1 Decay of feudal system in Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty in China's feudal period. In the late Qing Dynasty, capitalism in western countries developed rapidly, but China was still in the feudal system. As a capitalist with advanced productive forces, it is superior to the feudal system in productivity, production relations and production methods. Moreover, the corrupt and backward system in the late Qing Dynasty also exposed the defects and drawbacks of the feudal system.
The main manifestations and disadvantages of the ancient feudal system in China are mainly manifested in the autocratic monarchy system. In feudal society, autocratic monarchy is an important factor that hinders social progress and historical development, because it can easily lead to tyranny and corruption. The essence of feudal autocracy and centralization is monarchy in the form of emperor's authority. As the source of all political power, imperial power strictly controls the ideology and political activities of officials, and obeys the emperor's orders, pushing the emperor's authority to an unbounded level. This system has lagged far behind the western capitalist system.
The Qing dynasty was a feudal autocratic empire, and the emperor set military and political power in one. The relative concentration of emperor's power easily leads to the lack of prominent political personality of officials. Officials' ideology and political activities are conservative, and the emperor handles all official affairs on their behalf, and opposes officials' independent thinking and discussion of state affairs.
The Qing government also widely used secret agents and other means to strengthen the control and monitoring of officials. During the Opium War, the British government gave front-line commanders the right to make decisions independently according to wartime conditions. Even if the war situation changes and the commander changes, Britain's overall strategic deployment and requirements remain basically unchanged. On the contrary, the Qing government's attitude towards the war changed many times. First, the Qing government misjudged the strength of the British army, and second, the Qing army was too confident in itself: before and at the beginning of the war, it took defense as the attack and waited for labor.
Don't fight the enemy in the ocean, try to lure the enemy ashore and annihilate them; After the war in Guangzhou, the Qing government adopted a compromise attitude to avoid confrontation with the British army; When the British army invaded the north for the second time, the Qing court decided to compete with the British army by force; After the failure of the counterattack in eastern Zhejiang, the Qing government began to lose confidence, thinking that it was difficult to win the military struggle, and it was replaced by submission and compromise. It can be seen that the Qing government lacked accurate understanding and estimation of the situation of the British army, so it made obvious mistakes in military judgment, which led to the constant change of strategic policy and caused panic among the soldiers in front. Extreme monarchy will affect all aspects of social politics, economy and life. From a historical point of view, this kind of personal dictatorship is not conducive to the long-term stability of a society and an era. Instead, it will have a negative impact on the progress of the whole society.
Government officials were corrupt and incompetent, and the Qing government implemented a reactionary policy of suppressing the people's uprising at home and compromising and surrendering abroad.
During the Opium War, the people's struggle against aggression took various forms, ranging from long-term bloody battles of patriotic officers and soldiers to guerrilla struggles of various non-governmental organizations. It can be seen that the people's anti-aggression struggle at that time was always powerful, especially the people in Guangdong and Beijing and Tianjin, who were ravaged by the invading army. In order to defend their country and homeland, they attacked the enemy in various forms with fearless revolutionary spirit, so that the aggressors were duly punished. However, the people's indomitable struggle against aggression was not supported by the Qing government. However, the decision-making power and leadership of the Anti-Japanese War were in the hands of the Qing government's compromise faction, which urged the surrender of the aggressors and tried their best to stifle and suppress this civil anti-aggression struggle, making it impossible to play.
At that time, the Qing government was in a period of decline and change of the feudal social system, the political system was dim, the corruption in the officialdom bred, and various social and ethnic contradictions intensified. The foreign economic policy of the Qing government closed to the outside world imprisoned the traditional self-sufficient natural economy, which led to the low level of social productivity and the serious backwardness of science and technology at that time. In addition, the Qing government was lax in armaments and inferior in combat weapons, and the feudal ruling class had fallen into a serious ruling crisis. In this case, it is difficult for the Qing government to have more strength to resist the attack of foreign invaders.
During the Opium War, the ruling class of the Qing government made frequent mistakes in judging the war, and the command efficiency of military generals was low. The officers and men of all levels of government bullied their superiors and deceived their subordinates, which led to ignorance and misunderstanding of the enemy and the British army. It was difficult for the Qing court to foresee the progress of the war. Often constrained by the enemy, they are too poor to cope with it, completely losing the initiative, leading to mistakes in military command, inability to correctly assess the situation, know ourselves and know ourselves, and the efficiency of coping with changes in the war situation. During the Opium War of two years, the mistakes of the Qing army in strategic decision-making frequently appeared, which was not only caused by the corruption of the Qing government, but also a concrete manifestation of the corruption of the Qing government.
Looking at the overall situation, the Qing government had many innate advantages in the Opium War. First of all, judging from the nature of the war, the justice of the anti-aggression war can arouse the indignation of patriotic soldiers and civilians to a great extent, but the Qing government failed to mobilize the masses because of its feudal nature. Secondly, the Qing government has an absolute advantage in the number of people participating in the war, and it is fighting at home, which has the advantage of favorable weather and geographical location and can get the support of the broad masses of the people, and is completely in a favorable situation. From the victory of the Qing army in the second anti-British landing war, it can be seen that as long as the Qing government has firm combat determination, adequate preparation, accurate assessment of the situation, and correct methods of fighting against the enemy and against the enemy, it can completely defeat the invading army. However, due to the corruption and corrupt officials in the Qing political system, the Qing government not only failed to take advantage of favorable conditions, but adopted the wrong policy of suppressing the people at home and compromising and surrendering abroad, which led to the failure of the Opium War.
Military strategic mistakes and weapons quality are important factors that determine the outcome of a war.
The cultural quality and military quality of the commanders of the Qing army determined that they could not adapt to the new modern war. At that time, although some commanders at all levels of the Qing army died heroically in the Anti-Japanese War, they did not have correct tactical application and progressive military thinking. Their strategic thinking is still in the feudal era of closed doors, and their tactical thinking is still in the era of cold weapons. Therefore, the frontline command is chaotic, the military discipline is lax, people are in panic, and the enemy is like a tiger.
The Qing Dynasty was a declining feudal empire. For a long time, the Qing government pursued a closed-door policy and blindly refused the spread and entry of advanced ideas and scientific and cultural knowledge from western countries. Although the Qing government had a trade history with western countries for nearly 200 years, it didn't know much about western countries.
Since the establishment of the Qing Dynasty 200 years ago, neither the Eight Banners of the Qing government nor the green camp army has been fighting. In addition, the soldiers of the Qing government did not participate in the war for a long time. On the one hand, they lacked actual combat experience, on the other hand, they did not undergo strict training and had no combat capability at all. Moreover, the military system is very backward. Usually, the stars are scattered in various camps, busy with heavy chores and little training; When the battle came, the troops were temporarily transferred from all over the country, and the soldiers were unorganized and lacked cooperation. It is difficult to form combat effectiveness. If soldiers don't obey orders, they will be deprived of their troops. In addition, generals at all levels have improper command and lack a basic understanding of tactics. Therefore, the Qing army did nothing in the war and missed the opportunity. Instead of destroying the enemy, it was defeated by the British.
During the Opium War, Britain was the world's number one capitalist power, with developed industries, excellent weapons and obvious firepower advantages. In the language of military historians, the British army at that time had already entered the "firearms era" from the "cold weapon era" of bows and arrows, broadswords and spears, and "point killing" in combat had been replaced by "face killing". What is more important in the battle is firepower and human organization, and personal courage has withdrawn from the decisive position. At that time, the China army mainly used bows and arrows, broadswords and spears, including some matchlock guns. However, the fire rope must be lit to catch the target slowly. Usually, when gunpowder is triggered, the target has moved or the opponent has shot it down. At that time, the Qing government's gun manufacturing and casting technology was completely behind western countries, not only in terms of technology, but also in terms of steel raw materials, which was far lower than that of Britain, which had completed the industrial revolution. Therefore, the ammunition produced is very rough, and its militancy and lethality are far less than those of the British army.
China people cast artillery by hand, but the castings are "full of bees' eyes", and the bore is "without mathematical scale", so they can't play with less ammunition, but they hurt themselves by exploding more. Even though there are several western-style cannons with sights, soldiers lack scientific training and battlefield cooperation.
Weapons are an important factor in determining the outcome of a war, but they are not the most important. More importantly, the use of strategy and tactics. The invading British army combined people and weapons into a precise machine with the most advanced weapons and war concepts in the world at that time: reconnaissance and mapping before the war, meticulous to the depth of each section of the river; Match the exact quantitative relationship between firing time and attack distance between naval gun and infantry; In front of the chaotic China soldiers, the British soldiers lined up in rows of semi-circular attack teams, with the front team shooting and the rear team reloading, moving forward alternately, leaving no fire interval, and forming self-protection security. Britain's war thought is gradually moving towards modernization and scientization. In these respects, the Qing army at that time was beyond reach.
The Opium War was the beginning of China's modern history. Although it failed, it also left a valuable lesson. Through the analysis of the reasons for China's failure in the Opium War, we can see that if a country's political system is corrupted for a long time, its economy and technology will inevitably fall behind, and if it falls behind, it will be passively beaten or even defeated, even humiliating the country. Although the rulers of the Qing dynasty were corrupt and ignorant, backward in politics, economy and military affairs, and the Qing government was not sure about the war and employing people, and had no clear tactics, as a just war against aggression and self-defense, these were not the root causes of the failure of the war. The fundamental reason is that decadent feudalism can't fight against emerging capitalism.