Twenty Years of Regret in China: The Sorrow of the PioneersMa Yong
Travel back in time and discover the mysteries of history
The famous historian Jiang Tinghuang once made a thoughtful analysis of the relationship between Lin Zexu and Qi Shan and the Opium War. He believes that when Qi Shan went to Guangdong to deal with the Sino-British conflict, he did not intend to fight the British militarily.
He was well aware of the disparity in military strength between the two countries and foresaw the consequences of resorting to war, so he made a rational choice that protected the country and restored a little dignity of the Qing Dynasty.
This perspective has important implications for our understanding of historical events and decision-making.
Qi Shan's choice caused his personal reputation to suffer a heavy blow and became a thief hated by the whole country. This is Qi Shan's personal tragedy, and at the same time a major mistake in modern China.
According to Chiang, if it were not for Qishan's mediation, China would likely have followed Lin Zexu's line to war, and the result would likely have been a major war between the two countries: if war had begun, China would have lost, and defeat would have prompted China to quickly seek peace.
Peace would not only significantly reduce China's losses, but would also allow China to begin political reforms at least two decades ahead of schedule. In other words, China should have embraced Western civilization and gone global 30 years before Japan, and would not have experienced as much political and cultural upheaval as it had been.
Although Jiang Tinghuang's opinion is a little cruel, it is indeed right. Although the "Treaty of Nanjing" caused China to lose Hong Kong and a large amount of reparations, for the "** Empire", which has long been looked up to, the indemnity of 12 million taels of silver is only a trivial matter.
The five-port trade is just four more treaty ports than the original Guangzhou, and at most it is only four "special economic zones" in China. After a short period of suffering, the Qing Dynasty was glad that the war had passed, and China could return to its previous path and continue to dream of "going to the country".
The Qing Dynasty lacked a sense of urgency about the impending catastrophe, and only a few intellectual elites such as Lin Zexu and Wei Yuan noticed the British and others"Barbarians"Different. They believe that although Britain has different cultures from Portugal, Spain, and the Netherlands, they belong to the same culture.
However, history has shown that Portugal, Spain, and the Netherlands are not as powerful as the United Kingdom. The Opium War seems to have started because of opium, but opium was not banned after the war, China's international balance of payments did not change because of the war, and opium was still an important means for Britain to balance China.
After the war, the Chinese did not understand the meaning of the war and did not understand the fundamental purpose of the war launched by Britain. The Qing Dynasty did not use treaty ports to introduce Western material civilization and technology, nor did they use treaty ports to cultivate the Chinese market and emerging industries.
There are many reasons for China's failure, but the main one is that a traditional agrarian society met a relatively modern industrial society, which is the difference between the two eras, there is no distinction between advanced and backward, only the times are different.
In this case, the only way China should take is to learn from the West and change itself. Despite all kinds of difficulties and challenges, it is only through learning and change that China can find its own way.
Over the past few thousand years, China has faced many Opium War-like dangers, but never has it been as careless as it was after the Opium Wars. Hu Shih's research shows that the reason why China has survived and continued to move forward in crisis after crisis is that after being conquered by foreign peoples, it has always surpassed and assimilated these conquerors, so that they can finally integrate into Chinese civilization.
But why didn't it happen this time? The reason is very simple, because except for a few people such as Lin Zexu and Wei Yuan, most Chinese fail to recognize the real reason for China's failure, and do not believe that China, which has thousands of years of civilization, will easily lose at the feet of others.
However, the spirit of change that was originally contained in Chinese civilization was ignored and covered up after the defeat, and people regarded the failure as accidental, and did not recognize or realize the essential differences between Chinese and Western civilizations, which also led to the inability to generate ideas for change, or even to abolish the ideas of change before the Opium War, such as Gong Zizhen's view.
Instead of promoting the awakening of the nation and nation, the defeat has led us into a more conservative situation.
In the social structure of "Shinong, Industrialist, and Industrialist" in Chinese history, the scholar class played a leading role in social progress. They have a moderately conservative attitude towards cultural change, protecting traditional culture and treating it as capital.
However, cultural change or distrust was crucial to the scholarly class, who did not consider replacing the old with new learning. This has caused Chinese civilization to miss many development opportunities, which is the tragedy of the pioneers and the sorrow of Chinese civilization.
Chinese civilization emphasizes keeping pace with the times, but when it comes to critical periods, opportunities are often lost.
After thousands of years of development, the scholar class has changed from the innovative spirit of the past to the conservative mentality of the present, and they have begun to pay more attention to their reputation, identity and status, fearing that their reputation will be questioned and subverted.
Therefore, even if some people are aware of the trend of the times, they only discuss it privately, and are reluctant to discuss it widely as a public topic, let alone have the courage to publicly call for it and promote it.
Taking Lin Zexu as an example, he has clearly recognized China's problems in his dealings with foreigners, and knows that China has a huge gap with the West militarily. Therefore, he advocated the purchase of foreign guns and ships, and the arrangement of special people to collect and translate Western materials.
These thoughts and actions profoundly influenced Wei Yuan, giving Wei Yuan the opportunity to put forward the positive proposition of "mastering the skills of Yi to control Yi". Twenty years later, Lin Zexu and Wei Yuan's ideas profoundly inspired Japan, and many of the reasons for the Meiji Restoration are related to Lin Zexu's ideas and Wei Yuan's Atlas of the Sea Kingdom, a view that has been accepted by researchers.
Lin Zexu was aware of the huge gap between China and the world, but he did not dare to openly advocate "opening his eyes to the world". He would rather let the scholars and officials who were immersed in sweet dreams continue to sleep than sacrifice his reputation and fight against the customs.
This scholarly mentality has led to the loss of twenty years in China. After the Opium War, China should have embarked on the road of change, learning from the West, and reforming in the way of "mastering the skills of the people to control them", but in China, these should not all become inevitable.
As a result, China lost twenty years, and it was not until the next crisis arose, until it experienced an even greater defeat, that China began to wake up.