Chapter 42 Iron Barrel Array: Closed to the outside world

The rulers of the Ming and Qing Dynasties had a particularly developed "autocratic wisdom", and they really discovered the "secret of autocracy": if the regime is to be stable, dangers come from two sources: one is external troubles, and the other is internal troubles.Except for troubles, severing all ties is the only way, so we should turn the country into an iron bucket.Controlling and weakening the power of non-governmental organizations is the key to solving internal worries, so we must smash the people into loose sand. The Iron Barrel Formation and Sand Scattering Technique were the two magic weapons of the rulers of the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

To build an iron barrel formation, the way is to close the country.China is a country with grasslands in the north, steep mountains and deserts in the west, tropical forests in the south, and the Pacific Ocean in the east. It is very easy to form a geographically closed country. As long as "the Great Wall is built in the north, and sea transportation is banned in the south", it can be isolated from the world. The first major task done after the establishment of the Ming Dynasty was to build the Great Wall in the north, start from the Yalu River in the east, and reach Jiayuguan in the west.Since then, the "Silk Road" that has been stretching since the Han and Tang Dynasties has gradually become blocked, and China and Europe have ceased to communicate.After the Europeans lost the land trade channel, they were forced to look for a way out to the sea. The European economy bid farewell to the Mediterranean period and began to expand to the west and then to the north.In this sense, the future direction of European civilization should be “thanks” to the Ming Dynasty’s retreat policy.

The ban on sea transportation in the south requires a little courage to "self-palace". When it was built in the early Ming Dynasty, it had the largest seaport in the world, Quanzhou Port, and the most powerful navy, and its economic and political influence radiated to the entire Western Pacific region.According to the research of the Japanese scholar Takeshi Hamashita, around the 15th century, a political and economic alliance with China as the center, silver as the unified currency, and no tariff barriers emerged in the Western Pacific region. The most stable regional international system.China and more than 60 neighboring countries have formed a "tributary order", that is, the suzerain (China) provides international security guarantees, and the tributary countries express their allegiance to China, so they do not need to maintain a permanent military force.The "Zheng He's Seven Voyages to the West" that began in 1405 was actually a large-scale inspection of the southern countries of the "Southeast Yi" in the alliance by the Ming Dynasty. Sixty-two nine-masted galleons and nearly 30,000 soldiers The huge fleet of the entourage showed unparalleled military and economic strength, which further consolidated the status of the suzerain of the Ming Empire in Southeast Asia.

The turning point in history occurred in 1492, 59 years after Zheng He’s last voyage to the Western Seas. The Ming court ordered the “closed country” and the coastal people were not allowed to have any traffic or trade with the ships that came to China. The next year, The Ming court decreed that from now on, the commercial goods of the common people would be punished as "communication with foreign countries". In 1585, the imperial court even issued an order stating that anyone who wanted to build a ship with two masts or more would be regarded as a rebellion and be sentenced to death.China's naval system self-destructed, and progress in shipbuilding technology came to an abrupt halt.

Coincidentally, it was also in 1492 that the Italian navigator Columbus sailed due west and arrived in the Bahamas Islands in America with the credentials of the Spanish king to the Chinese emperor and the Indian monarch. The great era of "Geographical Discovery" began.Columbus's fleet consisted of only three ships and eighty-eight people. It was ill-prepared and its direction was unclear, but it opened a new history.In the field of western historiography, 1500 is often regarded as the dividing line between ancient times and modern times. Paul Kennedy described in "The Rise and Fall of Great Powers": "In the early 16th century, whether the countries of Central and Western Europe could stand out among the nations of the world? Obviously, there is no clue, and although the Eastern Empire appears to be invincible and well-organized, it is deeply harmed by the centralization of power." He described Zhongtong's seclusion in a very paradoxical style: "Zheng He's big ships were laid aside and decayed. Opportunities beckon abroad, but China has decided to turn its back on the world."

The Qing Dynasty was founded in 1644 and continued the Ming policy of seclusion.It itself comes from the Northeast, and it has reached a strategic cooperation with Mongolia as a "Manchu and Mongolian family", so the North's troubles are much lighter than that of the Ming Dynasty.In the south, in order to oppress and blockade the Zheng Chenggong Group, which was entrenched in Taiwan Island, the Qing court issued the "Boundary Relocation Ban Sea Order" three times in 1661, 1662 and 1664, announcing that "slabs are not allowed to enter the water, and grains of rice are not allowed to cross the border." People from Shandong to the coast of Guangdong moved inward for 30 nautical miles, forming a fire-separated zone.After Shi Lang conquered Taiwan, in 1685 (the 24th year of Kangxi), he announced the opening of sea trade and established four customs offices in Guangdong, Fujian, Zhejiang and Jiangsu.By 1757 (the 22nd year of Qianlong), due to the increasingly active coastal trade, especially the East India Company continued to send personnel northward, Qianlong issued an edict to close the customs of Zhejiang, Fujian, and Jiangxi, and designated Guangzhou as the only treaty port.Since then, Quanzhou Port and Mingzhou Port (Ningbo), which have prospered for hundreds of years, have completely declined, and Guangdong's open personality and export-oriented industrial structure have been formed. , the historical reason is here.

Compared with the previous tribute system, the customs system is a big change in foreign trade policy.According to the Shibo system in the past dynasties, merchants from various countries started trade with China in the form of tribute. The tribute envoys presented the tribute to the Chinese emperor, and their merchants handed over the goods to the Shibo Department, and temporarily attracted investment and sold them at specific venues. Established trading agency.After the establishment of the Customs, foreign businessmen were allowed to build their own business houses in China, and businessmen from various Western countries built houses by the Pearl River west of the city gate of Guangzhou.Foreign businessmen call it "Shang Guan", while the Chinese call it "Yi Guan".The Qing government imposed strict movement control on merchants in Yiguan. They could not enter Guangzhou city without approval, and they were not allowed to leave Yiguan to move around without authorization.At different times, the government also promulgated many restrictive laws, such as, foreign businessmen were not allowed to spend the winter in Guangdong, they were not allowed to take sedan chairs, they were not allowed to cruise the river by boat, they were not allowed to hire Han servants, and Chinese businessmen were prohibited from borrowing capital from foreign businessmen, etc.That is to say, for a long time, foreigners were locked in an "iron fence" to do business with the Chinese, and they knew nothing about what happened in China and the social outlook.

From the tribute system to the customs system, the Qing government changed its foreign trade policy economically, but its foreign policy did not keep up with it politically, and politics held back the economy.The emperors of the Qing Dynasty always regarded foreign countries as "below me" barbarians, and Shunzhi believed that "paying tribute" was already the greatest gift from the heavens to the barbarians, and "trade should not start". For more than 400 years, this "iron barrel array" has been built perfectly. I am intoxicated inside, and people outside have no idea what's going on inside the barrel.Beginning in 1521, the Portuguese, Dutch, and Russians successively sent 15 missions to try to establish bilateral relations with the Qing Dynasty, but all were rejected.Until 1792, the already very powerful Britain sent an official mission to China for the first time, that is, the very famous Macartney mission in history, which landed from Guangzhou Port and went north along the canal to Rehe to meet Emperor Qianlong saw the real Celestial Dynasty with his own eyes for the first time.The British wrote in his diary: "Whether it was in Zhoushan or in the three days of going up the Baihe River to the capital, I didn't see any evidence that the people had enough food and clothing and the countryside was rich and prosperous. In fact, everything I saw was nothing but poverty and backwardness. They further concluded that this government, as it currently exists, is, strictly speaking, an autocratic rule of a small group of Tatars over hundreds of millions of Han Chinese.For at least the past hundred years there has been no improvement, no advance, or rather regress; while we advance every day in the arts and sciences, they are effectively becoming semi-savages. "

The British put forward seven conditions to the Qing court. From the current point of view, most of them belonged to the request for equal trade, such as opening Ningbo, Zhoushan, Tianjin, etc. as trading ports, allowing British businessmen to open a trading company in Beijing, allowing British The merchant has inventory and places of residence near Zhoushan and Guangzhou, and implores the Chinese side to announce the tax rate, not to randomly charge miscellaneous fees, and so on.Qianlong forbade one thing, and wrote a letter to King George III of England, saying, "Actually, Dewei of the Celestial Dynasty is far away, princes of all countries, all kinds of precious things, all kinds of precious things, all kinds of precious things, everything is there, and your envoy is waiting for your relatives." See. Kit Kats are never expensive, and there is no need for things made in Erguo.”The meaning is very clear. The Celestial Dynasty has everything. The people you sent have seen it. I don’t care about anything produced in your country. In the future, if you can’t come, try not to come.Macartney brought many things to Qianlong, including telescopes, artillery, clocks, etc. He Shen transported them all to Beijing. Until 1900, when the Eight-Power Allied Forces invaded the Forbidden City, he ran in and saw that many things had not been opened. seal up.