The direct ancestors of the Manchus were the Jurchens of the Ming Dynasty. The founder of the Qing Dynasty, Nurhachi, was fluent in Chinese at the beginning and was deeply influenced by Han culture. Nurhachi's ancestors were Jurchens. He completed the unification of the Jurchen tribes and ended the long-term and turbulent state of the Jurchen tribes since the Yuan and Ming dynasties. In 1616 (the forty-fourth year of Wanli in the Ming Dynasty), Nurhachi established political power, known as Houjin in history, built the capital in Hetuala (now Xinbin, Liaoning), and later moved the capital to Shengjing (now Shenyang, Liaoning).
After his son Emperor Taiji succeeded to the throne, he replaced the Jurchen with "Manchuria" as the clan name, and the rest of the Jurchen tribes still took Hezhe, Oroqen, and Evenki as their clan names. In addition, according to the Qing Wenjian, ju en: manju aha be ju en sembi (translation: Manchurian servants are called Jurchens), each ministry has its own self-title, and the distant and close relatives of the Manchurians, such as Hezhe, Oroqen, and Evenki, will also use their self-names to refer to them, or directly call them "Saurons".
It is worth mentioning that the Jurchen tribes no longer called themselves "Jurchens" in the period before and after the unification war of Qing Taizu, so the Jurchen name gradually disappeared in the Qing Dynasty. In 1636, Huang Taiji changed the name of the country to "Great Qing".
After the fall of the Qing Dynasty, the Manchurians were abbreviated as Manchu according to Chinese Xi usage, similar to "England" and "Britain".
Many of Nurhachi's ancestors were canonized by the Ming Dynasty and served as commanders, governors, and governors. His grandfather Jue Chang'an was the commander of the Jianzhou Left Guard, and his father Takshi was the commander of the Jianzhou Left Guard. In 1583, Jue Chang'an and Takshi were mistakenly killed by the Ming army, and the Ming court ordered Nurhachi to attack his father's position as a retribution.
Under the banner of avenging his ancestors and fathers, Nurhachi began the cause of unifying the Jurchen tribes. He raised troops with the "Thirteen Deputies of Legacy Armor", fought in the east and west, and fought in the south and north, basically unifying the Jurchen tribes. He was very deferential to the Ming court when he was fledgling, accepted the official title he was given, and went to Beijing many times to pay tribute.
After the Ming Dynasty was overthrown by Li Zicheng's rebel army, the Qing army drove straight into Beijing under the banner of avenging the Ming Dynasty, replacing the rule of the Ming Dynasty.
After the Manchus entered the Central Plains, they paid special attention to learning the lessons of the Ming Dynasty. The Ming Dynasty is really dead because of the corruption of the government and the opposition:
The government is worse than the officials, and the local government is worse than the squire. The soldiers do not coach and loot, the people who have no academic affairs and are fraudulent, and those who are greedy and extravagant look at each other in the society, and the so-called famous people who are pure and famous are only the ones who attack each other, each set up a door, and the country is destroyed. This uneducated Manchurian took advantage of the gap to enter China. (See Liu Yizheng, A History of Chinese Culture).
The Qing Dynasty punished the mistakes of the Ming Dynasty, made decisions and policies, and acted prudently after careful consideration, authoritarian and single-minded, and ordered the law to follow, so as to maintain the normal operation of the state apparatus for a long time, and achieved significant achievements. The disasters that plagued the dynasties, such as the queen mother, relatives, eunuchs, ministers, Ming party, and feudal towns, were reduced to a minimum.
At the beginning of the entry, the Qing court forced the system of braided hair and clothing, and implemented a barbaric and ignorant policy. For example, a land enclosure decree was issued, and the land of the Han people in Shuntian, Baoding, Chengde, Yongping, Hejian and other places within 300 miles of Beijing (present-day Beijing, northern, central, and eastern Hebei, and southwestern Liaoning) was owned by the officers and soldiers of the Eight Banners. The enclosure is mainly carried out in the above-mentioned areas, with a total of more than 160,000 hectares. The officers and men of the Eight Banners stationed in other places also occupied a large number of lands in Shandong, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Jiangsu, Ningxia, and other places. In the enclosed land, the original landlord was evicted from his home and left his hometown.
For another example, the Qing army carried out a big slaughter in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, single-handedly created the tragedy of the 10-day massacre in Yangzhou, the three massacres in Jiading and the tragedies in Yixing, Songjiang, Jiangyin and other places in Jiangsu, and implemented the ** policy in Jiaxing, Quzhou, Zhoushan and other places in Zhejiang.
Another example is that at the beginning of the entry into the customs, it was stipulated that all officials and people should shave their hair and braid, change their clothes to full clothes, and declare that "those who obey are the citizens of our country, and those who hesitate are also those who disobey their orders", "keep their heads without hair, and keep their hair without their heads." They also threatened to commit crimes against the law, and countless people were killed for violating the rules.
Over time, the Manchu rulers gradually changed their policies. For example, in 1685 (the twenty-fourth year of Kangxi), the edict "will never enclose land again". During the Kangxi period, the "official wasteland reclamation" was implemented, and the ownerless wasteland, mountains and forests were distributed to the local displaced people and officers and soldiers for cultivation, and the government gave them a seal letter license, and they were forever allowed to work.
While changing policies, we have also devoted ourselves to restoring production, rewarding land reclamation, building water conservancy, providing relief for famine, reforming the system of servitude, and reducing the burden on peasants, so that the social economy can gradually recover. During the Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong dynasties, the social economy of the land of China was highly prosperous, agricultural production was greatly improved, the commodity economy also developed to a certain extent, and the germination of capitalism in some regions and industries increased. The country's population is growing rapidly. At the end of the Kangxi Dynasty, it had roughly reached the level of 120 million or 130 million during the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty. At the end of Qianlong, it exceeded 300 million.
The reigns of the three emperors Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong lasted for 134 years, accounting for half of the history of the Qing Dynasty. The three most famous "reigns" in Chinese history, namely the reign of Wenjing in the Han Dynasty (180-141 BC), the reign of Zhenguan in the Tang Dynasty (626-649), and the reign of Kaiyuan (713-741), together account for only two-thirds of the former.
The Ming Dynasty raised scholars for nearly three hundred years, but instead fed the gravediggers of the ** dynasty, and a large number of enlightenment thinkers emerged. They "sit on the wealth of the ages" and are "especially far-sighted". They dare to speak and do, discuss government affairs, interfere in reality, and denounce characters. Huang Zongxi, Gu Yanwu, Wang Fuzhi, Fang Yizhi, Fu Shan, Yan Yuan, ......Just its representatives. After the death of the Ming Dynasty, they consciously launched a series of armed resistance to the Qing army, rejected foreign rule, and became the backbone and leader of the anti-Qing and Ming restoration movement. The focus of this campaign is in Jiangsu and Zhejiang. Far from curbing the development of the movement, the large-scale ** carried out by the Qing army highlighted that the Qing Dynasty was more barbaric and ambiguous than the Ming Dynasty.
To punish the failure of the ideological and cultural policies of the previous dynasty, the Qing court on the one hand advertised that it admired literature and promoted learning, compiled and revised classics, and favored scribes, and on the other hand, it suppressed speech, banned and destroyed books, and repeatedly prospered
In 1774, Emperor Qianlong banned the wild history of "making at the end of the Ming Dynasty" in the name of compiling and revising the "Siku Quanshu". In 1778, the Qing court issued the "Articles on the Investigation and Handling of Illegal Books" formulated by the Siku Quanshuguan, and the focus of the seizure was traced from the history of the Ming Dynasty and the "pseudo-false poetry" in the early Qing Dynasty to the Song and Jin dynasties.
He searched for various books, and was ashamed of his own race (now referring to the nationality - the introducer's note), and did not want people to use the words "Hu", "Lu", and "Yi" to impose the words on people other than the Han nationality, so he violated his taboos, so he destroyed the traces of extinction, and some of them cut the length of the article. To the wild history of the Ming Dynasty, the miscellaneous history of the Ming Dynasty, the prevention and prohibition of special force. Domestic collectors, sitting against the big rebellion, punishing a lot. (Meng Sen, "Lectures on Qing History").
Zhejiang Province alone has confiscated books 24 times, totaling 538 kinds and 13,862 volumes. Although some books were spared destruction, they had to be deleted, hollowed out, and replaced. In addition to the seized books, even the stereotypes must also be submitted. What's more, even the author's other inkblots and engravings have to be remitted and not allowed to be kept. Even the stele of writing must be "shattered and destroyed, so that it will not remain in the world." "Those who have private possession of ** are often beheaded at every turn.
According to later estimates, from 1774 to 1782, "nearly 3,000 kinds of books were destroyed, and more than 60,000 or 70,000 books were destroyed." This was undoubtedly a great destruction of Chinese culture, and countless books were out of print.
The Qing Dynasty was intermittent, and there were three dynasties: Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong. The number of three dynasties, the wide range of connections, and the severity of punishment are all more than any previous dynasty, and the Qianlong Dynasty has the most times and the widest coverage.
Emperor Xing of the Qing Dynasty aimed to suppress speech and eliminate the opposite.
Emperor Kangxi was known for his leniency, but he was decisive in punishing heresy in writing, and he hated those talented Han scholars who swore not to cooperate with the Qing court, and did not hesitate to impose bloody suppression, although he showed more flexibility, such as pardoning Fang Bao, who was convicted in prison for Dai Mingshi's "Nanshan Collection", and more than 300 people who were affected by this case were also pardoned.
Although the *** in the early Yongzheng period is related to the text, it is mostly involved in the internal struggle of the ruling group, and the *** of the later Yongzheng Dynasty and the Qianlong Dynasty have no political opinions, nor do they involve political struggles, and most of them are lower-class intellectuals. They may have a whining belly and love to talk;or living in the countryside, not knowing taboos;or messily on the article Chen, "to reward the official position";Or chanting poems and essays, and using words carelessly ......all of them have attracted the disaster of killing and ruining their families.
Most of these *** cases are chasing after the wind, hoping for righteousness, and indiscriminately killing innocents. Even the magistrate who has a major *** must be punished, so the official looks at the wind and business, and the slightest violation of the text, that is, arresting people and raiding the house, fabricating crimes, Zhu Lian Ning more than less, and dealing with it more than lenient.
Some of the people involved in the case only used poems and texts to vent their dissatisfaction, which had nothing to do with the overall situation, but the Qing court still did not let it go, and its purpose was to make the Han scholars understand that they could only obediently obey the rule of the Qing Dynasty, and any resentment and nostalgia for the past were not allowed to exist.
In order to establish the authority of the imperial power, every word and deed of the emperor was enshrined as sacred and must not be violated. Wang Xihou, a man from Jiangxi, used the "Kangxi Dictionary" to collect too many words, and it was difficult to penetrate them, so he deleted and changed the "Ziguan" and engraved the "Ziguan", and also listed the words "temple secrets" of Kangxi and Yongzheng and Qianlong's "imperial name", which was condemned as "great rebellion and lawlessness" and was sent to prison.
Some of the *** cases cited during the Qianlong period seem to be some hairy things, but as long as the emperor thinks that there is a mistake, it is a great rebellion, and he must be severely punished.
There are also cases where the emperor *** flew into trouble and killed his family. Wang Zhaoji, a Zhili man who lived in Shanxi, relied on his literary talent and went to Jiexiu County to offer poems to the Yamen of Tongzhi, wishing the Empress Dowager long live, but the result was that he "slandered the sages" and was killed under the rod.
The disadvantages of the Qing Dynasty are so bad that they dare not talk about the ancients, dare not talk about people, dare not talk about the integrity of their predecessors, and dare not dare to involve the justice of the former dynasty when the country fell. This has cultivated the atmosphere of not talking about state affairs, and the people who do not know the shame of the people who do not know the shame of the country are also the ones who plant their distant causes for the death of the country. (Ibid.).
The political system of the Qing Dynasty generally followed the Ming Dynasty with slight gains.
*The official system followed the Ming Dynasty, but the specific functions and powers of each yamen changed. The cabinet has a university scholar, like the Ming Dynasty, and the title of palace cabinet. The power of the cabinet in the Ming Dynasty was too large, and the power of the Council of Ministers in the early Qing Dynasty was greater than that of the cabinet. "It's about the ministers (meetings) and the cabinet about the masses." The Cabinet deals only with the general day-to-day affairs and is largely a central office with little authority.
* The organization still has six departments: officials, households, rituals, soldiers, criminals, and workers. Although the six departments of the Qing Dynasty followed the Ming Dynasty, there were many changes in the configuration and powers of the Qing Dynasty. For example, the head of each department, Shangshu and the deputy official Shilang, nominally the Shilang are Shangshu's assistants, but both are subordinate to the Tang Guan, and they can directly ask the emperor Chen Zuo for instructions, and the emperor often selects them to be on duty in the military aircraft, and in fact there is no strict hierarchical relationship between the subordinate and the subordinate.
The local government system is generally divided into provinces, prefectures, and counties**. In the Qing Dynasty and Ming Dynasty, the governor and governor were the highest provincial officials. The Governor is the highest military governor of a province**. In principle, he presided over the military, was a member of the local army, and was also in charge of civil affairs, civil and military, and had considerable power. The governor is second only to the governor in a province, and is the military and political governor of a province, supervising food and wages, and managing salt affairs.
The political envoy (commonly known as the feudal platform) was in charge of the administrative affairs of a province. According to the procurator (commonly known as Zhentai) is in charge of the judicial and criminal names of a province. According to the two envoys, the two envoys are called the two divisions.
The government has a prefect, which governs several counties, connecting the upper and lower levels.
The county has a magistrate, who is the "official close to the people" at the grassroots level, in charge of the county's government affairs, enlistment, household registration, arrest, litigation, culture and education.
The legal system of the Ming Dynasty synthesized the Xi customs of the Manchus outside the Guan, and basically followed the Ming law.
Compared with the Ming Dynasty, the political system of the Qing Dynasty had three significant features:
First, the imperial power is greater than that of the Ming Dynasty, and all the affairs of the world are executed by the Qing Emperor alone. The Cabinet is a non-existent entity. For example, the appointment of central ministers in the Ming Dynasty was often "recommended by the court", and the Qing Dynasty dismissed the court, and the ministers were simply granted by the holy decree. For example, although the Qing Dynasty's palace scholars and military ministers had high status, they could only participate in decision-making, but could not issue orders. All orders came from the emperor alone. ** The six ministries are nominally in charge of the administrative affairs of the whole country, but in reality they can only deal with specific government affairs, and cannot directly issue orders to the provinces. Local governors and governors were directly subordinate to the emperor.
The second is to maintain the privileges of the Manchurians. The official system of the Qing Dynasty was formally integrated with the Manchu and Han, and many ** institutions were also re-established by the Manchu and Han dynasties, such as the ** Supervision Organ Metropolitan Procuratorate, and the left capital of the Imperial History of the Manchu and Han DynastiesThere are two people each in the left vice-capital, but the real power is controlled by the Manchus. After Emperor Shunzhi came into power, he found that "the yamen did things, only the Manchu ministers, not the Han ministers". "Han officials of all sizes are full of officials, and if they do things properly, they will take credit to themselves, and if things are not appropriate, they will be relieved of others." Many Han officials "follow each other and make promises, and they are no longer acceptable". The system of electing and appointing officials designed by the Qing court suppressed the Han and promoted the Manchus to ensure the privileged position of the Manchus in the regime.
The third is to set up systems according to events, and Xi along with each other. At the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, the body that decided on the important affairs of the military state was the Council of Ministers of the Parliamentary Prince. Yongzheng Shi used troops in the northwest for fear of leaking military aircraft, so he set up a military aircraft department, and selected the prince minister as the minister of military aircraft and the counselor of the top state secret. "Don't be a heavy task, it's all in the military aircraft." Although the Military Aircraft Department is a central organ, it is not an official yamen, and the office is called a duty office or a duty room, which is simple and despicable. Although its members are called ministers or Zhang Jing, they are all seconded from the cabinet or various ministries, and they "have officials but no officials". If the work is not "satisfactory", it can be "dismissed" at any time, and it does not involve the establishment of the rank. Therefore, some people say that the Military Aircraft Department "has no public office, and there is no special officer."
Along with the appearance of the Military Aircraft Department, there is also the "court mail" system. "Tingzhi" is a confidential edict issued by the emperor to the local **. It does not go through the cabinet, but is issued directly by the Ministry of Military Aircraft and the Ministry of Transportation, and nothing unrelated to it can be dismantled on behalf of the government. The governors of various localities have confidential reports, and most of them are submitted to the emperor for approval through the Military Aircraft Department.
The establishment of the Military Aircraft Department made the Parliamentary Office only exist in a fictitious name, and the Minister of the Parliamentary King became a fictitious title for the Imperial Court to reward ministers. In 1791, Emperor Qianlong abolished the system of ministers and councilors, and the military aircraft department became customized.
The establishment of the Prime Minister's National Affairs Department is similar to that of the Military Aircraft Department. After the Anglo-French forces captured Beijing in the 11th year of Xianfeng, foreign insults became urgent, and Prince Gong, who was in charge of foreign affairs at the time, asked: "Foreign affairs are complicated. After being stationed in Beijing, if you do not manage carefully and focus on your work, you will inevitably delay the handling of the matter, and if you fail to understand the opportunity, please set up a ...... for the Prime Minister's National Affairs YamenEverything is handled in imitation of the Military Aircraft Department, and it is specifically responsible. "Emperor Xianfeng issued an edict that this special institution that was not within the official system of the early Qing Dynasty was established. The establishment of this yamen was initially only a temporary measure, but later the foreign affairs became more and more complicated, and the powers became more and more important, and it became the most important organ of the center, almost equal to the military and political department.
The system of the founding of the Qing Dynasty, except for the military system, followed the Ming system. The first emperor of the Qing Dynasty, Fu Lin, frankly inherited the rule of the Ming Dynasty and followed the ancestral teachings of the Ming Dynasty with the world, which was rare in the previous dynasty changes. The Qing Dynasty commanded the world with "the hatred of the Snow Monarch's father", not because of the attack on the previous dynasty, but for the purpose of cleaning up people's hearts.