This article ** from WeChat *** Youth Insights.
The Qing Dynasty was the last feudal dynasty in Chinese history. Commenting on the situation in the late Qing Dynasty, Lu Xun said: "The whole country is sick, and the people are numb. The reason why he said that the Qing Dynasty was so sick was that the feudal system at that time had been decayed, and the relationship between monarchs and ministers, between ministers and between monarchs and people, was very fragile. And the reason why the people are also numb is because the common people have always experienced the cycle of chaos and dynastic change for more than 2,000 years, so they are also desperate for the Manchu Qing and don't want to care about its life or death. On the contrary, a new dynasty may be able to usher in a better life. The so-called official coercion and civil rebellion, in fact, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Uprising, the Twisted Army Uprising, etc., have proved that the common people like to do this.
The Qing Dynasty was the successor of the Ming Dynasty. In 1644 (the seventeenth year of Chongzhen), under the double blow of Li Zicheng, Zhang Xianzhong and other peasant uprisings and Qing army aggression, the Ming Dynasty finally couldn't drive. When Li Zicheng attacked Beijing, Zhu Youzhen first killed his wife (empress) and daughter (princess), and then went to the coal mountain to find a crooked-necked tree and hanged himself. However, the Ming Dynasty has fallen, but the resistance of the Ming Dynasty military and people is still continuing, and they are not willing to let the Ming Dynasty perish like this. In the second year, the Qing army went south, drove straight in, because Shi Kefa led the Yangzhou army and people to resist, the Qing army carried out a barbaric massacre of Yangzhou, known as the "Yangzhou Ten Days". When the Qing army attacked Jiangyin, it encountered even more tragic and stubborn resistance, 60,000 righteous people and 240,000 Qing troops fought for 81 days, causing the Qing army to lose three kings and 18 generals in a row, and 75,000 people died. In the process of resisting the Qing Dynasty and restoring the Ming Dynasty in the south of the Yangtze River, many heroes such as Yan Yingyuan, Huang Zongxi, Gu Yanwu, and Huang Daozhou emerged. Some of these people who were willing to sacrifice their lives for the Ming Dynasty were court officials, and some were just scholars or ordinary people. The famous sentence "The rise and fall of the country is the responsibility of the husband" is what Gu Yanwu said during this period, motivating himself and calling on everyone.
However, when the Manchu Qing Dynasty fell in 1911 (the third year of Xuantong), it was a different story, and no one was willing to fight to the death to defend the Qing Dynasty. On October 10, the Xinhai Revolution broke out in Wuchang. Twelve days later, on October 22, Hunan declared independence, and Shaanxi, Jiangxi and other provinces responded. By the beginning of December, the number of independent provinces in the country had reached 14, accounting for about two-thirds of the 22 provinces (not counting Taiwan, which was occupied by Japan). On December 29, the representatives of the 17 provinces that declared independence held an election in Nanjing, and elected Sun Wen as the provisional president. A month later, on February 12, 1912, the Empress Dowager Longyu issued the abdication edict of Emperor Xuantong, and the Qing Dynasty fell.
In fact, the Ming Dynasty was not a very good dynasty compared to the Qing Dynasty, and its rule over the ** and the common people was much harsher than that of the Qing Dynasty. There are not only the East Factory, the West Factory, the Insider Factory, the Jinyi Guard and other institutions, but also the torture methods such as Ling Chi, waist beheading, court cane, and whistleblowing. However, at the same time of crisis, why did the subjects of the Qing Dynasty not fight to the death like the subjects of the Ming Dynasty, "the rise and fall of the country, the husband is responsible"?In fact, the reason for this is that the Ming Dynasty fell only a dynasty, the country changed hands and came to the new emperor, people were afraid that their homes would be destroyed, their property would be seized, and their wives would be separated, perhaps not as good as the life of the original dynasty, and the Qing Dynasty was also destroyed with the feudal ** system that had died for more than 2,000 years, and it would enter the republican era in the future, and there would be no more emperors, and a new society would be ushered in.
Expelling the Tartars, restoring China, establishing **, equalizing land rights" as the program of the League, and later condensed into the "Three People's Principles" (nationality, civil rights, and people's livelihood), which was a matter of the 31st year of Guangxu (1905). From 1905 to 1911, another six years passed, and the people of the Qing Dynasty became more and more aware of what kind of court should be loved and what kind of court was not worthy of love. In short, if it weren't for the fact that people at the end of the Qing Dynasty knew that there was another way of life in the world, a more developed society and a more advanced civilization, but that people all over the world lived under the rule of the emperor, then there would have been countless people who were willing to die in 1911 to save the Qing Dynasty. For example, in the last Xinhai year, that is, in 1851, when the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Uprising, the Qing Dynasty was not exhausted and had not yet reached the point of being incurable, so many people were still able to follow the imperial court to suppress the peasant uprising, and even Zeng Guofan, Hu Linyi, Zuo Zongtang, Li Hongzhang, Zhang Zhidong, Sheng Xuanhuai and other Zhongxing ministers emerged, who would rather pay their own money to recruit troops and horses to save the Qing Dynasty. But by the time of the Xinhai Revolution, there was no such superintendent, Yuan Shikai was thinking about how to force the emperor to abdicate and how to become a big **, instead of thinking about suppressing the revolution as soon as possible and defending the Qing Dynasty for more than 200 years.
Another characteristic of the Qing Dynasty is that when they are powerless to resist, they look forward to the arrival of foreign enemies. Except for the Boxer Rebellion, which was an accident and was willing to "help the Qing Dynasty to destroy the foreigners", people in other places did not seem to be very worried about the demise of the Qing Dynasty. For example, in the First Opium War, when the British army came to the coast, the huge battle did not cause panic among the people, and not many people actively resisted, but spontaneously stood on the shore and watched the foreigners unload equipment on the shore as if watching the excitement. The same situation also appeared in the second Opium War, when the common people stood on the shore to watch the battle, and when they saw that the Qing army was heavy and the ship was gradually sinking into the water, there were still people cheering. When the British and French troops invaded the capital, burned the Old Summer Palace and looted treasures, the first thing the common people thought of was not to protect cultural relics, but to mix in with the foreigners and follow to snatch a little valuable things and take them home. When the Eight-Nation Coalition attacked, only the Boxers were willing to rush up, and more ordinary people did not show much anger. On the contrary, some Qing civilians even organized wheelbarrow convoys to help the coalition forces bring grain and grass into the city. The picture below is a collection of the National Museum of the United States (Smithsonian Institution) of the old **, from the ** can not see the Qing Dynasty people show fear, but sleeves, neck around the watch, put on a look that has nothing to do with their own to see the lively look.
So, why did the people of the Qing Dynasty behave like this?Liang Qichao's evaluation is that the country does not know that there are people, and the people do not know that there is a country. In "On the General Trend of National Competition in Modern Times and the Future of China", he wrote: "Today, the land of China is cloudy, and the private property of a family is also;International (i.e., negotiation matters) clouds, the private affairs of the family also;Those who are in trouble in the country are also in trouble for the private interests of the family;The national shame is also the private humiliation of the family. The people do not know that there is a country, and the country does not know that there are people, so it can meet the world of competition between the countries in the past, or it can still survive, and now it is also at the time of the fiercest national competition, how can it be worthy!”
Translated into the vernacular, this is that since the imperial court always wants to rule the people instead of serving the people, sooner or later it will develop to the point where the people no longer love the imperial court. When the crisis came, instead of thinking about how to help the government alleviate the crisis, he wanted to see how the enemy would teach these former officials and lords a lesson and extinguish their arrogance. Again and again, again and again, again and again and ......again andAfter a series of internal uprisings and foreign powers, by the time the Xinhai Revolution occurred, no one was willing to fight to the death for it like the late Ming Dynasty against the Qing Dynasty, so of course this was also the deserve of the Empress Dowager Cixi and the little emperor Puyi.