Why is it said that the "Manchu Qing Dynasty entered the customs" is a historical regression

A lightning bolt (text)

The history of mankind was originally the history of civilization defeating barbarism, democracy defeating autocracy, and progress replacing backwardness, and the entry of the Manchu Qing Dynasty into the customs was a reaction in the development of history.

1. Strangle the Enlightenment of the Late Ming Dynasty and the germ of capitalism. Strengthen the backward and rigid feudal autocracy.

After the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the emergence of capitalism in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River marked that the development of industry and commerce within Confucian civilization had entered a new stage, and the area south of the Yangtze River was full of capitalist sprouts. Historically, feudal states have had the right to expropriate industry and commerce from excessive profits. What the Ming Dynasty did was only to set up a name and increase the tax rate. There was no period when Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty ordered the merchants to take out half of their family property to support the official government, resulting in "the merchant family and above the big rate of breaking". But the Ming Dynasty industrialists and businessmen had become a fairly powerful social force, and they could not tolerate such tax increases. There was a large-scale opposition to the mine supervisors, and the popular rebellion of the tax collectors continued to occur. Dozens of times on a large scale, hundreds of times on a general scale. The "popular uprising" is different from the peasant uprising, and with this kind of struggle, the ideas of "equality", "freedom", "industrial rejuvenation", and "protection of trade" will spread, and bourgeois reform and revolution may occur.

Some people say that the Ming Dynasty did not have the same conditions as Western Europe to realize capitalism, so we have to ask, each country has its own path to modernization, China does not have the characteristics of Britain and other countries that first realized capitalism, can't it explore a path of modernization on its own? For example, serfdom Russia, such as Germany and Japan, which have strong feudal colors. Another example is that modern China did not go through the stage of advanced capitalism and went directly to socialism. The Chinese, who were also deeply influenced by Confucianism, established the "Lanfang Republic" in Nanyang, which existed for more than 100 years. The key is to emancipate the mind and communicate with the outside world, because with exchanges, we can make progress. Britain had a parliament, and at that time, the Chinese people formed associations one after another, and the atmosphere of non-governmental discussion was very strong. In particular, there is an advanced ideological and political organization, the "Restoration Society." In the Manchu Qing Dynasty, the country was closed and associations were strictly forbidden. The Great Qing Dynasty law stipulates: "Anyone who gathers 30 people will be beheaded." Well, all NGOs have been banned.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the feudal autocracy was disintegrating and declining, especially in the Song and Ming dynasties, which exposed the disadvantages of stifling human nature and formed a fierce conflict with the vibrant civic culture. People of insight have discovered the ills of the feudal system in all respects and are exploring a new path. New ideas and concepts are constantly emerging, and advanced and excellent cultural science and technology from the West are being introduced, just as Western society experienced on the eve of the Renaissance. At the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, it was the era of enlightenment in the ideological circles, and the great thinkers of the Ming Dynasty, Li Zhen, Huang Zongxi, Gu Yanwu, and Wang Fuzhi, saw the ills of feudal society, especially the harm of the Song and Ming dynasties, and the light of humanism and democracy was shining in their works. Huang Zongxi's "Yuan Jun" criticized the absolute monarchy and fired the first shot of modern democratic thought, and the ideological circles in the late Ming Dynasty began to reflect on and criticize the entire feudal ideology from philosophy to ethics, from governing the country to governing science. The operas and novels are based on the preferences of the citizens, reflecting the awakening of the citizens' consciousness, which is a rebellion against the suppression of human nature by feudal etiquette. Western Catholicism spread widely in the south, especially by advanced scholars and scholars in the late Ming Dynasty, who tried to combine religion and Confucianism from the West and Sinicize Western religion. The Donglin Party and the Catholics were closely combined, and a large number of outstanding figures emerged. For example, Xu Guangqi, Li Zhizao, Qu Shiqi and others are all Catholics, and Wang Zheng, Sun Yuanhua, Li Tianjing, Zhang Tao, Qu Shiqi, Chen Yujie and others form a "Western learning group". Nanming Catholicism also spread in the palace, and the concubines generally believed in Catholicism, which would inevitably affect the supreme ruling group. The idea of equality for all people propagated by Western religions is conducive to the spread of humanism and democratic ideas, as well as to the introduction of science and technology, the exchange of Eastern and Western civilizations, and even the establishment of the capitalist system. However, the entry of the Manchu Qing Dynasty deprived the intellectual world of the last chance to combine Confucianism and Western Christian civilization to produce a new type of culture.

Some people say that the Ming Dynasty has decayed, yes from the whole point of view, but not necessarily from a partial point of view, the ruling class and the feudal bureaucracy are rotten, while the people are full of vitality. The affluent Gangnam region is the area where new forces sprout, grow, and grow. Just as during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Kuomintang was corrupt, and it was disadvantageous to lead the whole people to resist the war, but the Communist Party was the force of the new revolution and could lead the Chinese people to resist the war. It's just that the new forces of Nanming are not strong enough to independently lead the all-people war of resistance. Just as on the eve of the French Revolution, were feudal dynasties corrupt? Is the social conflict intense? This is precisely the time when the country and the nation are at their weakest, do they want another barbarian invasion, or a great bourgeois revolution? In the 19th century, Japan became a world power in just over 30 years of Westernization, the "Meiji Restoration" movement, and we have no reason to doubt that the ideological enlightenment and liberation movement at the end of the Ming Dynasty, which was 200 years earlier, could not bring about a better situation. However, the Manchu Qing Dynasty used iron and blood to destroy the social productive forces and greatly regress them. The mass destruction of material culture was followed by a great revival of literary prison, and science became an untouchable science and education. This decadent feudal consciousness and system were unprecedentedly strengthened, and China was plunged into darkness just as it was in the European Middle Ages after the invasion of Western barbarians.

Second, the productive forces have been relatively stagnant, and military equipment, science and technology have regressed by a large margin.

The life of Kang Yongqian, which some people are now vigorously advocating, is actually mostly a restorative growth in the late Ming Dynasty. The Manchu Qing Dynasty's revenue and expenditure were basically unchanged for a long period of time before Jiadao, with 30 million land, 4.6 million yuan, and a total of 48 million taels of silver, according to the "Qing Dynasty Literature General Examination" Tian Fu, the total amount of cultivated land in China was 5.49 million hectares in the sixteenth year of Shunzhi (1659), which increased to 6.83 million in the 24th year of Kangxi and 7.08 million in the 18th year of Qianlong. By the thirty-first year of Qianlong (1766), it was 7.41 million, and at the end of the Ming Dynasty, when Chongzhen had 7.83 million (Jian Bozan), the number was just close to the land figure at the end of the Ming Dynasty. It can be seen that the recovery of Kang Yongqian's production was slow, and it took 100 years to reach the production scale at the end of the Ming Dynasty. The highest in the Qing Dynasty was 7.91 million in the 17th year of Jiaqing, only exceeding 7 or 80,000 hectares in the Chongzhen period of the Ming Dynasty, and then it declined, and it was 7.37 million in the 13th year of Daoguang. The feudal economy was in stagnation (Fan Wenlan, Compendium of the General History of China, p. 767).

The total level of production is not improved, so why there is such a large population, the reason is that Xu Guangqi and others in the late Ming Dynasty vigorously introduced and advocated the cultivation of sweet potatoes, etc., which have a huge crop yield. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, crops such as three-crop rice and corn were also introduced into agriculture to increase grain production. With the spread of these agricultural crops, China's land has been able to feed more people since then.

Matteo Ricci, a missionary at the end of the Ming Dynasty, said that material production here is extremely abundant, and everything is available, sugar is whiter than Europe, and cloth is more exquisite than Europe... The people are beautifully dressed and graceful, and the people are in good spirits, polite, and elegant. (Matteo Ricci's Notes on China, Chapter 10). Macartney, a British envoy who visited during the Qianlong period, said that "there was astonishing poverty everywhere," that "many people had no clothes to wear," and that "an army was as tattered as a flower child."

Everyone knows that the Song Dynasty was extremely developed in industry and commerce, while the Ming Dynasty had further development, the iron output was two and a half times that of the Northern Song Dynasty, the iron production in the Yongle period was as high as 9,700 tons, and in the 17th century, the largest amount of iron in Europe was only 2,400 tons. But in the Qing Dynasty, the government strictly banned mining, and the metallurgical industry declined. In the Ming Dynasty, cotton cloth replaced linen cloth as the mainstream product of textiles. Whether it is heavy industries such as iron, shipbuilding, and construction, or light industries such as silk, cotton, porcelain, etc., they are far ahead in the world, with industrial output accounting for more than 2/3 of the world, and the proportion of agricultural output in the world is much higher. By 1840, shortly after the end of the Kangqian Dynasty, China's industrial output was only 6% of the world's, and neither the total output nor the proportion of the world in the world was less than 200 years ago at the end of the Ming Dynasty.

The volume of foreign trade at the end of the Ming Dynasty was astonishing, and Frank of the United States, in his book "Silver Capital", based on various research results, estimated that in the 100 years from the mid-16th century to the mid-17th century (that is, from the middle of the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Ming Dynasty), the silver that flowed into China from Eurasian trade was about 7,000 to 10,000 tons, accounting for about 1/3 of the world's total silver production at that time. 10,000 tons of silver was equivalent to 320 million taels of silver in China at that time. It is not Europe, but China that occupies the position of the center of the world economy. However, due to the isolation of the Qing Dynasty, its foreign trade before the Opium War was far lower than that of the Ming Dynasty.

The intellectuals of the Ming Dynasty were open-minded, the military force at sea was very strong, and they always had an attitude of welcoming and learning from the mastery and introduction of advanced technology, "the navy of the Ming Dynasty may be better than any Asian country in history, and even any European country of the same era, so that all European countries combined, can be said to be unable to match the navy of the Ming Dynasty." --Needham. At that time, Yuan Chonghuan was killed and wounded at the head of Ningyuan City, and Jin's Hongyi cannon came from Portugal. The firearms equipment of the Ming Dynasty was already very advanced, and in the late Ming Dynasty, except for 1,000 people in the first-level establishment of the military camp and battalion, the rest were firearmsmen. Each battalion (5,000 men) used 3,600 thunderbolt guns, 200 Dalian bead guns, 400 hand guns, and 160 guns. What a modern piece of equipment. With the complete fall of the Ming Dynasty, after Kang Yongqian III. Advanced firearms armament technology was buried by the Manchu Qing Dynasty, and by the time of the Opium War, Qing soldiers armed with broadswords and spears were no longer familiar with firearms.

The Manchus were known for their cavalry and archery, and had an instinctive fear and hostility towards firearms and modern military industry, fearing that they would threaten their rule. When the Qing army presented to Kangxi the samples of the Russian trigger-fire arquebuses captured in the "Yaksa War", Kangxi Jingran used the bow and arrow spears given by his predecessors as a reason, leaving only two for his own play, and ordered the Qing army to prohibit the use of this new type of musket. Although mounted archery could still have an advantage at the end of the Ming Dynasty, after 200 years of development of firearms, mounted archery was eventually eliminated, and Chinese did not need to use it with foreigners. The evil consequence of hindering advanced technology is that it will eventually be rewarded. The desire for innovation and change between Western countries and Japan and their thirst for new things and the Manchu Qing Dynasty's conservative and indifferent to new things formed a sharp contrast, which sowed the bane of China's degeneration into a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country and almost extinction.

3. From the opening up, exchange, and introduction of the late Ming Dynasty to the closure of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, foreign exchanges were terminated.

During the May Fourth Movement, the Chinese finally put forward the idea of inviting "Mr. De" and "Mr. Sai", but in fact, the earliest introduction was in the late Ming Dynasty. There were many more great scientists in the Ming Dynasty than in the Qing Dynasty, and scientists in the late Ming Dynasty made a historical summary of China's scientific and technological achievements. From the middle of the 16th century to the middle of the 17th century, this hundred years in the history of science and technology in China is a period of brilliant stars, all kinds of scientific and technological achievements are colorful, is the summary of all the science and technology in ancient China and has reached an unprecedented peak. At the same time, there were five scientific giants, Fang Yizhi, Li Shizhen, Xu Guangqi, Xu Xiake, and Song Yingxing, as well as many scientists such as Zhu Zaiyu, Li Zhizao, and Wang Zheng. This is very rare in Chinese history. It shows the vigor and vitality of the ideological, cultural, and productive forces in the late Ming Dynasty. Not only that, but the late Ming scholars were very welcoming to Western science. The great scientist Xu Guangqi was taught by the Catholic missionary Matteo Ricci. Translated the Geometric Originals. One is Aristotle's "Logic" and the other is "Geometry", which is the foundation of Western science and the basis for understanding the scientific paradigm. Without this, knowledge can only be personal experience, and people cannot establish the most basic concepts of science. Knowledge and experience cannot be disseminated. The "technology" invented in China can only be passed on orally by the master and the apprentice, and it has become a unique skill, and it is difficult to pass it on and develop. In addition to the "Geometry Original", there are also "Qiankun Body and Meaning" in mathematics, "Diagram of Strange Instruments" and "Theory of Telescope" in physics, "Atlas of All Nations" in geography, "Western Xuefan" in philosophy, "Mingli Detective" in logic, intellectuals in the late Ming Dynasty are systematically introducing Western science and philosophy, Western missionary Kinnige brought 7,000 books from Europe, and the Pope also donated more than 500. There's a lot of math and astronomy, science, and more. Many of them have been translated into Chinese. The depth and breadth of its culture and science and technology were no less than those of the late Qing Dynasty, while the imperial court, officials and intellectuals were much more active and less disturbed than those of the late Qing Dynasty. In the twelfth year of Chongzhen, the Catholic missionary Bi Fangji directly played to Emperor Chongzhen the four major strategies of enriching the country and strengthening the army, first, changing the calendar, second, identifying mineral veins, third, connecting Western commerce, and fourth, purchasing Western guns. Emperor Chongzhen successively played. It's a pity that Ming died too early and didn't play a role.

In the preface to Recent Events in China, the great German thinker Leibniz said: "China, an ancient civilization, is indistinguishable from Europe, and the two sides are in a contest of reciprocal equality." In terms of careful thinking and rational speculation, Europe is obviously slightly superior, and even in mathematics and war science, China is lower than Europe's. However, when it comes to practical philosophy, ethics and statecraft in terms of life and human reality, Europe is dwarfed by that. ”

"By historical coincidence," said Joseph Needham, "the rise of modern science in Europe coincided with the activities of the Jesuit missions in China, so that modern science almost immediately came into contact with traditional Chinese science." "The traditional mathematics and astronomy of the Ming Dynasty were revived with the arrival of Western learning. By 1 6 4 4 there were no significant differences between Chinese and European mathematics, astronomy and physics, they were completely integrated, and they were completely integrated." (See Liang Qichao's Introduction to Qing Dynasty Scholarship and Liang Qichao's History of Qing Studies).

The massacres of the early Qing Dynasty and the later literary prisons and seclusion completely interrupted this process. Chinese intellectuals have since lost their vitality and communication. Trembling and engaged in research. Since then, far from science, scientists have become extinct. A large number of scientific and technological achievements and scientific and technological works have been lost, and have been translated into many languages such as Britain, Russia, Germany, and Japan, and the "Heavenly Creations", which occupies a place in the history of science and technology in the world, has become extinct in China, and a large number of Western scientific and technological and cultural works brought by missionaries in the late Ming Dynasty are difficult to come out.

There were also missionaries in the early Kangxi period, but their role was very different from that of the Ming Dynasty, which imported religion and science, and scientific books were no less than religion, because the Ming Dynasty people needed scientific knowledge. Talking only about religion could not be respected by scholars, and the missionaries of the Qing Dynasty rarely talked about science (only talking about the astronomical calendar), because the Han people did not dare to approach the Westerners under the pressure of the Manchus and under the influence of the policy of sea closure and retreat, and the missionaries lost the support of the scholars, and religion was oppressed by the Manchu rulers and could not develop as smoothly as in the late Ming Dynasty. (Fan Wenlan - Compendium of General History of China, p. 653) The "Geometric Original" was again valued by the intellectual circles at the end of the Qing Dynasty, when Li Shanlan translated the "Geometric Original" again and completed the translation of nine chapters. However, Xu's translation of "Geometric Originals" was transmitted to Japan and had a great impact on the development of modern science and technology in Japan. Imagine if, under the impetus of the upper-class intellectuals in the late Ming Dynasty, with their sensitivity and prestige, the cultural exchanges between the East and the West could have been realized 200 years earlier. The Chinese will introduce these advanced science and technology, advanced theories and even democratic systems with a peaceful and healthy attitude. China will never be defeated again and again in the anti-aggression wars in modern times because it is "inferior in technology" and will be reduced to a semi-colonial and semi-feudal situation in modern times.

According to statistics, Matteo Ricci translated a large number of Western works during his mission to China, and as a result, left many new Chinese words, and there are 83 words that are still in use today, such as "measure", "plane", "parallel", "horizon", "earth", "curve", etc., as well as uncountable roots, such as "x ball", "x angle", "x line", etc. As the Manchu Qing interrupted cultural exchanges between the East and the West, a large number of Western-translated works were destroyed. Later, the Manchu Qing Dynasty interrupted the cultural exchanges between the East and the West, and closed the country to the outside world for a long time, and this work was finally completed by Japan in modern times. At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, a large number of modern Chinese words were transmitted from Japan to China, and these words constitute an extremely important component of modern Chinese. For example, "police", "cadre", "philosophy", "politics", "economy", "management", "system", etc., are all translated from Japan, and these words constitute the main framework of modern Chinese. The introduction of these terms and concepts is clearly a Japanese way of thinking, a Japanese understanding of modern civilization and ancient civilization. It is not the product of the natural absorption of Chinese culture to understand foreign cultures, and this kind of thinking often leads us to misunderstand the ancients. The evil consequences of the entry of the Manchu Qing Dynasty also meant that there was a fault between ancient Chinese culture and modern Chinese culture, and Chinese culture was interrupted from then on.

The students of the past have become other people's students, and their own teachers, whether in terms of culture or force, China has been defeated by foreigners, and since ancient times Chinese has never had such inferiority and self-confidence, and the so-called national power is a kind of cultural power at the bottom. One of the evil consequences of this kind of cultural lack of self-confidence is that "non-resistanceism" and compromise and surrender to foreign countries are rampant, and "demotion of officials is like a tide, and demotion of generals is like Mao", and China is really on the verge of national extinction.

According to Yan Chongnian, who advocated the Manchu Qing Dynasty, the Qing Dynasty lost eight opportunities to communicate with foreign countries and open its eyes to the world because of its conservatism and arrogance. And that's not all, when Macartney came to visit and suggested that China be open to Western commerce, Qianlong gave a clear answer: "The Qing dynasty was only concerned with the proper execution of its own affairs, and disdained nothing of fancy and ingenuity, nor of elaborate goods, and we did not need the manufactures of your country." The sea ban and border relocation orders that began with Shunzhi and Kangxi and the expulsion of foreign missionaries were also measures to close the country to the outside world. In the 46th year of the reign of Kangxi, Catholic missionaries were forbidden in various places, and clergy returned to Macao, and foreigners were not allowed to stay in the mainland. The Manchu Qing Dynasty stipulated: "Prefecture and county officials who neglect to inspect the crossing of Westerners, but do not stay, will be demoted to one level and retained, and the government officials will be fined for six months." If a foreigner is found in one place, all officials in the province will be punished. The Manchu Qing Dynasty also had a set of measures for restricting foreign merchants, stipulating that no more than 25 foreign ships were allowed in Macao, that no Chinese should be brought to sea, and that iron pots other than cooking were not allowed to go to sea. The Manchus feared that contact between foreigners and Chinese would fuel their dissatisfaction with the oppression of the Manchu ruling nations, so they severely restricted the movement and residence of foreigners (Compendium of the General History of China, p. 781).

Marx pointed out that the main reason for this policy of closing the dynasty was its fear that foreigners would support the discontent of many Chinese in the first half of the seventeenth century, after the conquest of China by the Tatars. For this reason, foreigners are forbidden to have any contact with Chinese. (Manx's Complete Works, Vol. 9, p. 115) Is there still an exchange of culture, science and technology, and commodities between China and foreign countries? The world is moving fast, but China is standing still. Even at the end of the Qing Dynasty, even the small country of Puer was able to change the law and defeat the Manchus, but the Manchus lost the courage and opportunity to reform and strengthen again and again. From the beginning of the Qing Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty, the Manchu aristocratic clique has always been stubborn, stubborn, and refused to open up again and again, Marx commented on China that year: A vast empire with a population of one-third of the world, regardless of the current situation, is still content with the status quo, because it is forcibly excluded from the world system and isolated, therefore, it tries its best to deceive itself with the illusion of the perfection of the Celestial Empire, and such an empire will eventually die in a desperate struggle.

IV. The Chinese nation has degenerated from an advanced and civilized nation into a backward, ignorant, and semi-civilized nation, and China has become a veritable "declining world"

While missionary Xavier was on a mission to Japan, he found that the Japanese always appealed to the authority of the Chinese in heated debates, that is, they also appealed to the wisdom of the Chinese in matters involving religion and administration. They often say, "If Christianity is the true religion, then the wise Chinese must know it and accept it." This is the spiritual and cultural influence of China in the late Ming Dynasty. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, the notoriety of the "sick man of East Asia" spread all over the world. The whole world is laughing at the ugly braids of the Chinese, being laughed at and scolded as "pig tails", and the Chinese are seen as savages. What is the crime of the Chinese? To suffer the double humiliation of history and reality!

The Manchu Qing Dynasty engaged in the foolish people and the rule of the weak people, and the consequences were serious.

We have seen that it is very rare for feudal countries that have always been advanced and open to use religious superstition to launch peasant uprisings, such as the Tang, Song, and Ming dynasties. Although the exploitation was heavy at the end of the Ming Dynasty, the people of the Ming Dynasty were not ignorant, and although the uprising was large in scale and lasted for a long time, they did not use religious superstition to carry out peasant uprisings, because there was no social basis at all. The Manchus, on the other hand, were brutal with national oppression and iron-blooded rule. Chinese have been forced to drag a braid from birth. Mentally emasculated the spirit of struggle. The network of literature is dense, the air is suffocating, and the foolish people are unprecedented. People are generally ignorant, insensitive, and cowardly. To resist, opium can only be stimulated by religious superstition to stimulate the numb nerves of the Chinese. From the mid-to-late Qing Dynasty onwards, all peasant uprisings and peasant movements were characterized by religion and extreme superstition. The White Lotus Sect, the Tianli Sect, the Muslim Rebellion, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and the Boxer Rebellion are all the same. The largest peasant uprising, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, was launched using the so-called "God Worship Society". Hong Xiuquan used religion (some say cults) to successfully organize a peasant uprising. But the use of religious superstition is not suitable for the establishment of a stable regime. Its rise is also vigorous, and its death is also sudden. Success is also it, and defeat is also it. Hong Xiuquan was completely obsessed with this, and the country's politics were getting worse, and finally ended up harming others and himself, and the country was ruined. Although the Boxer Rebellion had the content of the anti-imperialist patriotic movement, it was a great exposure of feudalism, ignorance, superstition, closedness, and conservatism in Manchu society. The Boxer masses demolished railways and road poles. Superstitious belief in what gods possess the body, invulnerable, there are many people who ran to Yuan Shikai to test the power of the gun with their bodies, and they did not repent of dying. Although there are hundreds of thousands of people, they use eight treasures such as soul attraction, thunder fire fan, yin and yang bottle, and ruyi hook to fight against the spears and cannons of the Eight-Nation Alliance. This kind of attempt to confront modern civilization with backwardness, conservatism, and ignorance and reject all the introduction of Western civilization is inevitable.

If the people are like this, what about the officials? In the Opium War, the famous general and counselor Yang Fang saw the fierce artillery fire of the British army, and even came up with a strange plan, collecting the civil toilets and the filthy belts used by women on rafts to resist the British attack. Of course, it failed badly. The people of the time ridiculed: "The dung bucket is still a clever plan, and the filthy sound spreads all over the city of Guangdong."

As the "first person" Lin Zexu to open his eyes to see the world, how does he see the world? On the 4th day of August of the 20th year of Daoguang, Lin Zexu gave Emperor Daoguang a twist. He wrote: "Where he goes, he is only in the guns and boats, and when he reaches the shore, he should have no other skills, and he is wrapped all over, his waist and legs are stiff, and a servant can recover, and not only a soldier can kill several enemies, that is, the brave civilians of the country are enough to control their death." "Even this person who was at the forefront of our nation at the end of the Qing Dynasty made such a joke, and others can imagine it.

It is not surprising at all, before the Opium War, Gong Zizhen said in "Ancient History Hook Shen Treatise": "The clan of the former dominated the world,......, did not hate the people of the world, went to the incorruptibility of people, gave orders quickly, went to the shame of people, and raised his body with Song, one person as the strong, ten thousand husbands as the soft, and the poop as its strength and strength." "Accumulate a hundred years of strength, destroy the shame of the world with shocks, and once you are responsible for the angry ministers, it will be twilight!" Where are the angry ministers? They have all been trained to be minions. The result of the rule of the foolish people and the weak people was that the Manchus themselves were also fooled, "there is no talent in the left, there is no talent in the right, there is no talent in the general, there is no talent in the order, there is no talent in Long, there is no talent in the business, there is no talent in Quxiang, there is no talent in the city, and there is no talent in Xue Ze to steal." How could the Manchu regime, with such ignorance and dimness, resist the imperialist invasion? Gong Zizhen believes that this is a typical "declining era".

Let's take a look at the outside bystanders, the British envoy Macartney, who saw what was going on in the "prosperous Kangqian era", the Manchu Qing Dynasty was "nothing more than a giant with feet of clay, who could knock him to the ground with a slight touch." Macartney wrote in his diary of an envoy that China "has not improved, has not advanced, or rather, has regressed for at least the last 150 years, since the northern or Manchurian Tatar conquests; As we advance in the fields of art and science every day, they are actually becoming semi-savages". "The Chinese Empire is just a ruined, crazy warship. If it has been possible for the past 150 years to sail and intimidate its neighbors with a seemingly formidable appearance, it is because of a few capable captains. Once you run into an incompetent person at the helm, everything will fall apart and the future will be precarious. Even if it doesn't sink right away, it's like a wreck, something that ends up crashing to pieces on the coast and never repairing on an old hull."

"It is undeniable that the people who invented * were frightened at the sight of the cannon." The Chinese live "under the most vile tyranny, in fear of being beaten by bamboo boards." Chinese social relations are based on a stupid formalism, so people are "timid, dirty, and cruel."

At a time when the ode to the prosperity of the emperors and literati of the Celestial Empire shook the heavens, he considered the Manchu Qing to be a world of decay and decline, and mercilessly pointed out: "In the end it will degenerate again into a state of barbarism and poverty"!

Another evil consequence of being regarded as a barbarian nation is that the Chinese are slaughtered by barbarians and cannot get the world's sympathy, and they are slaughtered by "civilized people" and still do not receive the world's sympathy. The American scholar Ho Weiya believes that the plundering of Beijing in 1860 and 1900 has a lot to do with the portrayal of the Chinese Empire as an uncivilized country.

"Deal with barbarians the way they do." Westerners have no shame in burning, killing, looting and plundering in China, which is not the same as the "civilized" wars they fought in Europe and the United States, because they do not regard China as a civilized country.

5. The Manchu Qing Dynasty adopted an "imperial" style of rule, and the national oppression was deep, which in some ways was a regression from feudalism to slavery.

The chairman's "Speech at the Meeting to Commemorate the 60th Anniversary of the Victory of the Chinese Anti-Japanese War and the World Anti-Fascist War" said: Mankind has always constantly explored the law of social progress and constantly pushed human civilization to a higher level. However, there are always some forces that go against the tide of history and do not hesitate to challenge human civilization in an extremely barbaric way, and invade, plunder, kill, and enslave other peoples.

In order to strengthen its rule, the Manchu Qing brutally implemented the "Nagi Order" and the "Fugitive Law", carried out cruel national oppression, and killed the dignity of the Chinese; the Manchu Qing Dynasty left bloody records of massacres in various places, and even carried out genocide; the provinces where large-scale massacres and massacres took place were Liaoning, Shandong, Shanxi, Henan, Jiangsu, Anhui, Jiangxi, Hunan, Guangdong, Sichuan, Fujian, and Xinjiang, and almost all provinces in China were slaughtered. Its cruelty is no less than that of Meng Yuan. Such a brutal massacre by the Manchu Qing Dynasty, from Nurhachi's massacre of the Han people in Liaodong to Kangxi's pacification of the three feudatories, the massacre policy lasted nearly a century, which was unprecedented. By past and present standards*. What crime could be greater than this evil, and what merit could offset such atrocities.

The British envoy Macartney and others recorded this passage: "In the early days of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, they behaved very ferociously. In the first few years after the founding of the country, entire groups of civilians were slaughtered. Forced braids caused riots, which were suppressed in pools of blood. It was the race of the old man who sat firmly in the country, ruled a slave nation, the racial segregation was comprehensive, intermarriage between different races was strictly prohibited, and there were no Han people in the entire northern city of Beijing, which was exclusively for the Manchu people to live in. In any case, the ladies and dependents of the palace (including slaves and maids) should be all Manchurian, and all racial mixing should be prevented. And the eunuchs in the palace are all Han without exception. How symbolic this is! Let the Tatars breed, let the Han people extinct. This absolutely guarantees that there is no impure conflation. ”

British officer F· A· Lindley's "Personal Accounts of the Taiping Revolution" writes: "In order to completely eliminate patriotic sentiment, the Manchurians forced the conquered Chinese to shave off their long hair, which had been cherished as a decoration since ancient times, forced them to hang down, and adopted Tatar clothing, and violators were executed." It is said that there are thousands of people who would rather die than endure such national humiliation. The change of national attire is the most obvious and oppressive of all means of conquest; This is undoubtedly an effective way to smash the spirit of the Chinese people. Whoever refuses to endure loses his head. "During the period of the Qing Dynasty's progress and maintenance, the number of victims of the brutal massacre was unimaginable to Europeans, although judging by the conclusive accounts of the rebellions and massacres committed against the people since the Qing invasions, these destroyed lives are rare since the time of Alexander to Genghis Khan. The barbaric rule of the Manchurians was unprecedented; Their brutal torture, especially against the rebels, and the laws they enacted, are the greatest stains on the history of mankind. ”

……

"The Chinese were rich before the Manchurian invasion. The well-to-do houses were comfortable and sturdy. Now the Chinese no longer have much significant property, and the slightest sign of property has become the target of extortion by government officials. From the day the Tatars entered China, China was in constant decline, and now the people can be likened to cattle and horses on the prostrate ground, living one day at a time, and the most depraved superstitions dull and ignorant their wisdom. ……”

Under the rule of the Manchu Qing Dynasty for more than 200 years, the ethnic minorities also lived in unprecedented darkness, and the Manchu Dynasty's extermination of the Jungar tribe was a genocide rarely seen in history, racial discrimination against the Hui people, and the massacre of the Miao people in the southwest was unprecedented. Even the Mongols, who are regarded as "brothers", have been weakened by a policy of restraint. According to Feng Yuxiang's Memoirs, "Mongolia originally had 12 million people. After a long period of Manchu rule, it has now been reduced to 500,000. The Manchus used Lamaism to rule the Mongol people, and seven of those who had eight brothers were required to be lamas; If there are five brothers, four of them must be lamas; Only one commoner can marry a wife and have children. …… Women do not have the blessing of being lamas, but it is difficult to find a comparable spouse, so they all become the objects of the mainlanders' desires. In fact, a promiscuous society is formed. At the same time, men and women do not pay attention to hygiene, and after contracting gonorrhea and syphilis, they can only listen to nature. …… If left unchecked, there is an imminent danger of genocide!"

The Manchus, in order to protect the interests of the Manchurians, divided and ruled the whole country. The Manchus adopted "pluralistic rule" and "partition isolation". The whole country is divided into five regions: Manchu, Han, Mongolian, Tibetan, and Uyghur, and the districts are isolated, especially to prevent the Han people from going to the other four regions, to prevent the Han people from having personnel exchanges with the other four regions, and before the decline of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, Han officials were not allowed to get involved in the affairs of the other four regions, and the Manchu Qing Dynasty was a veritable "imperialist" rule. A policy of "colonial conquest" was pursued. To say that the Manchus promoted national integration ignores historical facts.

After the Manchu Qing Dynasty entered the customs, in addition to the very heavy national oppression, it also brought the remnants of slavery, and the Manchu banner people also ran horses and enclosed the land, forcing the people plundered in the war and the enclosed peasants into slavery. In the Qing Dynasty, the crime of the banner man was reduced by one degree, and if the Han person was sentenced to three years for the crime, the flag man could be released as long as he was in the flail for 40 days. If the peasants were enslaved for various reasons, "the whole family was enslaved, and the landlords of the Eight Banners could be enslaved at will without any price, and even the wives and daughters of the peasants could be arbitrarily raped and occupied, and it was obvious that the relationship between the peasants and the landlords who had been enslaved by the landlords of the Eight Banners was that of slave-owners" (Collected Historical Essays of Jian Bozan, p. 256). According to the records of "Donghualu" and "Ten Pilgrimage Hadith", the nobles of the Eight Banners often looted and occupied the people's daughters in the capital, seized the land and houses of the Han people, ravaged the tombs of the Han people, and whipped the Han chiefs.

The President said: "All acts of realizing national interests through force or the threat of force, and all practices of putting the interests of one's own nation above the interests of other nations, are unworkable, do not conform to the trend of human historical development, and do not conform to the fundamental interests of the peoples of all countries in the world."

It can be seen from this that the 265 years of the Manchu Qing Dynasty were the greatest destruction and obstacle to the advanced productive forces and the greatest destruction of the development of advanced culture. The massacre after the Manchu Qing entered the customs was a crime against the Chinese, and the Manchu rule was a slave to the Chinese. Is the Manchu worthy of praise?

6. The middle and late Manchu Qing Dynasty gave birth to a generation of the most corrupt, decadent, and incompetent nobles in history, which is the famous "Eight Banner Children".

Politically, the children of the Eight Banners have always put their own interests on the opposite side of China's interests with the mentality of "protecting the Qing Dynasty but not protecting China." None of the eight successive anti-aggression wars resolutely fought to the end, and always ended with surrender and compromise, which was the fundamental reason for the loss of power and humiliation of the country again and again. It is also the main reason why China is closed to the rest of the country, backward in modern times, and has failed several reforms.

What is surprising is that due to the indemnity of the Manchu Qing Dynasty and the opium trade, as the core force of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, the children of the Eight Banners were able to get benefits and make a fortune in the unequal treaty of losing power and humiliating the country and compensating for the silver at the end of the Qing Dynasty. From the 15th to the 19th year of Daoguang, due to the inflow of opium, an average of 30 million taels of silver flowed out every year. One tael of silver was 700 Wen in Jiaqing, and the silver was exchanged for 2,000 Wen in the Daoguang period. And the salary of the children of the Eight Banners will not be less, the family's silver has appreciated, and the living standard of the Eight Banners has risen. For ordinary people, the land tax is to collect money. Therefore, the evil consequences of this national disaster were directly passed on to ordinary poor Chinese who had no silver and only copper money.

7. From the above analysis, we can look at the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties from the embryonic state of capitalism

The emergence of the capitalist system has always been the result of the joint action of the three elements, namely, the economic germination of a new type of capitalism brought about by the development of the productive forces, the ideology of a capitalist nature, and the political interest groups representing capitalism. There is no comparison between the Yuan and the Song Dynasty, and no one has proposed any capitalist sprouts in the Yuan Dynasty, but what about the Qing and Ming Dynasty? Comparing the Qing Dynasty before 1840 with the Ming and Ming dynasties, before the imperialist invasion, the emergence of a new type of capitalist economy is tentatively recognized as the Ming and Qing dynasties. But what about ideology? One is that after the end of the literary prison, the birds are silent, thousands of horses are in unison, and the country is closed. One is that the ideology is active, associations everywhere, the emergence of the Donglin Party, and later the Restoration Society, and the non-governmental associations and political discussions are very prosperous, and it is an era of criticism of the great thinkers of the Song and Ming dynasties, and advanced intellectuals have begun to accept Western science and technology and civilization. Works representing the culture of citizens emerge one after another. Looking at the new type of political forces of a capitalist nature, one is lifeless, with no associations, no meetings, and no progressive class interest groups. One was that the capitalist burgher interest groups, the handicraftsmen, and the feudal system of the Ming Dynasty began to fight fiercely, and in Suzhou and Hubei, workers broke out in protests and riots, and the victims won the praise of the intellectuals. Zhang Pu's "Tombstone of Five People" is a record and praise of this.

If the Manchu Dynasty had developed normally and had not suffered an imperialist invasion, it is doubtful that the Manchu state of society would have developed to the extent that capitalism had budded at the end of the Ming Dynasty. The disadvantage of the Qing Dynasty also lay in the fact that there was a group of nobles representing the most feudal, backward, and conservative Eight Banners, which was a resolute obstacle to any reform, and the children of the Eight Banners did not engage in property or business, and they looked down on the industrialists and businessmen who were in the same boat as the national bourgeoisie. It is the most stubborn and powerful force hindering the development of capitalism in China. If the law of the rise and fall of the dynasty is followed, there will be a peasant uprising and the dynasty will be overthrown in about 200 years. Compared with the peasant uprising at the end of the Ming Dynasty and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the Boxer Rebellion, which one is more enlightened and advanced? Under the brutal rule of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, the people were numb and ignorant, and the superficial foolishness was popular, and even if the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom succeeded, the kind of religious ideas that were out of step with the times and society could hardly promote social development and progress, and needed to be completely reformed. Not to mention the Boxers, who were hostile to modern civilization.

It can be seen that the destructive effect of barbarian invasion and even unification on the advanced productive forces and production relations cannot be restored after many years. Isn't that a step backwards

Some people argue that history is moving forward and not going backwards. This is not exact, "history is advancing" is said from the general trend, and history is inherently full of twists and turns. There are forward and twists and turns, and there are twists and turns and there are backwards. The bourgeois revolution went back and forth for hundreds of years before it finally triumphed over the feudal autocracy, and there were 80 years of feudal restoration after the French Revolution. How many socialist countries are there in the world today? However, some socialist countries originally practiced the capitalist system, and from capitalism to socialism and back to capitalism, is this a twist and turn?

Therefore, the entry of the Manchu Qing Dynasty into the customs was a historical retrogression, not based on a single event, but on the basis of a comprehensive comparison of the actual conditions of the Manchu Qing Dynasty and the late Ming Dynasty with the productive forces and production relations, the superstructure and the economic base. In particular, the Manchu Qing Dynasty curbed the great opportunity for China's capitalist development since the end of the Ming Dynasty, which is distressing.

"The entry of the Manchu Qing Dynasty into the customs is a historical retrogression" is not a new viewpoint, it has been the mainstream view in the field of historiography from the "Xinhai Revolution" until the 80s, and it is not difficult to see from the works of Guo Moruo, Fan Wenlan, Jian Bozan and others. Engels pointed out: "Every conquest carried out by a more barbarous nation has self-evidently hindered economic development and destroyed a large number of productive forces." In the eighties, the comprador forces began to rise, setting off a wave of national nihilism, conniving at the national separatist forces and fueling the sense of national superiority and vanity of certain ethnic minority elites. The comprador has no homeland, no national pride, and the comprador hates nationalism. From Tan Qixiang's launch of the "Theory of Territory China" to Ge Jianxiong's advocacy of "the theory of separatism and advantage", to Yu Qiuyu's distortion of history and his publication of "The Back of a Dynasty". Dai Yi sang the praises of the "prosperous Kangqian era" in the training class run by the central government, and the central station broadcast the so-called drama, Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong became wise leaders, and they will live for another 500 years, how about living for another 500 years? Is it possible to suppress the "Xinhai Revolution"? However, the heroic stories of Yue Fei and Wen Tianxiang have become a blank in film and television dramas and literary and artistic works.

Finally, the Ministry of Education wants to erase Yue Fei's title of "national hero". Ma Dazheng and others who compiled the history of the Qing Dynasty put forward the "theory of justice for the Manchu Qing Dynasty's entry into the customs," which became more and more rampant. The academic circles and the literary and artistic circles cooperated with each other to perform one farce after another. As soon as someone criticizes, they will take up the hats of "national unity" and "Han nationalism" as shields

It is gratifying to note that the central government's policy is being adjusted, and China will never become a comprador China. The progress and achievements of human civilization are indestructible! The wheel of peace and progress of mankind is unstoppable! All evil, dark, and reactionary forces will eventually be swept away by the torrent of history!