The germination of capitalism in Song Dynasty was interrupted twice by the invasion of foreign forces. For the first time, the attack of the State of Jin led to the demise of the Northern Song Dynasty, which not only interrupted the germination of capitalism, but also lost the industrial energy base with overlapping coal and iron resources in the north. This kind of blow is quite serious and will have an extremely adverse impact on the development of capitalism in the Song Dynasty. Mongolia's second attack led to the demise of the Southern Song Dynasty, and this time it was even more devastating. It turns out that after the development of the Southern Song Dynasty 100 years, capitalism has sprouted and grown. Although the loss of the northern coal and iron base has many disadvantages, it is not a problem to become industrial capitalism in time, and as a result, it has once again suffered foreign aggression.
Needless to say, in the Ming dynasty, capitalism flourished in the late Ming dynasty, new ideas, concepts and technologies emerged one after another, and foreign exchanges were also in the ascendant. At this time, it was also a disaster to suffer from natural disasters and the invasion and rule of the Qing regime.
This analysis answers some questions. However, this analysis is not satisfactory, and we need to ask further: Why are the Song Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty with higher civilization and more developed economic power so fragile and suffer the same fate again and again? When the west developed capitalism, it was also fragile. Why didn't the west encounter a similar situation? These questions must be answered and cannot be avoided.
The reasons can be divided into two aspects, one is internal and the other is external.
The internal reasons can be divided into two aspects: on the one hand, the budding capitalist society is indeed a relatively fragile society, which must be admitted; On the other hand, the fragility of China's capitalist budding society has its own special reasons, which must be analyzed from the macro trend of the whole history.
External reasons can also be divided into two aspects, one is the difference caused by the external geographical environment, and the other is the different effects of one's own culture on the external backward ethnic groups.
Let's analyze it layer by layer.
Internal reasons On the one hand, the budding capitalist society itself is fragile and unstable. Every civilization has its strengths and weaknesses, and a civilization that has always been strong and strong does not exist in the whole history of mankind. When a civilization is fragile and soft, it is often the time for its self-renewal and evolution. If we can survive this stage, we can embark on a higher stage of development and enter a more brilliant stage of civilization; If not, it may perish or fall into a strange circle of historical turmoil. It is very easy to understand if we compare the phenomena in the biological world. Insects are the weakest and most vulnerable when they pupate, and so are snakes when they molt. Of course, women are particularly weak when they are pregnant. When a society has the bud of capitalism, and the bud is in a critical breakthrough, it is when the old factors are disintegrating and the new factors are growing but have not really occupied the dominant position. At this time, the society is relatively fragile, and the ability to resist foreign aggression is bound to decrease.
If a civilization has gone through such a fragile stage, it will be extremely ignorant to dismiss it, scoff at it and spit on it, and regard the experience of this fragile stage as the defect of this civilization and as evidence of its inferiority. Unfortunately, many people are using this logic to attack Chinese civilization in Song and Ming Dynasties.
However, the west has also experienced a capitalist budding society. Why hasn't the West been interrupted by foreign aggression because of its fragility? In fact, even in the west, British capitalism, which is separated from the European continent by the strait, grew up smoothly first, and it was not until Britain became an industrial power that capitalism spread all over Europe. Britain is an island country, but at the same time, it has close ties with the European continent, so on the one hand, the advanced economy, culture, ideas and science of the European continent can be spread to Britain in time, on the other hand, Britain is disturbed and invaded by foreign wars when it goes to capitalism, thus minimizing the danger of interruption of germination. This is also an important reason why capitalism really developed in Britain first, but it is struggling in other countries on the European continent. This is not the whole reason, but it is an indispensable condition.
Japan in Asia, like Britain, is an island country, but it has not independently embarked on the road of modern industrialization. It is because China, as the birthplace and engine of civilization, has been blocked, plunged into dark ethnic oppression and autocratic rule, and become a relatively isolated and closed system, lacking continuous ideological and material stimulation in economy and culture. Of course, it can't be like Britain.
Let's look at the second aspect of internal factors. To put it simply, since the Song Dynasty, the reason why China's capitalist budding society is too fragile is the excessive development of capitalist budding. More precisely, more than a thousand years of political system progress has led to too little resistance in the process of capitalist budding and development. It is precisely for this reason that when foreign aggression comes, the whole country shows incompetence and weakness disproportionate to its social and economic development.
We say that the budding capitalist society itself is fragile, but this fragility cannot be infinite, and theoretically it will not be worse than the end of the ancient long-period dynasty. Because the country at that stage was also in the process of social collapse and lacked new support. However, we can see that no matter at the end of the Han Dynasty or the end of the Tang Dynasty, the nomadic invasion could not occupy the whole of China. After the demise of the Eastern Han Dynasty, it was the Three Kingdoms, followed by the Wei and Jin Dynasties, followed by the Southern and Northern Dynasties, followed by the Sui and Tang Dynasties, followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms. There was no period when barbarians occupied absolute superiority and dominance.
Therefore, the Song and Ming Dynasties were invaded by barbarians, and the whole China fell, which led to the retrogression of civilization and the interruption of the normal social development process. We must find another reason. In fact, this bad result is that capitalism is over-developed and the resistance to capitalist development is too small. On this point, we can't just look for it from the dynasty itself, but must look for it from the historical background that China's capitalist budding society lasted for too long. As mentioned earlier, China entered the embryonic stage of capitalism as early as the Warring States Period, during which it experienced several cycles of the rise and fall of imperial dynasties. And these cycles are not just simple repetitions and cycles of primitive society every time. In fact, each cycle is developed and changed on the original basis. Generally speaking, these changes reflect the historical trend that the boundary between the royal family and the government is becoming clearer, the government structure is constantly improving, the political power of civilian intellectuals is rising, the aristocratic power is declining, the hierarchical system is constantly being broken, the imperial power is constantly being overhead, and the anti-local separatist consciousness is constantly strengthening.
Some political phenomena in the Song and Ming Dynasties, such as the opening of the government, the expansion of democracy, the strengthening of public opinion supervision, the weakening of imperial power, the improvement of intellectuals' status, the strengthening of centralization and the nationalization of the army, should be said to be the manifestations of political progress and social progress accumulated for more than 1000 years. We must admit that these are all progress, and they are great progress. Compared with other countries in the world at that time, such progress was quite amazing and admirable.
However, when a kind of progress comes too early and is out of step with the development of other aspects of society, then I am afraid this kind of progress is not progress, but tragedy and disaster. Just as it is good for children to grow taller, if they have grown to 1.8 meters by the time they are five or six years old, I am afraid no parents can laugh. For another example, one leg grows fast and the other leg grows slowly, which is definitely a painful thing. This is the situation faced by the Song and Ming Dynasties. On the one hand, the political system has been highly advanced and mature. On the other hand, this progress has not kept pace with the development of economy and science and technology.
The progress and maturity of the political system in Song and Ming Dynasties were gradually accumulated by the continuous improvement of the political system in a dynasty under the cyclical ups and downs of society since the Warring States Period. It is the result of the evolution of political system according to its own internal logic, rather than the product of economic and technological development. At the same time, after the high development of economy and science and technology, every dynasty experienced a big collapse, destruction and sweeping, and started the next cycle on the ruins after destruction and collapse. Although this kind of economic and technological development is not a simple repetition, it can indeed reach a higher level and stage than the previous cycle, but it is still out of touch with the direct accumulation and evolution of the political system from one cycle to another.
This kind of political system in Song and Ming Dynasties was greatly ahead in the development level of economy and science and technology, which was a very unfavorable factor for the society facing the transition period (from the former capitalist society to the capitalist society) and the surrounding environment surrounded by foreign enemies (whether in Song or Ming Dynasty, there were threats from barbaric national regimes around it). Compared with the western countries in the same period, its disadvantages are obvious.