The Qing Dynasty demarcated "13 million" according to law
In the history of Chinese territory, starting from the Xia Dynasty, people began to dig deep trenches and build high city walls to fortify themselves against enemies, constructing original borders and controlling Along the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, it occupies an original territory of about 700,000 square kilometers and established the first boundary monument of China's territory.
Qin Shihuang used powerful means to achieve the "merger of six countries and one world", created the first unified feudal dynasty in Chinese history, and expanded the territory to Guangdong, Guangdong, Fujian and Inner Mongolia, with a territory of 300 square meters Thousands of square kilometers.
In the Yuan Dynasty in the 13th century, the Mongols brought their wildness and ferocity to the extreme, conquering the Han people, realizing the integration of Mongolia and Han, and establishing the first country ruled by ethnic minorities in Chinese history. It also expanded China's largest territory in history, building an area stretching from Ukraine and the Mediterranean in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east, from Siberia in the north to the South China Sea in the south, spanning most of Eurasia, and covering an area of ??more than 30 million square kilometers. , actually the largest empire in the world at that time.
In the Ming Dynasty, the Chinese went to the ocean and created the glory of Zheng He's voyages to the West. However, in terms of national defense, the Ming Dynasty adopted a policy of consolidating territory and seclusion, which resulted in the weakening of national defense, the invasion of foreign invaders, and the shrinking of frontiers. Many territories were gained and lost, and the territory of the Ming Dynasty shrank to about 3.6 million square kilometers.
Based on the border management of the Qin, Han, Sui, Tang, Yuan and Ming dynasties, the Qing Dynasty signed border treaties with neighboring countries and implemented the policy of "drawing boundaries and dividing borders". This was the first time in Chinese history that China's territory has been delineated in the form of international law, and China has unified, clear, and stable national boundaries. That is, it reaches the Altai Mountains, Sayan Mountains, Outer Khingan Mountains and the Sea of ??Okhotsk in the north; it is connected to the Pamir Plateau in the west; it is connected to the Himalayas in the southwest; it is divided by the Tumen River and the Yalu River in the east; it is connected to the ocean in the southeast and south, and the South China Sea reaches as far as Zeng Zengmu Shoal, China's land area reaches 13 million square kilometers, and its ocean stretches all the way to Zengmu Shoal. This was a prosperous period in the history of China's territory. The territory of China is continuous, complete and full, and is compared to a huge mulberry leaf, pillowing Kunlun to the west, facing the sea to the east, and setting off the land of Asia.
In the early Qing Dynasty, based on international treaties, the "drawing of boundaries" was initiated, which established national territorial boundaries, curbed invasions by neighboring countries, and effectively maintained border stability. It is worth pointing out: In the territorial map of the Qing Dynasty, in addition to affirming that China has 13 million square kilometers of land territory, it also clearly states that China borders the Sea of ??Japan, Bohai Sea, Yellow Sea, East China Sea and South China Sea to the east, and islands such as Sakhalin and Taiwan belong to China. inherent territory. It is clear that China's territory has a vast ocean part, extending southward to the Zengmu Shoal of the Nansha Islands. This is the most complete description of China's territory in the Qing Dynasty. Moreover, the lower right corner of the China's territory map specifically indicates China's position in the South China Sea. Maritime territory, which has been maintained to this day, is a major development in the history of Chinese territory.
Territory Map of the Qing Dynasty
●“9.6 million” were left in the 19th century
At the end of the Qing Dynasty, the feudal dynasty was corrupt and declining. The policy resulted in the abandonment of coastal defense and the opening of the country's borders. Under the crazy invasion of imperialist countries such as Britain, France, the United States, Japan, Russia, Germany, Portugal, Italy, Austria, and Spain, the huge empire collapsed in an instant. On the vast territory from the Tumen River in the north to the Nansha Islands in the south, the motherland All ports are trampled under the iron heel of imperialism. There were more than 100 invasions (84 large-scale invasions). Under the power of the muzzle, the Qing Dynasty signed more than 1,100 unequal treaties with foreign countries. Large areas of the country were lost, creating a century-old humiliation.
The main one is the Opium War in 1840. The British Empire relied on strong ships and cannons to blast open the fragile door of the Chinese Empire, forced China to sign the Treaty of Nanjing, and ceded Hong Kong. This is a historical event in China. The first monument to national humiliation. From then on, the label "(British Occupied)" was affixed next to China's Hong Kong on the map, and China began to decline into a semi-colonial society.
A century-old maritime invasion of China by the great powers
The European colonizer Portugal, with an area only 1/104 of China’s land, came all the way to Asia to take advantage of the fact that the Qing government was being confused by the British. Taking advantage of the opportunity, coercion and deception, the Qing government signed the "Sino-Portuguese Treaty" and "permanent lease" of Macau and nearby islands to Portugal. This was the second monument of national humiliation erected by the Qing Empire on the South China Sea.
Since the mid-19th century, in order to realize Peter the Great’s dream of becoming a maritime power, the Tsarist Empire took advantage of the chaos caused by the British and French forces launching the second Opium War to invade China, and coerced the Chinese authorities into signing " The Treaty of Aihun, the Treaty of Beijing and other treaties forcibly occupied a large area of ??Chinese territory north of Heilongjiang and the Ussuri River, causing China to lose nearly six and a half British territories in one fell swoop. What is even more regrettable is that China has since lost the strategically important Sakhalin Island and Vladivostok (Russia changed its name to Vladivostok, which means domination of the east), lost China's status as a coastal country in the Sea of ??Japan, and lost The port of Tumen River to the sea was blocked, and the Tumen River was blocked for a long time, which led to the decline of Hunchun, a once prosperous port in northern China, to this day.
In 1945, the leaders of the Soviet Union, the United States, and the United Kingdom made the Yalta Agreement and plotted the independence of Outer Mongolia, which was then part of China. Northern China was deprived of a large area of ??land.
In this way, the Chinese territory, which had been formed for thousands of years, was encroached and dismembered by the invaders in less than a century, taking away more than 3.4 million square kilometers of land area. Our ancestors and the Chinese nation have accumulated land with blood and sweat for generations, leaving only 9.6 million square kilometers of land. The territory as plump as mulberry leaves is incomplete and withered, and it is likened to a "rooster".