The history of mankind is originally a history in which civilization triumphs over barbarism, democracy triumphs over autocracy and progress replaces backwardness. However, Manchu's entry into the customs was a reflection of historical development. Here, we will discuss from seven aspects why "Manchu entering the customs" is a retrogression of history.
First, stifle the enlightenment thought in the late Ming Dynasty and stifle the bud of capitalism. Strengthen backward and rigid feudal autocracy.
The germination of capitalism in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River after the middle of the Ming Dynasty marked a new stage of industrial and commercial development within Confucian civilization, and there were germination of capitalism everywhere in the south of the Yangtze River. In the history of all countries, feudal countries have the right to deprive industry and commerce of excess profits. What the Ming Dynasty did was to make excuses and raise the tax rate. During the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, merchants were ordered to give up half of their property to help the government, which led to "a large number of merchants' families ruined their lives". However, the industrialists and businessmen in the Ming Dynasty have become quite powerful social forces, and they can't stand this kind of tax increase. There has been a large-scale opposition from the mine supervisor, and civil unrest caused by taxation has been happening constantly. Dozens of times the scale, hundreds of times the average. The "uprising" is different from the peasant uprising. With this kind of struggle, ideas such as "equality", "freedom", "rejuvenating the country through industry" and "protecting trade" will spread, and bourgeois reforms and revolutions may occur.
Some people say that there were no conditions similar to those in Western Europe to realize capitalism in the Ming Dynasty, so we have to ask, every country has its own road to modernization, and China does not have the characteristics of the earliest capitalist country, such as Britain. Can't it explore a road to modernization by itself? For example, serfdom in Russia, such as feudal Germany and Japan. For another example, modern China went directly to socialism without going through the stage of developed capitalism. China people, deeply influenced by Confucianism, once established the "Lanfang Republic" in Nanyang, which existed for 100 years. The key is to emancipate the mind and communicate with foreign countries. Only with communication can we make progress. There was a parliament in Britain, but at that time, people in China formed associations one after another, and the atmosphere of discussing state affairs among the people was very prosperous. In particular, there is an advanced ideological and political organization "Fu She". In the Qing dynasty, the country closed its doors and banned associations. The Qing law stipulates: "Anyone who gathers 30 people will be beheaded". All non-governmental organizations have been banned.
At the end of the Ming Dynasty, feudal autocracy was about to collapse and decline, especially Neo-Confucianism in Song and Ming Dynasties exposed the disadvantages of strangling human nature and formed a fierce conflict with the vibrant civic culture. People of insight have discovered the disadvantages of the feudal system in all aspects and are exploring a new way. New ideas and concepts are constantly emerging, and advanced and excellent western culture and technology are constantly introduced, just like the eve of the Renaissance experienced by western society. The late Ming and early Qing dynasties were the era of ideological enlightenment. The great thinkers of Ming Dynasty, such as Li Zhi, Huang Zongxi, Gu and Wang Fuzhi, all saw the disadvantages of feudal society, especially the harm of Neo-Confucianism in Song and Ming Dynasties. In their works, humanitarianism and democracy shine. Huang Zongxi's Yuan Jun criticized the absolute monarchy and fired the first shot of modern democratic thought. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the ideological circle began to reflect and criticize the whole feudal ideological system from philosophy to ethics, from governing the country to studying. China's traditional operas and novels all take citizens' preferences as the standard, which embodies the awakening of citizens' consciousness and is a rebellion against feudal ethics that suppresses human nature. Western Catholicism spread widely in the south, especially welcomed by advanced literati in the late Ming Dynasty. They tried to combine religions from the West with Confucianism, and China foreign religions. Lindong Party closely combined with Catholics, and a large number of outstanding figures emerged. For example, Xu Guangqi, Li Zhi and Qu Shizhen were all Catholics, and Sun Zi, Li Tianjing, Qu Shizhen and others formed the "Western School". Catholicism in Nanming also spread in the palace, and concubines generally believed in Catholicism, which of course would affect the supreme ruling group. The idea of equality for all advocated by western religions is conducive to the spread of humanism and democratic ideas, the introduction of science and technology, the exchange of eastern and western civilizations, and even the establishment of the capitalist system. However, the entry of Manchu into the customs ruined the last chance for the ideological circle to combine Confucianism with western Christian civilization to produce a new culture.
Some people say that the Ming Dynasty has decayed, which is correct in general, but not necessarily in some parts. The ruling class and feudal bureaucrats are decadent, while the people are full of vitality. The fertile south of the Yangtze River is a region where emerging forces sprout, grow and grow. Just like the decay of the Kuomintang during the Anti-Japanese War, it is not conducive to leading the whole people in the war of resistance, but * * * is the force of the new revolution and can lead the people of China in the war of resistance. It's just that the new forces of Nanming are not strong enough to lead the national war of resistance independently. Just like on the eve of the French Revolution, was the feudal dynasty corrupt? Are social contradictions fierce? This is the weakest time in this country. Do you want another brutal invasion or bourgeois revolution? /kloc-in the 0/9th century, Japan became a world power in just 30 years of westernization-Meiji Restoration. What reason do we have to doubt that the ideological enlightenment and liberation movement in the late Ming Dynasty 200 years ago could not bring a better situation? But the Qing dynasty destroyed social productive forces with iron and blood. After the destruction of material culture, the literary inquisition in Daxing became untouchable. It strengthened this decadent feudal consciousness and system as never before, and plunged China into darkness like the European Middle Ages after the invasion of western barbarians.
Second, productivity is relatively stagnant, and military equipment and science and technology are greatly retrogressed.
The haggard life in Kang Yong, which some people strongly advocate now, is actually mostly a kind of restorative growth in the late Ming Dynasty. Before Jiadao, the revenue and expenditure of Manchu remained basically unchanged for a long time, with 30 million tons and 4.6 million yuan, and other silver totaled 48 million yuan. According to the land tax in the General Examination of Qing Literature, the total cultivated land area in the country was 5.9 million hectares in the 16th year of Shunzhi (1659), increased to 6.83 million hectares in the 24th year of Kangxi, and increased to 7.08 million hectares in the 18th year of Qianlong. In the thirty-first year of Qianlong (1766), it reached 74 1 10,000, and there were 7.83 million fields (jianbozan) in Chongzhen in the late Ming Dynasty, which was just close to the land figures in the late Ming Dynasty. It can be seen that the recovery of dry land production in Kang Yong was slow, and it took a hundred years to reach the production scale in the late Ming Dynasty. The highest in Qing Dynasty was 79 1 10,000 in Jiaqing seventeen years, only exceeding 70,000-80,000 hectares in Chongzhen of Ming Dynasty, and then it declined, reaching 7.37 million in Daoguang thirteen years. The feudal economy was at a standstill (Outline of the General History of Fan Wenlan and China, page 767).
The overall production level has not improved, so why is there such a large population? The reason is that Xu Guangqi and others introduced and advocated the cultivation of sweet potato in the late Ming Dynasty, and the yield of this crop was huge. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, crops such as three-season rice and corn were introduced into agriculture, which increased the grain output. With the popularization of these crops, the land in China can support more people.
Matteo Ricci, a missionary in the late Ming Dynasty, said that the material production here is extremely rich and ubiquitous, the sugar is whiter than that in Europe, and the cloth is more exquisite than that in Europe ... People are luxuriantly dressed, personable, cheerful, polite and elegant in speech. (The Notes of Matteo Ricci China, Chapter 10). Magal, the British envoy who visited during the Qianlong period, said that "there is amazing poverty everywhere", "many people have no clothes to wear" and "the army is as shabby as beggars".
As we all know, industry and commerce were extremely developed in Song Dynasty, but it was further developed in Ming Dynasty. The output of iron is two and a half times that of the Northern Song Dynasty. During Yongle period, the iron output was as high as 9700 tons. By the17th century, Russia, which produced the most iron in Europe, was only 2,400 tons. But in the Qing Dynasty, the government banned mining and the metallurgical industry declined. Cotton cloth replaced linen as the mainstream product of textiles in Ming Dynasty. Whether it is heavy industry such as steel, shipbuilding and construction, or light industry such as silk, cotton cloth and porcelain, it is far ahead in the world, accounting for more than two-thirds of the world's industrial output and accounting for a much higher proportion of the world's agricultural output. Although the population of Kanggan was several times that of the Ming Dynasty, the total output of iron and cloth, two indicators of industrial products, never recovered to the level of the late Ming Dynasty. It didn't take long to reach the end of Kanggan heyday at 1840.
The foreign trade volume at the end of Ming Dynasty was amazing. Frank of the United States estimated in his book Silver Capital that during the hundred years from the middle of16th century to the middle of17th century (that is, from the middle of the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Ming Dynasty), about 7000 to 10000 tons of silver flowed into China from Eurasian trade, accounting for about 1/ of the world's total silver output at that time. Ten thousand tons of silver, equivalent to 322 million silver in China at that time. It is not Europe that occupies the center of the world economy, but China. But before the Opium War, the foreign trade of Qing Dynasty was far lower than that of Ming Dynasty.
Intellectuals in the Ming Dynasty were open-minded and had a strong maritime military force, and they always held a welcome and learning attitude towards mastering and introducing advanced technology. "The navy of the Ming Dynasty may be stronger than any Asian country in history, even stronger than any European country in the same era, so that all European countries can't compete with the navy of the Ming Dynasty." -Needham. At that time, Yuan Chonghuan's Hony Gun came from Portugal. The firearms equipment in Ming Dynasty was very advanced. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, except for 65,438+10,000 people who were riding and shooting, all others were firearms. Each battalion (5000 people) uses 3600 thunderbolt guns, 200 Dalian Pearl guns, 400 pistols and 0/60 lamps. What modern equipment this is. With the complete demise of the Ming Dynasty, after the rule of Kang Yong III. Advanced firearms armed technology was buried in the Qing Dynasty. By the time of the Opium War, Qing soldiers with broadswords and spears were not familiar with firearms.
The Manchu dynasty won the world by riding and shooting, and held instinctive fear and hostility to firearms and modern military industry for fear of threatening its own rule. When the Qing army presented the samples of Russian trigger muskets captured in the Sino-Japanese War to Kangxi, Kangxi fled on the grounds that he could not interrupt the bows and spears given by his predecessors, leaving only two for his own play, which made the Qing army ban the use of this new muskets. Although riding and shooting still dominated in the late Ming Dynasty, after 200 years of firearms development, riding and shooting was finally eliminated, and China people did not need foreigners to use it. The evil consequence of hindering advanced technology is to get bad results in the end. The western countries' innovation and change are in sharp contrast with the Japanese conservative Qing Dynasty, which ignored new things, and laid the foundation for China to become a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country and almost perish.