The Qing dynasty had a population of 400 million, which was difficult to break through under the condition of small-scale peasant economy. However, the Qing dynasty did not plunder like the west, and the consequences could be imagined. Even the later Westernization Movement came step by step in China honestly. Although there are great achievements, see my Cixi mm for details, but the speed still can't catch up with the West. Westernization Movement is an economic reform. Later, China had two opportunities to implement constitutional monarchy, both of which failed because of the direct or indirect destruction of foreigners. The indirect reason here refers to foreigners' support for China's "revolutionary" activities. There are many reasons why the Qing Dynasty lagged behind the West. I used to talk about Confucian culture. This time, let me talk about the inside story of western prosperity.
On the occasion of the 500th anniversary of Columbus' discovery of America, a museum in Boston showed that more than 30 million Indians had been killed by invaders since15th century. An Indian leader condemned: "This is the 500th anniversary of the Columbus Massacre, a day of mourning and a very dark day for us."
/kloc-American textbooks in the 0/9th century wrote: "Columbus was a solemn man, polite, cautious in words and deeds, and above reproach in morality. He is a model Christian. " In the United States, Columbus is honored as the "father of immigrants" in the whole America, and more than 70 states, cities, towns, counties, universities and historical sites are named after Columbus.
Why are there such diametrically opposite views on Columbus's two different evaluations?
This is the problem of historical view. History is a little girl dressed casually, so it is abroad, so it is in China, so it is in the world. It is not easy to distinguish the truth from the falsehood of history. Neither American Indians nor textbooks can make mistakes in their comments on Columbus, but they are not comprehensive. American textbooks should cultivate children's patriotism. If children knew the dark history of America, would they love America? The tragic experience of Indians being slaughtered by Europeans suffering from infectious diseases. This history cannot be forgotten. Yes, Europeans make America the strongest country, but it is not an Indian country. Not only Indians but also blacks were slaughtered. How cruel and bloody the fate of the United States and Europe is, but our textbooks rarely reveal the truth, only blaming how backward the Qing Dynasty was. Sigh. Similarly, Japan's prosperity is bloody, and our mainstream media rarely reveal whether Japan is diligent or something else.
Westerners were and are the same. For their own interests, they used to treat blacks as slaves in essence, but now they use "trade" and "culture" to enslave people from other countries. The so-called humanitarianism or national freedom is for the ruling class. Humanism: the world outlook and value orientation of the emerging bourgeoisie in the Renaissance. It is not only the ideological weapon of the bourgeoisie against feudalism in this period, but also the guiding ideology of the bourgeois new culture movement in this period. Its main contents are: opposing divinity with human nature; Emancipate asceticism with personality; Oppose obscurantism with reason; Advocate centralization and oppose feudal separatism. Individualism: Generally speaking, individualism is used to describe the concept of emphasizing individuals rather than groups in theory or practice, and may even be detrimental to groups. Individualism and collectivism are in direct opposition; It is also opposite to totalitarianism (or totalitarianism) and related to solipsism. Individualism emphasizes individual personality, freedom, rights and equality, politically opposes state intervention in personal affairs, and economically emphasizes private property rights and free market economy.
Slave trade: 16, 19 th century European colonialists plundered African blacks to America as slaves. After the discovery of America, a large number of Indians were tortured to death by European colonial robbers. In order to make up for the shortage of American labor force, European colonists plundered and sold black people from Africa as slaves. Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Britain, France and the United States successively participated in the slave trade. From the16th century to the 1970s, about15 million blacks were trafficked to the United States, and the number of people who died in the process of trafficking was added. The population lost in Africa is about 60 million to 1 billion. The slave trade brought great wealth to the colonial countries in Europe and America, and became one of the important ways for primitive accumulation of capital in Europe and America. But it throws hundreds of millions of African blacks into the abyss of death or puts them under the yoke of slavery.
1 49210 June1day, an Italian holding the Spanish flag saw the endless forest-covered land on the deck wet by the sea. The name is Columbus. On the one hand, he was the discoverer of the American continent with outstanding achievements; on the other hand, he was a notorious colonial predator. However, he didn't know that he had discovered a new continent. He just thinks it's just a shortcut to East India. When Columbus first landed on the American continent, the local Indians welcomed them and they made their first deal on the beach. Europeans exchange cheap glass products for expensive gems in India. At this time, Columbus and his followers were obviously satisfied with similar fraud, and they got along well with the Indians. When Columbus came for the second time, he was no longer a discoverer, but a conqueror. According to his agreement with the Spanish royal family, he became the governor of the West Indies and the admiral of the ocean he discovered. Columbus began a bloody rule, and his successor was even more cruel. In the end, more than 6,543,800,000 Indians were killed, exhausted, starved to death, frozen to death and died of illness, respectively, and the Indians tragically accepted the fate of extinction in the West Indies. The news spread to Europe, and Europeans such as Spain and Portugal, France and Britain, the Netherlands and so on crossed the ocean in succession, flocking to the mysterious American continent like mosquitoes, and began a ruthless conquest frenzy. In his poems, Nie Luda called them a group of people wearing false teeth and wigs. In the next 300 years, these colonial marauders reduced the Indian population from 40 million to 9 million, turning the idyllic Indian world into a terrible hell on earth. At the same time, Spain brought back 2.5 million kilograms of gold and 6.5438 million kilograms of silver from America, and European countries such as Britain and France also took away a lot of gold and silver treasures.
In a word, the widening gap between China and the West is caused by many factors. Confucian culture leads to contempt for science. In addition, there is the imperial examination system. Even if a talented person can't be an official, he becomes a scholar and rarely studies and produces relevant knowledge. Marx said that there was little progress in productive forces, so it was naturally unnecessary to change the feudal relations of production. On the other hand, Europe is ruled by aristocrats. Those talented people have nothing to do, just play with steam engines and unconsciously promote social progress. The Qing army once suffered from backward weapons. Nurhachi was wounded by Yuan Chonghuan's artillery and died. Does the Qing army need artillery to fight? So why don't foreigners send cannons to their homes when they are in Qianlong? This is very simple, in fact, there are no conditions, such as artillery or submachine guns, only with certain knowledge of metallurgy, physics and chemistry can you learn. However, the natural sciences in the Qing and Ming Dynasties were almost blank, and the primitive firearms were OK, but the later advanced firearms in the West were not. We fought against the Russians in the Kangxi era, and firearms were also used in the Qing dynasty, but at any time Russian firearms were not so good, and then they didn't work. But after Cixi's New Deal, it was different. When did the Qing Dynasty build two cargo ships for the United States? See the post downstairs for details.
People often say that China's backwardness is closed to the outside world. In fact, the exchanges between the Qing Dynasty and the West increased. Qin Tian Temple in Qing Dynasty was generally owned by foreigners, and French was mentioned in A Dream of Red Mansions. If the country is really closed to the outside world and there is little exchange and trade with foreign countries, how can Lin Zexu say that the opium trade will make the court have little money to repay? In fact, China's backwardness, to a certain extent, is the lag of cultural tradition and political system, which only accumulated and broke out in the Qing Dynasty. China's political system, from the establishment of the Qin Dynasty, the consolidation of the Han Dynasty and the perfection of the dynasty, reached its acme in the Qing Dynasty, which is the so-called most "autocratic". The feudal political system created Chinese civilization, while Europe was in darkness at that time, even worse than the Roman Empire. But because this system in China is so excellent, it only needs a little improvement for thousands of years, and it doesn't need big changes. But if Europe is poor, it will change. After repeated turmoil, Britain established a constitutional system. The French Revolution was even more chaotic. Today is gironde, tomorrow is jacobin, which makes people miserable, and finally settled down during the Napoleonic period. Europe gained new vitality after the turmoil, but China was still creaking along in the old carriage of feudal society, which was mostly due to Confucianism. Later, the Qing Dynasty also carried out the economic reform of Westernization Movement and the political and economic reform of Cixi's New Deal, but both were destroyed by foreigners, who did not want China to be strong. What is hateful is that some careerists from China have also come to help foreigners destroy, destroy, destroy and destroy. Besides the above, it is also an important reason that the West has become an exploiter because of plunder. The United States later occupied a dominant position, relying on war money. As for honestly developing yourself, such as South Korea, a "financial storm" robbed the money. The world is still a underworld, and it is easy to get rich.