Infinite sorrow in the prosperous world

The Kangqian era was a pinnacle of ancient history.

Agriculture, handicrafts and commerce have developed by a large margin in all regions of the country. The area of cultivated land expanded, and in the 31st year of Qianlong (1766), the land that had been reclaimed in the country reached 7800 million mu, at that time, this was the highest value in history;

The population surged, and the national population was about 1 in the early years of Qianlong400 million people, by the 40th year of Qianlong, the population has exceeded 200 million, just the increase has exceeded the national population in the heyday of the Ming Dynasty;

The treasury is full, and the silver of the store is kept for a long time.

Between 60 and 70 million taels, it is almost twice the total annual tax revenue of the country, and the financial crisis of the Ming Dynasty at the beginning did not show any signs in the 40 years of Qianlong.

But is it really a boom?

In the forty-third year of Kangxi, a serious famine occurred in Shandong, and human flesh became a commodity. A native of Zibo, Shandong, the writer Pu Songling happened to witness this human tragedy.

In the book, Pu Songling recorded that the meat seller was delivered to the markets in the early morning, and the ** of human meat was only one-tenth of that of mutton. And there are even vendors selling human oil, **and black hemp**.

People are thrifty and animals are abundant. The county town is gathered by the streamers, and the country is scorched. The good people in the suburbs dug wells, several feet deep, and accepted corpses; It is full of re-digging, covering more than ten wells, and disturbing it has not ended.

The one who carves the flesh of the goods, drives the donkey in the early morning, and carries it to the market, and the price is one of the sheep, or the ointment of the man is broken, and he struck the copper plate in the market with a rod, and the one who grinds the groove of the black hemp in the price of the market, and he has to enter the well, and Judah has the palm of his hand. The immortal, dew the side of the road and sleep on the side, will be ashamed of death, although life is also forgetful.

How did the food ever run out of curtains? The city is full of bones!

It's really hard to ask in the city, people are ten times cheaper than dogs and sheep!

Ji Xiaolan, a talented son of the Qing Dynasty, was a native of the Qianlong period, and he said one thing in his "Reading Wei Caotang":

said that in the west of Jingcheng, there were several barren mounds, and the servant said to Ji Xiaolan: This is the tomb of Zhou's descendants, because of a good deed that can be continued for three generations.

It was in the last years of Chongzhen, the year was in turmoil, coupled with the locust plague, the grass roots and tree bark were eaten up, and some people began to eat human flesh. Some women and young children are sold to the market and are called "vegetable people", while the ** person cuts human flesh like a pig.

This ancestor of the Zhou family went to a restaurant to eat. Who knew that the butcher of this restaurant actually pulled out two women and cut off the woman's arm with a knife. This ancestor of the Zhou clan hurriedly stopped it, and at this time one woman was dead, and the other woman cried out for help. The ancestors of the Zhou family spent money to buy the living woman, and later took her as a concubine.

This woman gave birth to a boy for the Zhou family, and the Zhou family was able to continue for three generations before it became extinct. People say that the Zhou family could not have a son, but because of this good deed, it lasted for three more generations.

Jingcheng is biased to the west, and there are several barren mounds, which will be flattened. After hours, the old servant Shi Xiang pointed and said:"It is a descendant of Zhou, and he is also a good person who extends the third generation. "At the end of Chongzhen in the Ming Dynasty, there were great drought locusts in Henan and Shandong, and the roots and bark were exhausted. Women and young children, who are sold in the market, are called vegetable people. The butcher buys it as if it were a sheep and a pig.

The ancestor of the Zhou family, returned from Dongchang traders, to lunch. The butcher said:"The meat is exhausted, please stay less. "The two women entered the kitchen and shouted:"If you stay for a long time, you can take a hoof first! "In a hurry, when she heard the sound of the trombone, a woman had broken her right arm, as if she was turning to the ground; A woman trembles and is colorless. See Zhou, and cry out, one begging for a quick death, one begging for help. Zhou was moved and paid for redemption. has no physiology, and stabs his heart to death; One brought it back, because it had no children, it was accepted as a concubine. actually gave birth to a man, with red silk on his right arm, and wrapped around his shoulder blade from under his armpit, like a woman with a broken arm. The third generation of the latter is extinct. It is said that Zhou Ben has no children, and these three lives are a good thing.

Ji Xiaolan's "Reading the Wei Caotang".

During the Qianlong period, the British mission came to the Qing Dynasty at that time, and after the mission arrived at the coast of Zhejiang, because they were not familiar with the Chinese routes, the British asked the local general soldiers to help them find a navigator, and the general soldiers happily agreed.

But the British saw an unexpected scene. The method of the general army was to send soldiers and find all the people who had gone to Tianjin by sea. Barrow, a member of the mission, said

The soldiers they sent soon brought back a group of men. They were the most miserable-looking creatures I've ever seen in my life, and they got down on their knees one by one, and ...... questionedThey lamented in vain that going far away from home would ruin their business and cause misery to their wives and children, and to their families, but the general army was unmoved, and ordered them to be ready in an hour.

Magalny even after his visit to China in 1793, said:

Qing ** is like a dilapidated first-class battleship, and the reason why it has not sunk in the last hundred and fifty years is only due to the support of a group of lucky, capable and alert officers, and where she outshines her neighbors, only in her size and appearance. But once a man without talent commands on deck, there will be no more discipline and safety."

On the one hand, the Chronicles of the Chinese Empire, compiled by Duched, praised China:

It is not an exaggeration to say that China is vast and beautiful, and a single province of China is enough to create a huge kingdom to support the ruling ambitions of the prince. Almost everything from other countries can be found in China, but many things in China are unique."

But the book ruthlessly reveals another problem:

Extreme poverty and deprivation make many Chinese do outrageous things. If you have a deeper understanding in Guangzhou, you will find some commonplace phenomena, such as parents abandoning several biological children, parents selling their daughters into slavery, and selfish interests driving many people. ”

At that time, the population of the world was 900 million, and the population of the Qing Dynasty was 300 million, but the Qing Dynasty was asleep in a dream of its own making, which was ruthlessly torn apart by artillery fire at sea in 1840.

The Opium War lasted almost two years, and on May 1, 1842, Emperor Daoguang suddenly realized that he knew nothing about the opponent in front of him, and he issued an edict to understand this opponent:

According to the detailed inquiry of the English and other inland waters, it is said that there are 70,000 miles, and how many countries does it pass through to the mainland? ”

In fact, the world map ———Kunyu Quantu" drawn by Nan Huairen for Emperor Kangxi and the globe sent by Macartney were lying quietly in the treasury of the Forbidden City at this time.

Marx commented in "History of Opium":

An empire with a population of almost one-third of humanity, still content with the status quo despite current events, isolated by forceful exclusion from the system of world connections, and therefore trying to deceive itself with the illusion of perfection, such an empire is finally going to die in such a desperate duel. ”