Chapter 76 Section 29 Three Functions of the Peasant Uprising

What did the peasant uprising bring to China? Rather than saying that the peasant uprising "is the main driving force that pushes the wheel of Chinese history forward, it has dealt a heavy blow to the autocratic rule, partially adjusted the production relationship, and strongly promoted the development of productive forces", it is better to say that the peasant uprising and autocratic rule are to maintain "China's uniqueness." The two complementary wings are twin brothers born from the same cultural source. They complement each other and promote each other, maintaining the same line of Chinese culture for thousands of years and inheriting the rope.

What the peasant uprising brought to China was nothing more than the following functions: One is to eliminate the population, reduce the population pressure on this land, and provide space for a new round of population growth. Large-scale peasant uprisings in China can last as long as one or two years, and as long as ten or twenty years.At least it affects several provinces, and at most it sweeps the empire.When the pole is lifted in one place, the whole country rises up.In the late Qin Dynasty, the late Han Dynasty, the late Sui Dynasty, the late Tang Dynasty, the late Yuan Dynasty, and the late Ming Dynasty, the peasant uprisings and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Revolutionary Movement all had millions or more insurgents.Every time there is an uprising, the places where the officers and soldiers and the rebels pass by are completely destroyed, thousands of miles of red land, and rivers of blood flow.After a major peasant uprising, the empire's population often fell by half.

During the Lvlin and Chimei Peasant Uprisings at the end of the Western Han Dynasty, the number of household registrations in most important theaters decreased by more than 100%. The number of household registrations in Xiangwu counties has decreased by more than 90%. The Yellow Turban Uprising at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty and the subsequent warlord melee left Yangyang China with only five million people, less than half of today's Shanghai. At the end of the Sui Dynasty, the peasant uprising and the melee of regime change lasted for eighteen years.In eighteen years, two-thirds of the people died, and the population dropped sharply from 46 million to 16 million.In areas where the melee was fierce, such as the Central Plains and Guanzhong, less than one-tenth of the people survived.

The Taiping Rebellion only affected the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and parts of Hunan, Guangxi, Henan, and Hebei, but it reduced the population of the Qing Dynasty by a full 100 million. Due to the strong fecundity, the population problem has always been a fatal problem in the development of Chinese society.Soon after the establishment of each dynasty, the population will grow rapidly, and reach the limit of land carrying capacity under the production conditions at that time in the middle and late dynasty.Elimination of population is the primary function of peasant uprisings, and the large-scale peasant uprisings in the past dynasties have also successfully achieved this, so that the Han nationality, the most productive nation, will not be destroyed due to population pressure.

After each large-scale resistance, huge sacrifices were exchanged for some favorable conditions for developing their own material and spiritual strength. However, because they did not have the "local means of unity and resistance" that Western European farmers had, they paid heavy sacrifices in exchange for some favorable conditions. The achievements are generally lost within a few decades, and life returns to the original starting point. The second is the destruction and deterioration of civilization.With regard to the destruction of social wealth by peasant uprisings, two simple examples will suffice.In the year when Liu Bang came to the throne, he couldn't choose four horses of the same color to pull the imperial chariot, so the prime minister could only go to court in an ox cart.However, there are as many as twenty-four histories in Chinese history books. Each dynasty exhausted the power of the empire to build magnificent and magnificent palaces. The only one that was not burned down was the Forbidden City in Beijing. The reason is that the Qing Dynasty did not perish due to peasant uprisings.

The emperors and generals met in this way, and the suffering of ordinary people who survived can be imagined.The aristocratic culture suffered devastating blows again and again during the great turmoil. As the low-level figures such as Liu Bang, Zhu Wen, and Zhu Yuanzhang rose from the bottom of the society to the top of the society time and time again, the low-level culture characterized by pragmatism continued to spread. The third is that autocratic thinking is getting stronger and stronger, promoting autocratic rule to be more careful and rigorous, and institutional prisons are more unbreakable.China’s orthodox culture certainly contains the intentions and genes of the entire autocracy. However, the difference between it and the bottom culture is that it uses the kingly way and Datong as its appearance, and it is packaged more appropriately, while the bottom culture is naked cheering and affirmation of autocracy.

In fact, the peasantry has never been an alien factor in the autocratic rule.They have more sense of imperial power and worship authority than people of other classes.They identify with the authoritarian system even more than members of the upper classes.In other words, the authoritarian character of peasants is often more distinct and stronger than that of rulers.Their most heroic declaration is nothing more than "a man should be like this".Their patriarchal style, authoritarian tendency, and lack of independent thinking ability are worse than those of the ruling class, and their ruling techniques are more rough.This determines that once they have power, they are often more cruel to their class brothers, their ruling methods are often more tyrannical and cruel, and their regimes are more selfish.

The regime established by Hong Xiuquan has the strictest hierarchical system in all Chinese dynasties.What's even more ridiculous is that in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the regime of the peasants themselves, one of the punishment measures for officials and soldiers was "punishment to be a peasant". The Ming Dynasty established by Zhu Yuanzhang, who was born at the bottom, was the most authoritarian dynasty.Zhu Yuanzhang's employment administration has obvious short-sighted, pragmatism, ignorant and backward peasant characteristics. Those egalitarian requirements such as "equal land" and "equal wealth" that are popular among historical researchers in the past dynasties, as well as the slogans of destroying the rich and benefiting the poor, were originally put forward by the founders of Confucianism, not the inventions of rebellious peasants.

All the peasant uprising slogans did not exceed the scope of the feudal patriarchal system. Thousands of tragic peasant uprisings in Chinese history did not bring breakthroughs and innovations in basic systems, and did not provide any possibility for Chinese history to break through the cycle.The purpose of the peasant uprising was not to destroy the unreasonable system, but to adjust and maintain that system.It's an overhaul, it's a maintenance, it's an upgrade, not a revolution and innovation. Peasant uprisings are just an adjustment mechanism for authoritarianism to release contradictions.Peasant uprisings are like jailbreaks, and after each jailbreak, the newly built prisons are designed more scientifically and rationally, and are more resistant to explosions.

What the peasants exchanged with their blood and lives is tighter control than before, stronger prisons, better domestication, and further degradation of the national character.From Han to Qing, this rule was very obvious.