Lesson 20 The strengthening of the Qing dynasty monarchy

The establishment of the Military Office

At the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, there was still a meeting of Ministers of Parliament composed exclusively of Manchurian nobles. All military and state affairs have to be discussed by the Council of Ministers, and once the decision is made, even the emperor can not change. To Kangxi, in order to curb some of the power of the Manchu nobility, a strengthening of the monarchy, the establishment of the Southern Secretariat, directly for the emperor to draft decrees and deal with the zheng, thus bypassing the meeting of the Minister of Parliament.

Yongzheng years, the court temporarily set up a military room to deal with the military affairs of the northwest, soon renamed the military office, became a permanent body, the emperor selected and trusted ministers. The military bureau was the most important central institution that assisted the emperor in dealing with political affairs, and military and political matters were entirely decided by the emperor, and the military ministers prepared documents according to the emperor's will, which were reviewed and approved by the emperor and then conveyed to the central ministries and local institutions for implementation.

After the establishment of the Office of Military Affairs, the Council of Ministers of State existed in name only and was abolished during the Qianlong period. This special institution facilitated the emperor's dictatorship, giving him supreme authority and making everything subject to his will, thus further strengthening the monarchy.

Written Jail and Cultural Dictatorship Policy

The rulers of the Qing dynasty were very concerned with tightly controlling intellectuals from the realm of ideas. During the Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong dynasties, they often extracted words from the articles and poems of intellectuals, distorted their interpretations, and then used them to fabricate accusations, creating a large number of unjust jails, for which many people were executed, and even their relatives and teachers were persecuted. People call this practice "text prison".

The scale of the Qing Dynasty's written prison, the number of times, far beyond the previous generation. The written prison caused social terror, the destruction of many talents, resulting in intellectuals from then on dare not ask about politics, but also dare not express their personal ideas, even the wording of sentences to be careful, so as not to be killed. The implementation of the prison of words confined people's thoughts and speech, and seriously hindered the development and progress of thought and scholarship.

In order to maintain centralized rule, the rulers of the Qing Dynasty practiced an authoritarian policy in culture. On the one hand, they vigorously promoted the respect for Confucianism and the reading of scriptures, and organized large-scale activities to organize literature and compile books; on the other hand, they conducted a comprehensive inspection of books nationwide and classified those considered unfavorable to Qing rule as forbidden books, seized them, and destroyed them. During the Qianlong period alone, the campaign to ban and destroy books lasted for nearly 20 years, and many precious books were banned and destroyed.

Increasing social conflicts

Under the autocratic rule of the Qing dynasty, officials sought promotion or self-preservation by using all kinds of official connections, bribing superiors and forming parties for personal gain. After the Qianlong period, corruption became more prevalent, and the bureaucracy of the Qing Dynasty showed a trend of increasing corruption from the overall structure. Officials at all levels tried to enrich themselves for their own selfish interests, deceiving the court at the top and extorting the people at the bottom.

The wind of corruption in the officialdom also spread in the army. Eight Banners soldiers for a long time without war, the old spirit of martial arts is gone, military style and military discipline is increasingly corrupt, the general embezzlement of pay is very common. The army has long been a privileged place to live, the armament is slack. Generals accept riding parade, surprisingly "shooting arrows arrow false hair, galloping horse people fall to the ground". The sons and daughters of the Eight Banners were even more incompetent, good and bad, either addicted to alcohol and gambling, or raising birds and fighting chickens, very decadent.

The bureaucracy of the Qing dynasty was bloated, but during the Kang and Qian dynasties, social and economic development, increasing revenue, the treasury was full and could still afford the huge operating costs. In the late Qianlong period, however, due to the emperor's great enthusiasm and excessive spending, the financial deficit was very serious. In particular, the corruption of officials at all levels and the interception of taxes greatly affected the state revenue. After the Jiaqing period, the court's revenue was decreasing while its expenditure was increasing, resulting in a financial crisis. Political corruption led to economic decline, resulting in a weakening of the state.

After the middle of the Qing Dynasty, the growth of population caused a shortage of land while land was concentrated in the hands of a few people. Big bureaucrats, big landlords and big businessmen annexed land by any means possible. Peasants who lost their land went bankrupt and became tenants and hired workers of landlords, paying high rents to landlords. Many peasants became displaced people and begged for a living. The social division between the rich and the poor was very serious, and the general public was living in increasing hardship and social crisis.

Closed-door policy

The rulers of the Qing dynasty believed that there was no need for economic exchanges with foreign countries because of the richness of the country's products. At that time, the western colonizers were expanding their power in the east, and the Qing rulers were worried that the sovereignty of the country's territory would be violated and that the coastal people's interaction with foreigners would jeopardize their own rule, so they implemented the "closed-door" policy and severely restricted foreign trade.

During the Shunzhi period, the "sea ban" was issued to severely restrict maritime trade; the coastal residents from Shandong to Guangdong were forced to move inward for dozens of miles, and merchant ships and fishing boats were not allowed to "sail out to sea". After the Qing Dynasty established its administrative structure in Taiwan, Ningbo and Zhangzhou were released as ports for foreign trade, and strict restrictions were placed on the types of goods to be exported and the weight of ships going to sea. Later, British merchant ships made several trips to Ningbo in an attempt to establish a permanent commercial base there. The Qing court was deeply suspicious, and in 1757, it ordered the closure of other ports and opened only Guangzhou as a port for foreign trade, and stipulated that the "Guangzhou Thirteen Houses", licensed by the court, would operate foreign trade, be responsible for selling foreign imports, buying Chinese exports on behalf of foreigners, and managing foreign merchants.

The Qing Dynasty's closed-door policy was implemented for nearly two hundred years and served as a defense against the aggressive activities of Western colonizers. However, while the West was undergoing the bourgeois and industrial revolutions, and had entered a period of rapid development of productive forces, the Qing court remained closed to the West, resulting in the country's isolation and missing the opportunity to learn advanced scientific knowledge and production technology from the West, and China gradually lagged behind the development of world history.（1224words）