On June 20th in the sixth year of Tongzhi, that is, on the evening of July 21st, 1867 in the Gregorian calendar, there was a famous dialogue between Zeng Guofan, Governor of Liangjiang, and his staff member Zhao Liewen.Zeng Wenzheng, like a host of a current commentary program, explained the scene of "the weather in the capital is very bad, cases of open flames are frequently reported, and there are crowds of beggars in the shops, and even women are naked without hakama", he asked Zhao: I'm running out of money, I'm afraid there will be a change, what can I do?" Zhao Liewen's answer was very straightforward: "The world's law and order have been unified for a long time, and it is bound to be tamed to the point of division. However, the master's prestige is heavy, and the atmosphere has not been developed. If it is not for the heart to die, the situation of collapse will not happen. With the intensity, the disaster of the future, The foundation must first fall, and then Fangzhou has no master, and people are in charge of their own affairs, and it will hardly be fifty years."

Looking back on history is always "flipping the movie backwards". Zhao Liewen's prophecy is extremely accurate in today's view.But if you were to ask any person in the government and the public at the end of summer or early autumn of the year of Xinhai, no one would believe that the foundation of the Qing Dynasty for more than 200 years would collapse within 120 days.Everyone always feels that this regime is in jeopardy. It is true, but the three years of Xuantong seem to be no different than the two years of Xuantong. When discussing the issue of Qing rule, Zhao Liewen once pointed out that "it is a coincidence that the country has the world".The entry of foreign races into the Central Plains has always been a sensitive point of the legitimacy of the Manchu Qing rule. No matter whether Yongzheng tried his best to print "Dayijue Milu" or the continuous literary inquisition in the prosperous Kangxi and Qianlong periods, the espionage methods weaving in Jiangning, Suzhou and Hangzhou, the flag soldiers The system of being stationed in each provincial capital cannot stop the question from being raised: People who are not of our race must have different hearts.

The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom also played this banner, which was defeated by Zeng Guofan with the magic weapon of "culture".However, the pacification of the Hongyang Rebellion only took advantage of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's own immorality and perversity, and did not fundamentally solve the racial dissent between Manchu and Han.Especially after Tongzhi, many "ancestral systems" were broken, and the power of the Han people became stronger and stronger. Zeng, Zuo, Li, and Zhang Zong had the same ambitions, but the imperial court had to guard against the passing of time.

From the perspective of the general environment, the rise of racism in the late Qing Dynasty and the rise of the idea of ​​manchuria are by no means a replica of the "anti-Qing and Ming Dynasty" in the early Qing Dynasty. Two hundred years ago, the killing at the beginning has become a legend, but it is not as good as the "long-haired rebellion" The bloody memory comes clearly.The revolutionaries reprinted "Ten Diaries of Yangzhou" and "A Brief Account of the Massacre of Jiading City" in order to inspire the hearts of the people, but that was only a kind of projection, a little resonance, and the real impact came from the current crisis, which was "forced by foreign countries" emphasized by Sun Yat-sen The cruel reality juxtaposed with "heterogeneous remnants", as stated in the leaflets distributed by the Gongjinhui in the Wuchang New Army:

"Nowadays the government is in chaos, flattering foreigners, often cede territory and pay compensation, common people have trouble with foreigners, not only do not speak a word of justice to the common people, but instead kill common people for foreigners to vent their anger. .China is not full of people, and he gave it to foreigners to save a way of life. So our revolution, firstly, to avenge our ancestors, secondly, to prepare early and unite the parties from all over the country.” "Revenge for the ancestors" is just an introduction, the key is "China was not originally Manchu", since the Manchu rule over China has no legitimacy, then the imperial court's transfer of China's rights and interests is not just a matter of "losing justice". Instead, it became the Manchus colluding with foreigners to plunder the lives and properties of the Han people.Through this narrative transformation, the resistance to the Manchu regime has changed from "internal struggle" to "repulsion against the outside world." In the process of constructing the nation-state discourse, "anti-aggression" has natural legitimacy, and the legitimacy of the revolution is self-evident. up.

However, even among the revolutionaries, there were many people who opposed the platooning, such as Wu Luzhen, who was in charge of the sixth town.This member of the alliance who became friends with the Manchu military elite Liangbi when he was studying in Tokyo, although he was dedicated to revolution, he strongly opposed the Manchurians. He believed that the Manchus had been corrupted for a long time and it was nothing to worry about. Confronting the Han nationality, the Han nationality will definitely lose, and it will give outsiders an opportunity to take advantage of it.Wu Luzhen believed that the enemy of the revolution was not in the Qing court but in Yuan Shikai, and that the Revolutionary Party would have a "ten-year war" with Yuan Shikai—this is also a relatively accurate prediction.

During the Revolution of 1911, in the more civilized provinces, the Anmin notices all emphasized that "Manchus and Hans are treated equally." Even Zhang Taiyan, who advocated the most platooning of Manchus, also supported the five-color flag, which implies "a republic of five ethnic groups," as the national flag.It can also be seen that the theory of exclusion is actually an excuse for xenophobia. When Chinese society is unable to fight the West, it is also a shortcut to use internal ethnic disputes to seek a breakthrough.It's just that the government of the Republic of China didn't seem to do better than the Qing government, this is a later story.The decline of the status of the Manchus was the most obvious effect of the national war in the late Qing Dynasty. Even the best among the Manchus, such as Lao She and Luo Changpei, did not dare to recognize their national identity for a long time. retribution.

Although "fullness" is a strategy, many people have been poisoned. Reading the historical materials of 1911, every time someone said, "He is also a Han, so he naturally supports the restoration" or someone confessed, "I am also a Han, of course I am not against the revolution." Can't help sighing "childish" or "treacherous". In recent years, everyone has come to realize that the Revolutionary Party was nothing more than a fuse for gunpowder in the success of 1911, and TNT, which really blew up the 200-year-old dragon, is a constitutional party representing the gentry and business class.The constitutionalists share local ruling resources with the central government and its officials. In some provinces with heavy gentry power, such as Sichuan and Hunan, government orders cannot be implemented without the support of gentry and businessmen.The rice rush in Changsha in the second year of Xuantong (1910) is a typical example. The rice shortage in Changsha until the masses lost control. Behind the incident was the gentry and merchants teaming up with foreign merchants to hoard and smuggle a large amount of rice.As for the road protection movement in various provinces that became the fuse of the 1911 Revolution, the primary contradiction was the conflict between the interests of the government and the interests of the gentry and business groups. It is impossible to go beyond the gentry and business class to implement it; and the gentry and business groups rely on the so-called "public opinion" to contend with the government. This kind of public opinion may be manipulative, but after all it is the most legitimate discourse resource in modern times. The old concept of "Heaven's Herdsmen" cannot compete with it.

It is not that the people in the imperial court did not realize this powerful influence from the gentry and merchants.The Qing government established the Ministry of Commerce in 1903 and the General Administration of Trademark Registration in 1905, both of which were measures to enhance the status of merchants. At the same time, the government encouraged the officials and gentry in the countryside to do business in order to use private forces to launch a "commercial war" against Westerners. Gentlemen do not do business" situation.The most typical example is the 22nd year of Guangxu (1896), when the Qing court accepted Zhang Zhidong’s petition and sent two champions, Lu Runxiang and Zhang Jian, to set up commercial bureaus in Suzhou and Nantong respectively, and manage the Sulun Spinning Mill and Dasheng Spinning Mill. "The No. 1 scholar set up a factory" was widely spread.

The wealthy and powerful gentry and business class must strive for political power, and there are good reasons for this struggle.Since the Sino-Japanese War was defeated, Gengzi was defeated again. The central government’s inability to deal with the overall situation of the world has been fully exposed. The capital was lost to the Eight-Power Allied Forces as a colony for more than a year. The pressure of funding further tilted the power of political discourse to the wealthy southeast. The so-called "non-southeast is not enough to survive in the northwest" is also the fundamental reason why the southeastern provinces dared to resist the edict and jointly advocated the "Southeast Mutual Protection Treaty".

The gap between the north and the south led to the break of the empire.Sun Baoxuan, a contemporary, compared the difference between Shanghai and Beijing in terms of customs, which lasted almost a hundred years.The problem is that economically, the empire is completely dependent on the southeast, but politically, it is still what Zhao Liewen said "the main power is heavy, and the atmosphere is not yet developed." The model effect of "a small constitutional country defeating a big autocratic country" has set off a wave of constitutionalism and created a constitutional myth. It seems that China's disease is all due to the lack of a constitution. As long as a constitution is established, the national destiny will be reformed and the national strength will be strengthened. However, as Zai Ze said to the Queen Mother in 1906 when he returned from his study abroad: constitutionalization is beneficial to the people and the country, but not to the officials.Of course, the relatives and nobles in Manchuria were unwilling to lose power, and it was rare for Gengzi to have any good looks towards constitutionalism when he became a high-ranking official in various provinces.The constitutional movement has been going on for a full ten years, and the imperial court even established the "royal cabinet" on May 8, 1911. No matter what the regent Zaifeng's last resort was, it would be difficult to shut the mouth of the world.However, the Federation of Consultative Bureaus submitted a letter requesting the reorganization of the cabinet, but the Qing court actually reprimanded: "The appointment of people is the power of the monarch, and members of parliament are not allowed to interfere." The understanding of "constitutionalism" may have a lot of differences between the two sides. One more point, when the imperial examinations were abolished in 1905, later generations regarded it as a good thing, eliminating the root of the country's disaster for thousands of years.However, this move solidified the power of the entire society in an instant. Those who have been officials and gentry will always be officials and gentry, while the lower classes of society have no way to rise up, and the way for talents to flow upward is cut off. Replace the thousand-year-old examination and selection system with powerful elite politics.With the death of the old system and the establishment of the new system, a large number of talents trained by the old system have nowhere to be used. If they do not enter the school, they will join the new army. The two forces of students and the new army both exerted great energy in the 1911 Revolution. Fuck the gu, the disaster is not small. Discussing which straw brought the huge camel to the ground is, of course, just a narrative.Countless trickles converge into a rushing river. Although many of the streams do not necessarily expect the final flood, once the train enters the fast track and the centrifugal force is greater than the centripetal force, it will inevitably "suck and collapse".Just as Lu Xun said: "Chinese people always like to compromise. For example, if you say that this room is too dark and you need to open a window here, everyone will definitely not allow it. But if you advocate tearing down the roof, they will Come to reconcile, and I am willing to open the window." ("Silent China") The righteousness, abdication, republic, and Republic of China in the year of 1911 may be the process of opening a window.