Wen Zhifei's 257th original article - 1 more per week
Why did China lose to Europe after being ahead for thousands of years?
In other words, why did China, which was originally fertile and technologically advanced, be caught up by Europe, which was originally backward?
Between 8500 BC and 1450 AD, no scholar could have imagined that Europe would end up coming to the fore, because for nearly 10,000 years it had been the most backward region of the Old World.
Jared Diamond's famous book "Guns, Germs, and Steel" analyzes the proximate causes of these two regions from the unique perspective of geographical differences, and finally leads to the ultimate cause of the above problems by digging deeper and peeling the meaning of the onion layer by layer. - "China lags behind rising Europe?".”
After identifying the proximate cause, it naturally leads to the question of the ultimate cause: why are guns and the Industrial Revolution on the side of Europe, and not China?
Since when has Europe overtaken China?In fact, everything has already been foreshadowed in the ultimate cause.
Let's start with the answer, and analyze the causal relationship between them in detail, including proximate causes and ultimate causes.
1. China's coastline is relatively flat compared to Europe, and there are few insurmountable mountains except for the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in the southwest, so a more stable unified regime has been formed.
2. China's geographical conditions finally cost ancient China - as long as the ruler made a decision, it could hinder innovation, and such things are endless.
China was in an advantageous position in terms of economic production and navigation technology, but its long-distance sailing activities were constantly hindered by internal political power struggles, and the overly powerful centralized system made China's maritime activities completely interrupted too easily.
3. At the same time, China is far away from other civilized countries on the Eurasian continent and is relatively isolated, which also hinders its development to a certain extent. Therefore, China has lost its political and technological superiority in modern history, and let the rising star Europe surpass.
1. It is the difference in the geographical environment of each continent that ultimately leads to the huge development differences between countries in the modern world.
2. Geographical convenience has both positive and negative impacts on the evolution of technology.
In the long run, regions with moderate geographical convenience are likely to develop technology at the fastest rate, a rate that is not comparable to regions with high or low geographical accessibility.
In short, the more medium the geographical area, the faster the technology development. Because China has been leading in geographical convenience for the past 1,000 years, technological development has not been as fast as Europe's.
Over the past 1,000 years, the trajectory of technology development in China, Europe, and possibly the South Asian subcontinent represents high, medium, and low levels of geographical accessibility, respectively.
Historical science is the causal process of proximate and ultimate causes.
Proximate cause refers to factors directly related to historical events (direct cause), while ultimate cause refers to the pattern that affects or determines the history of the world.
Food production and competition and mergers between societies are the ultimate causes, from which the proximate causes of conquest (germs, writing, technology, centralized political organization) develop, and the causal chains between them vary in detail, but all involve the question of the original geographical conditions.
1. The proximate cause of the rise of Europe
The proximate causes of the rise of Europe: Europe developed a merchant class, capitalism, a patent system for the protection of inventions, did not develop an absolute system and a tax burden that crushed the common people, and Greek-Judeo-Christianity had a tradition of empirical research.
What are the ultimate causes that contribute to those proximate causes?Why do these proximate causes appear in Europe and not in China?
China was the world leader a year ago - China had the upper hand at first
At first, China undoubtedly had the advantage
Food production developed almost simultaneously with the Fertile Crescent;The ecology is complex, from North China to South China, from the coast to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, rich in biological resources, so many kinds of crops, livestock, and technologies have been developedIt is a vast territory and productive force, supporting the largest population in the world;
The environment is resilient and less fragile than the Fertile Crescent, and after 10,000 years of farming, it is still able to support intensive farming (although there are more and more environmental problems in China today than in Western Europe).
The Tang and Song dynasties were technological powers.
These conditions enabled China to become a technological power between the Tang and Song dynasties, leading the world. China has a long list of "technology first" titles, such as cast iron, compass, papermaking, printing, etc. China was also once a world leader in terms of political power, navigation, and sea power.
Zheng He's voyage to the West was the world's largest maritime expedition before the geographical discovery of Europe in the 15th century
At the beginning of the 15th century, China's fleet sailed several times, with a total of 2Eighty thousand men and hundreds of boats, each up to 400 feet long, crossed the Indian Ocean and reached as far as the eastern coast of Africa.
Christopher Columbus had not yet been born, let alone how humble the three ships that carried him to "discover" the Americas.
Why did the Chinese fleet not go west around the Cape of Good Hope and colonize Europe, but the Portuguese Vasco da Gama led three small ships around the Cape of Good Hope to the east, opening the era of European colonization to East Asia?
It wasn't just ocean-going voyages that the Chinese court decided to put on hold: in the 14th century, for example, it abandoned the development of an elaborate water-powered textile machine and abruptly retreated from the brink of the Industrial Revolution
China was once the world's leader in the manufacture of mechanical clocks, but after the late 15th century, it gave up manufacturing and no longer developed machinery and technology. The concentration of power has led to a stagnation in development, and there are similar examples in modern times.
Therefore, China has lost its political and technological superiority in modern history, allowing the rising star Europe to surpass, and the final analysis must start from the long-term unification of ancient China and the long-term history of Europe.
1. The example of China is a little different, because China is a unified country, and it only takes one decision to stop the entire Chinese fleet.
From 1405 to 1433, the Chinese fleet made seven voyages to the Western Ocean. Later, the ministers of the court fought with the eunuchs, and after the ministers gained the upper hand, they no longer maintained the fleet, and finally the dock was abandoned, and the imperial court even issued a ban on the sea.
There are also many examples of countries going backwards, and the list goes on, all as a result of domestic political struggles.
2. In fact, it was precisely because Europe was the best that Columbus had the opportunity to finally convince one of the hundreds of monarchs to finance his voyage after four failed attempts.
3. After Spain joined the great cause of colonizing the Americas, other countries saw the wealth flowing into Spain and immediately followed suit, and at least six countries joined the ranks.
Cannons, electric lights, printing, small firearms, and countless other inventions all went through the same process before they spread in Europe: at first, they were all ignored and neglected in one particular country for some particular reason;Once one country adopts it, others will follow suit.
China's geographical conditions (geographical accessibility, few internal barriers) give China a first-mover advantage. North China, South China, the seaside, and the inland have their own crops, livestock, technology, and cultural characteristics, and finally merge into a unified country.
However, the situation in Europe is quite different, with geographical barriers contributing to many small, independent countries competing with each other.
Every small country is a hub for innovation. If innovations that are not accepted by one country are adopted by another, neighboring countries will have to follow suit, or they will be left behind or eliminated.
Europe's geographical barriers were sufficient to hinder unification without hindering the flow of technology and ideas. There has never been a ruler in Europe who has been able to decide the fate of all of Europe like China.
, coastline comparison:
The European coastline is more tortuous, with five major peninsulas, each of which is close to an isolated island, so each peninsula has developed its own language, ethnicity, **
China's coastline is much smoother, and only the Korean Peninsula can be considered an independent point near the coastline.
, Island Comparison:
There are two islands in Europe that are large enough to maintain political independence and maintain their own languages and communities;Among them, the British Isles are very large in area and close to Europe, which can develop into a large European country.
On the other hand, China's two large islands, Taiwan and Hainan, each of which is small in size and have never become independent political entities. Japan remained independent and isolated due to its geographical location, and until modern times it had little influence on the Asian continent.
, Mountains and rivers comparison:
Europe is divided by mountains into linguistic, ethnic, and political independent units, while China has no mountains east of the Tibetan Plateau that are insulated from transportation.
The hinterland of China is connected by two large east-west rivers (the Yellow River and the Yangtze River), with alluvial river valleys on both sides and a water system between the two rivers, so the east-west and north-south transportation is convenient. As a result, China has had two core regions with high productivity since ancient times, and the two places are not separated, and finally unified into one core area.
The two great rivers of Europe (the Rhine and the Danube) are much smaller and have less extensive basins. Unlike China, Europe consists of many small, scattered cores, none of which are large enough to control the others for long, so each core can remain independent.
The level of threat posed by the horse-riding nomads of Central Asia to the Fertile Crescent, China, and Europe varied. For example, the Mongols among the nomads destroyed the ancient irrigation systems of Iran and Iraq, but the nomads of Asia never established themselves in the forests of Western Europe west of the Hungarian plain.
The geographical location of the Fertile Crescent controlled the ** route from China, India to Europe;China is too far away from other civilizations in Eurasia for it to be considered an island on the mainland. China's relatively isolated status is closely related to the acceptance and rejection of technology.
Although the Internet and international express delivery have now made it possible to move ideas and technologies apart, the world's two earliest food production hubs, the Fertile Crescent and China, still dominate the modern world.
The prospect of sub-Saharan African, Australian and American domination of the world is bleak. The history of 8,000 years B.C. still clings to us.
Civilization, Modernization, Value Investment and China", the author ** mentioned:
At present, China has entered the core of the world economic system, this process has lasted for two or three decades, and China's economy has reached 15% of the global GDP.
1. In the future, China should beware of taking the initiative or being forced to retreat to the state of being closed off from the country, and may be self-sufficient for a considerable period of time, but over time, the small market will eventually be surpassed and suppressed by the large market, and China's economy will continue to shrink relative to the positive upward cycle of the large market.
2. In terms of the domestic economy, it is necessary to be more open, make the economy more market-oriented and internationalized, and gradually reform state-owned enterprises, from "managing assets" to "managing capital", so that state-owned enterprises can be truly marketized, rapidly expand domestic demand, and let the Chinese market bring more benefits to the global economy, so as not to lead to a dismal ending like Zheng He's trip to the West.
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