One or two wars, a kind of fate.
The beginning of China's modern history was marked by the Opium War that took place in Daoguang of Qing Dynasty from 20 to 22 years (1840- 1842), and it was also the beginning of China's semi-colonial and semi-feudal society and the old democratic revolution.
The opium smuggling trade before the First Opium War made the British Empire, which suffered successively from 1.825 and 1.837 economic crises, taste a lot of sweetness, and silver continuously flowed into the national treasury of the British Empire. As Solon said, "Wealth breeds satiety and satiety breeds atrocities", and the British Empire can't wait to insert the coordinates of aggression into the territory of China. At the same time, the deficit of the national treasury seriously affected the income of the Qing empire, the arms and coastal defense were abandoned and political corruption occurred. The Qing court banned opium more than once, but the British colonialists broke the ban at will and continued the evil opium trade by means of bribery and smuggling. As Marx pointed out: "The direct consequence of China people's moral resistance is that the imperial authorities, customs officials and all officials are morally corrupted by the British. It eroded the heart of China's bureaucracy and destroyed the corrupt role of the patriarchal fortress, that is, it was smuggled into this empire from the British barge moored in Huangpu with opium boxes. " [ 1]
13 June, 839 to 2 1 3 June, 2008, imperial envoy Lin Zexu publicly destroyed 2 1298 boxes of opium presented by British and American businessmen in Humentan [2]. The British colonialists could no longer sit still. 1840 In February, the British Cabinet officially decided to launch a war of aggression against China, which was formally passed by the British Parliament in April. In June, G.Elliot, the British plenipotentiary, commanded 4000 invading troops, arrived in Guangdong in more than 40 ships and blocked the Pearl River Estuary, and the Opium War officially broke out.
At this time, the decay of the Qing court was undoubtedly revealed here, and the compromise faction dominated the ruling class, and Lin Zexu and Deng Tingzhen were dismissed for investigation; Shajiao, Dajiao and Humen forts were successively lost, and Dinghai, Ningbo and Zhenhai were successively captured. The invaders who traveled across the ocean kept the war burning in the ancient oriental country for two years and two months, and finally ended with China signing the treaty of nanking on August 29th. 1842. Since then, China no longer enjoys completely independent sovereignty, China society began to transform into a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society, and China people began to live in dire straits 109!
When the Taiping Rebellion in China reached its climax, Britain and France, with the support of the United States and Russia, launched a new round of war of aggression against China in order to expand the benefits gained from the Opium War, which was called the Second Opium War in history.
1856 10, Guangdong navy arrested 12 pirates on the China Yaluo, and the British invaders intervened under the pretext of this incident, accompanied by armed provocation; In the same year, France sent a baron. J.B.L Gross came to China under the pretext of Father Ma's incident, secretly allied with the British invaders and formed a four-nation United front with the United States and Russia. 1857 65438+in February, the British and French invaders captured Guangzhou; 1May, 858, the invading army captured Dagu and Tianjin. At this time, the barrel of the invading army pointed directly at the Forbidden City! The corrupt Qing government quickly sent Gui Liang, a college student, and Huaxia Na, a minister, as imperial envoys to Tianjin to make peace with the invaders. 1858 On June 26th and 27th, the Qing court concluded the Tianjin Treaty in Britain and France respectively. 165438+1October 8, Britain and France forced the Qing government to sign the Treaty on Trade Regulations. Such a smooth signing of the treaty without unconditional opposition made the greed of the British and French aggressors expand infinitely. 1On June 20th, 859, Britain and France jointly launched the Battle of Dagu. This sudden and unprovoked battle made the Qing army unprepared and forced to fight back. When discussing this battle, Marx pointed out: "The China authorities did not send British envoys to Beijing, but opposed the British armed ships sailing on the Baihe River. ..... Can the French minister's right to stay in London give him the right to lead a French armed expedition into the Thames? ..... Even if the people of China must accept the British peace envoy to Peking, it is perfectly reasonable for them to resist the British armed expedition. In this way, the people of China did not violate the treaty, but defeated the aggression. " [3]
1860, 10 On June 6th, the British and French allied forces occupied Yuanmingyuan. The greed of human nature made them rob Yuanmingyuan and set it on fire. The fire burned for three days and nights, turning the "Garden of Ten Thousand Gardens" into piles of residual tiles. Gordon, a British colonialist who participated in the burning, admitted: "In this way, we destroyed the most precious wealth in the world in the most barbaric way." [4]
1860 10 month, unable to resist the Qing court? He stepped forward and signed the Beijing Treaty with the British and French aggressors, thus ending the Second Opium War. The degree of semi-colonization in China is rapidly deepening.
During the two Opium Wars, China, an ancient oriental country, entered the abyss of semi-colonial and semi-feudal society under the leadership of the rulers of the Qing Dynasty. Tens of millions of people in China are facing a fate-exchanging guns and blood for national sovereignty, independence and national freedom!
Second, the influence of the two wars on the historical process of China.
After two long wars, the prologue of China's shameful modern history was opened in bursts of gunfire and shouts.
Since then, western colonialists have come to China with various fruits of capitalism, which has influenced the development of China history in all directions.
(1) Changes in customs management system and policies
The two wars opened the door to China by force, so we have to say that the customs of the Qing Dynasty changed.
In the early Qing dynasty, the government basically adopted a closed-door policy towards western countries and strictly controlled foreign trade. When the Emperor sent a mission to China to try to establish a relatively open and free trade relationship with the Qing government, it was flatly rejected by the then ruling Emperor Qianlong, but the reason was simple: "China is rich in everything, and it has not borrowed foreign goods to make up for it, especially because the tea and silk produced in China are necessary for western countries and Germany, so it is merciful." [5]
Now, however, western colonialists not only opened the door to China by force, but also forcibly deprived China of its customs autonomy by brutal violence. Some colonialists are keenly aware that "it is actually very difficult to establish a completely colonial customs agency in a country like China." [6] In the ninth year of Xianfeng (1859), under the pressure of Horatia Nelson Lay, the customs department, the Qing court upgraded the general tax department to the highest head of China customs administration and appointed Horatia Nelson Lay as the first general tax department of China in modern times. The representative of British Imperial Customs not only "occupied" the greatest rights of China Customs, but also changed the General Tax Department into the Tax Department during his term of office, and the actual status of the Tax Department was equivalent to that of local customs. In addition, the customs system of the Qing court also includes: Maritime Bureau, Wentong Museum and Post Office.
Western colonialists further controlled the power of the Qing customs by means of force and luring officials, which provided convenience for them to dump industrial products and plunder raw materials and primary products.
(2) the self-improvement movement of the Qing government (Westernization Movement)
From 65438 to 1960s, the invading army led by Britain directly controlled the feudal regime in China. Envoys from Britain, the United States, Russia and France jointly interfered in China's internal affairs and diplomacy. At this time, the obvious comprador of feudal regime was in line with the acceleration of semi-colonization in China. From the changes of the feudal ruling group in the Qing Dynasty, a group of comprador bureaucrats who advocated learning from western military and technology and were more closely related to foreign aggression forces, namely the so-called Westernization School. They carried out various westernization activities in order to maintain the feudal rule of the Qing Dynasty and expand the influence of the clique.
In the early stage, bureaucratic warlords headed by Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang successively established a number of new military industries in the 1960s and 1970s, namely the so-called "new policy of self-improvement". 186 1 year, Zeng Guofan established "Anqing Inner Ordnance Institute" in Anqing; 1862, Li Hongzhang established the "Shanghai Yangpao Bureau" in Shanghai; 1865, Li Hongzhang established Jiangnan Manufacturing General Administration in Gaochang, Shanghai; In the same year, Li Hongzhang set up Jinling Manufacturing Bureau in Nanjing, which was supervised by British Magley. However, most of these enterprises are inefficient and their products are of poor quality. While establishing the military industry, it also trained a new army and established a new navy (that is, three naval divisions of Nanyang, Beiyang and Fujian were established).
In the later period, from the early 1970s, the Westernization School turned from military industry to a series of civilian enterprises, supplying raw materials, fuel and transportation needed by military industry in order to "make money". Among them, 1872 founded China Merchants Steamship in Shanghai, 1876 organized Kaiping Mining Bureau, General Administration of Telegraph, Hanyang Iron Works, Shanghai Woven Layout, etc. "The new enterprises run by the Westernization Group are all bureaucratic commercial enterprises, and they are also the economic system on which the comprador bureaucrats of Beiyang Department depend. The Westernization School set up these enterprises in an attempt to borrow some things from western capitalism to maintain feudal rule and enhance the strength and wealth of the group. These capitalist enterprises actually contain the original form of bureaucratic capitalism. " [7] China's capitalism is growing slowly in these enterprises.
(C), the natural economy under the impact of western capitalism
The natural economy, which was established in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, combined small-scale peasant economy with cottage industry, lasted for more than 2,000 years in the Qing Dynasty and occupied an absolute dominant position in the whole economic sector of the country. After the Opium War, with the change of social conditions, Chinese traditional agriculture showed a new development trend. "On the one hand, due to various social factors, the traditional agricultural production mode is declining; On the other hand, under the impact of foreign capital invasion, it gradually embarked on the road of semi-colonization. " [8]
After 1840, there were frequent wars at home and abroad, which not only dried up the national treasury, but also greatly reduced the cultivated land area in various provinces. The small-scale peasant economy, which relies on a large amount of land, develops slowly, and the long-term backwardness of farming technology has accelerated its decline. After the first Opium War, the natural economy initially resisted the commodity aggression of foreign capitalism, but it had little effect in a short time. After the failure of the Second Opium War and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Revolution, the rights and interests of all countries expanded and aggression intensified. The old feudal economy could not resist the powerful emerging capitalism and began the process of general disintegration. As Mao Zedong pointed out: "Foreign capitalism has played a great role in decomposing China's social economy. On the one hand, it destroyed the natural economic base of self-sufficiency in China, and destroyed the handicrafts of cities and peasant families; On the other hand, it has promoted the development of urban and rural commodity economy in China. " [9]
The concrete manifestation of its disintegration is:
1, the disintegration of rural household handmade cotton textile industry and its separation from agriculture. Since the Opium War, especially after the 1970s, the cottage industry of China cotton textile industry began to collapse on a large scale due to the snickering of cheap foreign machine textiles. Small-scale production is difficult to compete with large-scale machine production, which marks the disintegration of China's natural economy, which has been dominated by farming and textiles for more than 2,000 years. "The major changes caused by foreign capitalist economic aggression have blocked the normal road of independent development of capitalism in China, and the rural economy after disintegration has obvious semi-colonial nature." [ 10]
2. Development of commercialization of agricultural products. The commercialization of agricultural products is mainly manifested in the expansion of tea, mulberry, tobacco, beans and poppy cultivation and the improvement of commodity rate of rice, wheat and other food crops. Take poppy as an example: after the Opium War, especially after the Second Opium War, opium imports were legalized, and the corrupt Qing government completely lost its ability to ban smoking. Instead, it encouraged farmers to grow poppies and increase taxes. 1856, the poppies in Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan provinces have been "contiguous"; Jiangsu, Anhui and Zhejiang provinces have an annual output of 730,000 tons of tobacco leaves and 2,303 mu of tobacco fields; Shanxi is almost "no county"; In the three northeastern provinces, "there are no fewer than six or seven poppy growers." [1 1] The degree of commercialization of grain is an important symbol to examine the natural economic situation. After the Opium War, the extensive expansion of regional cash crops occupied the original cultivated land for growing food crops, which led to a large increase in the demand for foreign food in this area. Moreover, with the opening of trading ports and the development of commercial port economy, the demand for food has also increased greatly. "From the 20th year of Daoguang to the 20th year of Guangxu (1840- 1894), the national grain commodity rate increased from 10% to16%; However, the growth of commercialization of agricultural products during this period was the result of foreign capitalism destroying urban and rural handicrafts and stepping up looting of agricultural products, especially raw materials for cash crops. " [ 12]
After the Opium War, especially during the 1970s to the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, under the dumping of foreign capitalism, the handicraft industry, especially the cotton textile handicraft industry, which combined with agriculture began to disintegrate, and farmers had to rely on the market for their daily necessities and means of production to become buyers of the world market. On the other hand, under the plundering of foreign capitalist raw materials, the commercialization of agricultural products in China has also expanded rapidly, and farmers have become raw material suppliers in the world market, and China's agricultural economy has moved towards a semi-colonial and semi-feudal road.
(4) Other aspects
The above analysis focused on several aspects, which had a long-term and profound impact on the history of China after the two Opium Wars. Let's describe several other aspects that still exist under the plunder of foreign capitalism.
While the Westernization Movement established modern enterprises, a number of commercial enterprises appeared in China society, such as 1866 Shanghai Changfa Machine Factory, 1873 Jichanglong Silk Reeling Factory and 1878 Tianjin Yilaimou Machine Factory, which constituted the beginning of modern national capitalism.
On the other hand, the appearance of modern industry in China made China produce the first batch of modern industrial workers, who formed the early proletariat in China. In the following 30 years, with the deepening of foreign capitalist aggression and the emergence and development of capitalism in China, China's bourgeoisie (national bourgeoisie) came into being.
In addition, after the Opium War, the reformers of the landlord class imitated and learned from the West to resist aggression, and gradually developed into a reform trend of thought after the emergence of the national bourgeoisie in China, which promoted the ideological liberation of China society to some extent.
Verb (abbreviation of verb) conclusion
1949 10 year 10/day, People's Republic of China (PRC) was founded. After 1 9 years of war, the people of China can finally live a free and peaceful life. However, the long war can't just live in our memories. We should be prepared for danger in times of peace, always remember our environment, be self-respecting and self-reliant, and never suffer such humiliation again.
Let's remember history and create the future!