The U.S. government had close communication with Daming for the sake of the Li Xiande case, and they believed that Li Xiande's behavior was indeed inappropriate and did not represent the attitude of the U.S. government, and in this incident, the U.S. government has always been firmly supportive of China's position in its public attitude. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 ｉｎfo

Historically, the US minister to Japan discovered the movements of the Japanese just before Japan landed on Taiwan, and on 18 April a month ago, he met with Japanese Foreign Minister Buno Keifan at the US Embassy, saying that "the entire island of Taiwan is under the jurisdiction of the Qing Dynasty" and that "US ships and people will be prevented from being employed by the government of your country." He also demanded that Japan dismiss Li Xiande, who put forward the "theory that there is no owner in the land".

The attitude of the United States is very clear, they absolutely do not want to get involved in East Asian disputes, the United States in history, until the old Roosevelt era, has always been very restrained in the expansion outside the Americas, the first is worried about causing the vigilance of the old European powers, you must know that since the American Civil War, everyone has begun to worry about the threat of the United States, the second is that the United States itself has not yet developed it, and does not want to be distracted by external affairs at all, and third, there may be some so-called statesmen's idealism, in short, the United States before the Spanish-American War, Always give the impression of, or rather create, a sense of pacifism.

In fact, the Ming government has had a very close relationship with the Americans in recent years, and the United States has surpassed Russia to become the second largest trading partner of the Ming Dynasty, second only to Britain. In the tea trade, the United States ranks third after Britain and Russia, and in the trade of silk fabrics, it ranks second only to the United Kingdom, and the growth rate of Daming goods exported to the United States market is extremely fast, and it is expected to surpass Britain within ten years.

Historically, it was precisely because Japan made a breakthrough in the American market that before the First Sino-Japanese War, it surpassed the Manchu Qing Dynasty in the trade of raw silk and silk, and accumulated huge industrial capital for Japan, and in addition to the American market, France and Japan never surpassed the Qing Dynasty in the main raw silk market.

In addition, the Ming Dynasty also emigrated to the United States in large numbers, and at the same time, it also exported a large number of laborers every year, and the number of Chinese migrant workers who went to the south of the United States to pick cotton every year has exceeded 300,000, and it is growing at a rate of more than 30 percent every year, wantonly seizing the employment of blacks, forcing a large number of blacks to move to the north and west of the United States, and bringing great public security problems to all parts of the United States.

If Daming wants to continue these undertakings, it cannot do without the cooperation of the United States, so it is in the consideration of maintaining Sino-US friendship.

Although the Daming court sentenced Li Xiande to 30 years in prison, Zhu Jinglun, in his capacity as emperor, granted him an amnesty and released him on the spot.

Of course, in recent years, the United States has not exported less goods to the Ming Dynasty, the leading products are the cotton in the south of the United States, and made in the United States, far less detailed than the British cloth, but it is the coarse cloth that the people of the Ming Dynasty like, the minerals in the west have also begun to enter the Ming market, mainly copper ore, in the iron ore, they can not compete with British products for the time being, not that their minerals are worse than the British, but their labor costs are too high and the price is too expensive.

Basically, the trade between the two countries can reach a balance, and the Ming Dynasty has a rare surplus, with exports of 10 million taels and imports of 8 million taels, which can be said to be mutually beneficial.

The problem of the Americans has also been solved, but the impact of Japan's invasion of Taiwan on the Chinese region continues.

Historically, this Japanese invasion of Taiwan was actually the first incident that had a profound impact on the Chinese people before the Sino-Japanese War and after the Opium War.

On September 11, after the end of Japan's invasion of Taiwan, he published an editorial entitled "The Qing State Should Strive for Revitalization", pointing out that "the Qing Dynasty was a big state in the world, but it was frightened by a small island country in Japan, and allowed its troops to be stationed in the territory. In this situation, "An Neng doesn't rectify the military system and follow the example of Taixi's soldiers"? The author further points out that not only the Western countries have "strengthened themselves with new laws," but Japan, which is also in Asia, has "conscientiously studied and learned" and has been able to gradually reap the effect of becoming a strong country.

It is not a big deal to declare the publication of this report, because similar arguments have appeared many times in the newspapers of foreigners.

Westerners always admonish Chinese to improve themselves as teachers, which makes a large number of old-school readers very disgusted, and their self-esteem and pride make them unable to accept foreigners' statements. But the declaration of this report is different, because although the declaration is a newspaper handled by foreigners in the United States, the purpose is to make a profit, but the editor-in-chief chooses Chinese, they hope to use the perspective of Chinese to carry out news reporting, hoping that with this Western management method, the newspaper from the perspective of Chinese locals can open up the market.

Therefore, this article calling on the Qing State to be invigorated and self-reliant, in fact, comes from the mouth of Chinese intellectuals, and is quite representative, which shows that among the Chinese reading class, mainly in the port cities where Chinese and Western countries are mixed, there have been a number of intellectuals who have received Chinese-style education but have been able to examine international events from the perspective of the West or even the world.

Of course, this is only a small number of people, such as the editor-in-chief of the declaration, Jiang Zhixiang is a Hunan scholar, he found the deputy editor-in-chief, or a showman, Jiang Zhixiang later also passed the Jinshi, they are all people with profound old learning skills, but they can smoothly change their worldview, this phenomenon shows that the Chinese reading class is not as stubborn as imagined.

The impact of this report is not here, the significance is far more than showing a few new Chinese intellectuals, but it has caused the enlightenment of the entire reading class.

Because not long after the publication of this editorial, a conservative reader soon stood up and submitted a book "Declaration" under the pseudonym of "The Master of the Continuation History Building" to refute the comment that the Qing State was not self-reliant. The "Declaration" for the purpose of profit deliberately published the article "Refuting the Proposal on the Revitalization of China" on the front page. In the article, the "master of the continuation of the history building" praised the martial arts of the Qing Dynasty in the past dynasties, and the Qing government did not move to Japan's invasion of Taiwan, and he defended that it was not the cowardice of the Qing army, but the strategy and tactics of the imperial court, and he should not grow the prestige of others and destroy his own ambition. The owner of the Continuation History Building also argued that the Qing Dynasty had achieved remarkable results in studying Western military technology, and that "there were battalions for flowering artillery, battalions for foreign guns, bureaus for military uniforms and machines, and manned pilots for ships." The opening of the Cantonese dialect museum, the study of Spanish, the translation of books that "help you get rich" such as Gezhi arithmetic, and the dispatch of students to study abroad have all been held one after another, and have gradually achieved results. As for the withdrawal of the levy and the passage of steamships, the rules are being discussed at the discretion of the government, in order to protect China's inherent expediency and prevent foreign businessmen from coveting it.

The owner of this continuation of the history building is obviously a traditional scholar who understands foreign affairs better, but even this kind of traditional scholar has begun to face up to foreign affairs, and regard the construction of foreign affairs carried out by Zeng Guofan and others as achievements, rather than being criticized by forgetting their ancestors, which reflects from the side that the Western invasion has had a substantial impact on this ancient continent.

At the time of the debate between enlightened and conservative readers, some foreigners who already knew a lot about Chinese culture also joined in, and a foreign country who claimed to "love China" and called himself Xiyou wrote a letter entitled "Xiyou on China's Accumulation of Evils".

This "Xiyou" pointed out that the two debaters of the "Declaration" and the "master of the Continuation History Building" are not fundamental problems, and that China's great trouble lies not in the weakness of the country, but in the lack of people's morale, and that there are ten major factors that cause this situation, namely, the administrative channels are not smooth, the boundaries of the regions are too divided, there are too many idle officials, the selection of talents is not suitable, the taxes paid by the people are too small, the remuneration of officials is too thin, the national strength is too weak, the military defense is too sparse, the self-pretensions of the scholars are too high, and the desire for self-interest is too great. All these ten ends are different from those of other countries, and they are the cause of China's predicament.

The author believes that the Qing officialdom was strictly hierarchical and forbidden, which led to the bureaucracy's obedience to promises and perfunctory responsibility, and the people could not hear about it, and it was difficult to issue government decrees. Local officials are acting in their own way, and not only are "the governors of the other provinces irrelevant to each other, but also the provincial governments, departments, prefectures, and counties are also in the same territory." Even if it is a matter of military affairs, it is difficult for them to actively cooperate and coordinate their work. There are too many idle officials in the political circles, and when there is nothing to do, they will spend money and obstruct everything, resulting in lower and lower administrative efficiency. In addition, the method of recruiting officials, which is mainly based on imperial examinations and donations, also determines that officials at all levels do not use what they have learned, use what they can, and only accumulate money if they can do so, which seriously restricts the quality building of the contingent of administrative talents. Although the government's statutory tax rate is not high, the actual private expenditure is not low, and it is difficult to plug the tax loopholes, resulting in huge tax costs. Officials' statutory salaries are too small to support their families, forcing them to be corrupt. The Qing government's Eight Banners and Green Battalion have a total of one million, but the salary of the soldiers is insufficient, and the salary of a soldier is not enough for one person's food and clothing. If you have another picture, how can you concentrate on the performance and hope that you will be proficient? Can't you be skilled in drills, but can you be strong in military strength? In addition, the Eight Banners and the Green Battalion are only land forces, which are suitable for traditional land security and defense; At present, the sea frontier is opening up day by day, the coastal defense is becoming more and more urgent, and the decayed and weak old-style army can hardly meet the needs of modern national defense.

The views of these foreigners on the China question in the era of 1874 can be said to be shocking.

Zhu Jinglun, who likes to read the newspaper to understand the civil situation, also saw these discussions, because he found that the social ills of the Qing Dynasty in the evaluation of Westerners still exist even in the Ming Dynasty, which has been reformed for more than ten years.

The only thing that relieved him was that among the voices of these discussions, the other protagonist of Japan's invasion of Taiwan, the Ming government, was generally given positive comments.

However, what Zhu Jinglun was most satisfied with in the discussions of these newspapers was mainly the participation of a large number of non-governmental intellectuals, and this kind of great discussion was precisely a kind of ideological enlightenment and modern consciousness of the non-governmental intellectual groups.

This kind of enlightenment not only occurred in Shanghai, the most open port, but also in various ports of the Ming Dynasty, because the government has never restricted speech, and because Hong Kong is a British colony, it cannot restrict speech, and it has long begun to germinate.