When we look through the history of China, we will find a striking phenomenon, in the dozens of dynasties that are clearly recorded, the demise of each dynasty is very similar. Basically, it is caused by chaotic phenomena such as the last faint monarch, civil strife in the country, foreign relatives, eunuch interference, and peasant uprisings.
However, the last feudal dynasty, the Qing Dynasty, was an exception, among the 12 emperors of the Qing Dynasty, there was not a faint monarch, counting the early monarchs of the Qing Dynasty, from Huang Taiji to Jiaqing, although they were not saints, they were all wise monarchs.
Moreover, during the reign of the Qing Dynasty, it made up for the problems of foreign relatives, eunuchs interfering in politics, and national turmoil caused by the struggle for the throne in the early dynasties.
As far as the profession of the emperor is concerned, the emperors of the Qing Dynasty are all dedicated people, especially workaholics like Kangxi and Yongzheng, which further promoted the development of the Qianlong period and achieved the first time in history that the population exceeded 100 million.
Moreover, although the monarchs of the late Qing Dynasty were not as wise as the previous ones, they were far better than the later monarchs of other periods in terms of politics, that is, there were no people who ate, drank and had fun, and there were no indulgent, mediocre and incompetent people.
All of the monarchs who succeeded after the Opium War in 1840 tried to save the Qing dynasty from peril. In order to save expenses, Emperor Daoguang made up the dragon robes again and again, and the tens of thousands of people in the palace only spent 200,000 taels a month. Even when the queen died, she just used lo noodles to entertain guests.
After Emperor Xianfeng succeeded to the throne, he reformed the system of the imperial government, reused Zeng Guofan and others, and supported Su Shun and others to reform and eliminate maladministration. After Tongzhi succeeded to the throne, he vigorously supported the Westernization Movement to strengthen himself, and after Guangxu succeeded to the throne, he took the initiative to reduce imperial power, supported Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao and others to initiate the Wuxu Restoration and reform the law and engage in a constitutional monarchy.
However, the efforts of the later emperors again and again were exchanged for failure again and again, and a series of unequal treaties were signed.
In 1841, Emperor Daoguang declared war on Britain, Emperor Xianfeng declared war on the British and French forces in 1860, Guangxu declared war on Japan in 1894, and Cixi declared war on many countries in 1900, but in the end they all ended in disastrous defeats.
In Professor Jin Yinan's view, none of the emperors of the Qing Dynasty were faint monarchs, two-thirds of the emperors were elites, and one-third of them were also good emperors who did their duty, and there were no common problems of feudal dynasties such as eunuchs and foreign relatives.
During the Ming Dynasty, China was second to none in the world in terms of economic level and military strength, and Europe was still in the chaos of the Middle Ages. But just over 200 years later, Europe has an empire on which the sun never sets, and North America has become a land of freedom and democracy, and a few thousand people can defeat the Qing Dynasty.
In this regard, we can't help but ask, why did these unfaint kings fail to save the Qing Dynasty in this dynasty without faint monarchs.
In his masterpiece "Why China", Professor Jin Yinan analyzed the reasons for the fall of the Qing Dynasty, and he believed that the Qing Dynasty fell for the following two reasons that cannot be ignored:
For more than 1,000 years, China was dominated by agriculture, which inhibited the commercial economy, hindered the development of social economy and productive forces, and eventually led to China's productivity lagging behind the world.
Especially after the completion of the first industrial revolution in the West, the Qing Dynasty was defeated again and again, and signed a series of treaties that humiliated the country, once again increasing the backwardness of productivity and technology.
At this time, the Qing Dynasty also faced a change in its enemies, no longer the skilled and backward nomads of the past, but also the Western powers with advanced technology.
The feudal dynasty belongs to the form of the family world, and the interests of the family are higher than the interests of the state, and it is not difficult for us to find that the last monarch always likes to say: "I am ashamed of my ancestors and ancestors."
The emperor's efforts were for the sake of family interests, just as Mr. Sun Yat-sen said: "China's 40,000,000 people are like a plate of scattered sand", and there is no concept of state or nation.
In the late Qing Dynasty, there were indeed no traitors, let alone faint kings. Although Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao and others tried to change the law and become strong in the later period, the strength of the country was not achieved in a day, and the decline of the country was not formed in a day.
Marx said in 1848 in "History of Opium":
A great empire with a population of almost one-third of the human race, regardless of the current situation, is content with the status quo, artificially isolated from the world, and therefore tries to deceive itself with the illusion of perfection. Such an empire was destined to be crushed in a duel to the death.
In Professor Jin Yinan's view, the fall of the Qing Dynasty was not the Qing Dynasty's own reasons, but the times changed, the Manchu dynasty was different from the dynasty before the Ming Dynasty, if the 12 emperors were placed in any of the previous dynasties, they would be able to create a peaceful and prosperous era, but the era in which they lived changed, no matter how hard they tried, they could not adapt to the new era.
The Qing Dynasty, a backward feudal system, was doomed to extinction, and a new system would replace the feudal system and form a completely new country.
At this dangerous moment, generation after generation of revolutionary martyrs spared no effort to save the country and make it strong, and through the efforts of generation after generation, today's China has developed into the world's second largest economic power.
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