Chapter 41 Lecture Seven: The Stagnation of the Ming and Qing Dynasties: Consequences of Continental Isolationism

The four basic systems we have repeatedly talked about deteriorated during the Ming and Qing dynasties.The degree of authoritarianism in the Ming and Qing Dynasties was far higher than that in the Han, Tang and Song Dynasties, and they were truly highly authoritarian countries.Some scholars even believe that the word "autocracy" began in the Ming Dynasty, and China before the Ming Dynasty was not considered an autocratic country. First, look at the power distribution system between the central and local governments.Song Taizu Zhao Kuangyin "drinking wine to release military power" solved the threat of local armed separatism in one fell swoop and strengthened the ability to centralize power; Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang abolished the prime minister system and completely broke the balance between imperial power and prime minister power within the central power.Since the Han Dynasty in China, a large number of administrative affairs were handled in the prime minister's office, not in the imperial officials. In the Song Dynasty, "not killing ministers for a hundred years" was the royal family's "power commitment" to scholar-bureaucrats.Zhu Yuanzhang abolished the prime minister system and established the bachelor system, which actually destroyed this "balance of terror". In the Yongzheng period of the Qing Dynasty, the situation became even worse after the establishment of the Military Aircraft Office. The Military Aircraft Office was located in a row of small bungalows next to the palace. The emperor dealt with the government affairs every day, calling the military ministers back and forth, and turned them all into slaves of the royal family, so the imperial power started from this.

Secondly, in terms of the way of controlling the thoughts of the whole people, after the Southern Song Dynasty, Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism increasingly imprisoned people's thoughts. Library Quanshu", the government restricts the freedom of thought from the perspective of the text, and erases all the heresies it considers, so that the thoughts of the whole people are unified on the "Four Books and Five Classics". Thirdly, the imperial examination system was further strengthened and sanctified in terms of the control mode of social elites.Intellectuals throughout China should not think or be allowed to think about anything other than the Confucian doctrine of "monarch and minister".In the fifth year of Shunzhi, the fifth year when the Qing soldiers entered the customs, the Qing court ordered that a monument be erected in all prefectural and county schools across the country, with three major prohibitions inscribed on it: first, students are not allowed to speak; second, they are not allowed to form alliances Associations; third, no writing is allowed, and those who violate the three orders will be killed without mercy.And these three are precisely the freedoms of speech, association, and publication that modern people want to fight for.In the past, all the steles in China were erected, but only this one is lying down. When reading, you have to bow your head.In the Qing Dynasty, the emperor launched literary inquisition many times, which made the literati all over the world tremble and become "spiritual dwarfs".

Finally, in terms of the macroeconomic system, the state continues to use forceful methods to control the macroeconomy, curb international trade externally, engage in male farming and female weaving internally, and engage in privileged management and sales in the industrial and commercial fields.