, he also believes that his proposal is actually a kind of "disaster to the east" strategy, and he believes that if China sells these two places to two countries, the two countries can calculate each other. In this way, they will have no time to take care of China, and we can take advantage of the fishermen.
In fact, the reason why Kang Youwei made this proposal may be largely influenced by Tan Sitong. When he proposed to implement the new policy of changing the law, someone asked him where the funds for the change of the law came from.
He proposed three solutions at the time:
The first is to disregard the country's gold reserves and issue paper money in a big way. In order to further prove the feasibility of this method, he also cited Japan as an example, saying that Japan raised funds through this method and successfully completed the change of the law.
The second is to borrow from foreign countries as collateral for assets such as minerals and railways in our country. He thought we were good friends with the United States at the time, and the United States just needed these things. If you use them as collateral, then you must be able to borrow tens of thousands of taels of silver.
The third is to sell Tibet. He believed that from the vast territory of Tibet alone, this place could sell for at least fifty thousand taels of silver. In this way, after paying the compensation of 20,000 taels, we can still have 30,000 taels left as the funds for the change of law. With such a large sum of money, we can use it to build railways, train elite soldiers, build schools, and even use it to buy a large number of advanced ships to train a powerful naval team.
In short, in his view, after selling Tibet, our country will receive countless benefits. And, if the funds are not enough in the later stage, we can sell other places. All in all, where the remote sells, where the barren sells, the low price to sell these baggage-like places to other countries, we can not only reduce our own burden but also get a large amount of silver money, this is simply a steady profit business.
However, is this really the case?
In my opinion, they think this thing is too simple. Personally, these two men are simply typical of the fearlessness of the ignorant. Regardless of whether the act of buying and selling national territory is right or not, from their above point of view alone, they do not know how to buy and sell territory at all.
Is it right to raise funds by selling out the territorial sovereignty of the country and to engage in reform laws, and can their practices be understood and recognized by the people? In a way, in fact, it is the benevolent who sees the wise. At least, at that time, there were still many people who agreed with their approach, after all, the situation was compelling, and if there was not enough funding, then the state's law change action would stagnate.
Therefore, some people believe that this kind of behavior of theirs is actually a helpless act, which can be understood and accepted by others.
However, I disagree with neither the people at the time nor their approach.
Why?
Because, in my opinion, this proposal of the two is no different from that of a traitor, tan Sitong originally proposed that china can reach an agreement with the two countries by reducing the land sale price in these two places, so that these two countries can protect our country free of charge for ten years. Moreover, he also proposed that what we wanted was only a verbal promise, but we did not need to send troops into our country. Didn't he think his own thinking was a little naïve? Once we have a protection agreement with these two countries, then they have the right to send troops into our country. In this way, it is undoubtedly a wolf into the house.
And he thinks those two countries will be happy to accept our low-priced land sale and purchase agreement, and I have to say that his idea is really too optimistic and confident. In fact, the reason why the two countries wanted our territory at that time was actually to a greater extent for trade, that is to say, their trade needs in our country at that time were, in fact, far greater than the territorial needs.
Therefore, in such a situation, a fool will spend a lot of money to buy your land.