Since the First Opium War, the influence of the Western world on the ancient land of China has been earth-shaking, although in the forties the Manchu Qing Dynasty still tried every possible way to block the invasion of Western culture, but as China as a whole gradually integrated into the global civilization system.

It is inevitable that traditional culture will be invaded by Western culture, and then the two will continue to melt and innovate.

This is the inevitability of the development of world civilization, there is no need to shout that the traditional culture has disappeared this inferiority argument, the traditional Chinese culture since ancient times, is known for its strong integration, any foreign thing to China, will always lose its original color, and then be integrated by the traditional Chinese culture, over time it will become a part of the traditional Chinese culture.

One of the most representative is Buddhism.

This Buddhism is a foreign object of the Eight Classics, but thousands of years later, the Chinese people have already regarded Buddhism as one of China's traditional cultures.

And Buddhism after taking root in China is also very different from Buddhism in India!

In the forties and fifties of the nineteenth century, it was the early stage of Western culture entering China, although it was not obvious, and it was related to the Manchu Qing and the natural rejection of the population.

However, this situation has changed dramatically after the rise of the Chinese army!

How did Lin Zhe's Chinese army rise and finally unify China, of course, there were the turmoil of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the backwardness of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, but to put it bluntly, the Chinese army was able to unify China, not relying on the wisdom of the generals, at least for so many years, although there were not a few generals in the Chinese army who won the battle. But it is still impossible to find out a real peerless name in the future.

The generals of the Chinese army, especially the generals of the early Chinese army, actually had a very average tactical level. They just apply what they have learned on the battlefield step by step.

In terms of soldiers, it is actually not very good, although the quality of soldiers in the early Chinese army is good. However, the comprehensive quality of the soldiers in Li Hongzhang's early Huai Army and the Qing court's new-style army was not bad, and the process and criteria for selecting soldiers were actually no different from those of the Chinese Army.

This can be seen from the fact that after the Chinese army defeated Li Hongzhang and many new armies in the Qing court, it accepted a large number of soldiers of the Manchurian New Army with confidence, and the soldiers between the two may have a gap in combat experience, but the difference in physical fitness and tactical training is not large.

So what are the factors that really cause the huge gap in combat effectiveness between the Chinese army and other new armies in China?

It's not just a weapon.

From the time of the Yongying in Yuyao County, when the Chinese army was established, they used Mini rifles, and waited after 1858. That is, when the decisive battle with the British and French forces in Shanghai, and the subsequent final northern expedition against the Manchu Qing Dynasty, followed by the westward expedition to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, some of the main forces of the Chinese army had been reequipped with rifles.

At the same time, the other new armies in the country were still using flintlock muskets, and only a small number were Mini rifles.

The gap in rifles alone is enough to form a horizontal gap that is difficult to cross in the combat effectiveness of the two.

And then the Chinese Army's Rimini rifles and breech-loading rifles and cannons and battleships are very typical foreign products.

It can be seen from this that from the very beginning, the Chinese army has had intensive contact with foreign Western civilizations!

After the empire was formed. It accelerated the introduction of Western civilization, especially its scientific civilization, and in 1857 sent the first batch of government-funded students to Europe, and when developing industry and commerce. It is also a vigorous introduction of Western machinery and equipment and technical personnel.

You must know that in the early days of the major factories in the Shanghai Business Zone, basically the middle and senior skilled workers were all foreigners hired with high salaries. It is only after the new higher education of the empire has gradually taken shape in recent years that it has cultivated its own high-tech talents. The figure of the Chinese gradually appeared in some high-tech positions, but even today in 1864. Foreign engineers are still very active in the major factories of the empire, for example, there are a large number of foreign engineers in the Linde Machinery Factory of the Royal Arms Company, and the designer who was in charge of the 1858 Linde rifle is actually a foreigner.

For these engineers working in China and the lecturers of those schools, the empire has adopted very strong preferential measures, the most obvious of which is to actively attract these high-end technical talents to join the empire's nationality.

In this era, although nationalism has sprouted, it is not yet mainstream, ordinary people do not rely too deeply on the concept of nation and state, in this era, the wave of immigration has not yet passed, and ordinary people do not reject immigrants.

In this environment, especially with Hunter? William's example is that a blonde and blue-eyed foreigner can occupy a high position in the imperial military, become a lieutenant general, and obtain a noble title, which fully shows that the empire's attitude towards talents does not discriminate between nationality and ethnicity.

This undoubtedly gives great confidence to some foreigners who want to work in China for a long time.

In the past few years, although the total number is not much, but every year there will be dozens of people who take the initiative to apply for imperial citizenship and get approved, although this number does not seem to be much, but you must know that these people who have joined the imperial international and been approved, they all have a common characteristic, that is, they are all high-end talents, either engineers in factories or professors and lecturers in schools.

The addition of these talents is a very valuable asset for an empire where high-end talents are extremely scarce.

Of course, the empire is not for all foreigners, and those who have nothing to offer, and who obviously want to venture into the Far East to make a fortune, are unlikely to be immediately approved to apply for citizenship, and at most they can obtain a residence permit.

And some ordinary foreigners, although they are not high-end talents, but if they have lived in China for a certain number of years, abided by the law and discipline, contributed a certain amount of taxes to the empire, and created a certain number of jobs, then they can also obtain nationality, but it is much more difficult.

No matter what the era, those convenient preferential conditions will not face ordinary people.

After all, what the empire needs is not ordinary foreigners, but those who have high-end knowledge and technology, and others are of little use to the empire.

From the point of view of immigrants, it can be seen how eager the empire was for Western scientific civilization.

The number of official students is increasing year by year, and the places of study are not limited to Britain and France, other Prussia and even Italy, the United States, and Austria have been sent, but the number of other countries is not large, and the number of students in the empire is mainly concentrated in Britain, supplemented by France and Prussia, and the number of students from other countries is very small, often only a few people.

The empire in the sixties was the time when traditional culture and Western culture collided most violently, and at this time, a large number of Western things were introduced to China through treaty ports such as Shanghai and Tianjin.

Most of them are scientific and cultural, such as ironclads and trains.

In addition to these visible scientific civilizations, there are also some soft cultures.

For example, clothing, people in the empire nowadays, especially in treaty ports such as Shanghai, suits are already more popular, and their popularity rate even exceeds that of Chinese clothing, why?

Because the Chinese costume is the standard clothing of officials in the empire, in the eyes of the people, this Chinese costume is the official uniform, so if it is not a state employee or a royal employee, ordinary people do not wear this Chinese costume in daily life.

In the hearts of ordinary Chinese people, Chinese clothing is a formal ceremony dress, expensive, this set of Chinese dress is casually dozens of yuan, a little better will have to be hundreds of yuan, much more expensive than the so-called brand-name suit in later generations, why is the price so expensive? Because the dress is made of imported woolen materials, and the empire in order to support the development of the domestic textile industry, the imported cotton, woolen and other textiles are subject to high customs duties, in addition, the woolen fabric and the ordinary people actually have nothing to do with it, can afford to wear it are people above the middle class, they have a stronger ability to bear the price, so the imported woolen wool in the sale, will also be levied luxury jewelry tax, the tax rate is higher than the domestic sale of raw silk.

In addition to the high cost of raw materials, there are also great requirements for workmanship, this dress has to rely on experienced old tailors to sew out a stitch and a thread, and the workmanship is absolutely not bad, and it takes a long time.

As a result, the price of domestic Chinese dresses is relatively expensive, even more than traditional silk fabrics, the price is not affordable by ordinary families, usually speaking, middle-class men only have one or two sets, and they will wear them on important occasions, and they are usually reluctant to wear.

Ordinary citizens still wear old horse coats and robes on a daily basis, some young men wear some retro hanfu, and as for the merchants, most of them wear suits.

As for the vast rural areas, what those peasants used to wear and still wear!

Therefore, on the streets of Shanghai, just from the clothes of the people, you can clearly feel the conflict and melting of Chinese and Western cultures.

Looking at the buildings with very obvious national styles on the streets of Shanghai, it is almost like walking in an international architecture expo, basically the world's more mainstream Western-style architectural styles can be seen here.

In this case, if Shanghai is still a colony, then the Chinese people will naturally not be happy to see it, because this is the past and shame of the colony.

However, this problem does not exist in Shanghai in this era, so the scope has a reputation for adopting the strengths of others.

Especially in the past two years, those powerful enterprises and companies in Shanghai have set off a wind of comparison, since Jardine Matheson rebuilt a five-storey, huge headquarters building on the Bund Avenue, it is connected to many powerful companies to rebuild their headquarters on the Bund Avenue, thus setting off a construction climax. (To be continued.) )