The term “traitors” is frequently used in contemporary Chinese debates about patriotism, even though neither side knows exactly where it is. Perhaps one of history’s bitterest jokes is that the term used by the Manchu court to smear the rebellious Han is now being used by the people it smears.
The “traitors” of the Yuan Dynasty had appeared in the texts, but not in the current sense. The term “traitor”, which contains the meaning of “traitor and traitor”, first appeared in Guizhou during the Reign of Emperor Kangxi. In a note to Kangxi, Tian Wen, the governor of Guizhou, said, “The trouble of the Miao thief arose from the traitors.” At that time miao nationality refers to a lot of minorities of Yungui generically, that miao. Tian Wen meant that the ethnic minorities rebelled against the imperial court because of the Han people’s advice behind their backs.
Then why did the Han people stand together with the miao people?
Guizhou used to be an outland ruled by chieftains of different ethnic groups. Chieftains, large and small, were hereditary and accepted the titles of the imperial court. They enjoyed complete autonomy within their jurisdiction. However, the chieftain had to pay tribute in peacetime, but had to go out in wartime. Under the pressure of the imperial court, he was sometimes not very obedient, and often rebelled. During the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, Yang Yinglong, the chief-secretary of Bozhou (today’s Zunyi), could not bear extortion and led the Miao people to rise up. Before and after the Ming Dynasty, more than two hundred thousand troops were transferred to compensate for the entire Treasury savings. The war that shook the country indirectly caused the Ming Dynasty to pay no attention to the Nuzhen women in Liaodong and contributed to the rise of Nurhachi in the same period.
Therefore, from the 45th year of The Reign of Emperor Kangxi (1706), the Qing dynasty, well aware of the interests involved, planned to carry out “reversion to the motherland” in Guizhou, which meant abolishing the autonomous power of the chieftain and implementing the “liuguan” administration dispatched by the imperial court. All the people had to bow their heads and sing praises, pay food and serve. For the imperial court, it not only brought power back to the central government, but also expanded the sources of tax revenue and brought great benefits to the government. But for the chieftain, the reversion was actually the encroachment of land and power by the imperial court. For most of the miao people who were attached to the chieftain, they had no land of their own. In the future, they not only had to pay rent to the chieftain, but also had to pay taxes to the court. For many Han people who have been settled in Guizhou since the Ming Dynasty, it is bad news to change their homeland
Since Zhu Yuanzhang’s conquest of Yunnan, there have been han people from the central Plains who moved to Yunnan-Guizhou with the army. Especially, the introduction of high-yielding American crops such as potato, sweet potato, corn and pepper made it possible for the Han people to have a foothold in the barren environment of the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau. These Han people gathered to live together, bleeding and sweating, only with great difficulty in the difficult environment surrounded by ethnic minorities to take root. When the court returned to the land, it had to collect taxes and corvee… To make a living in the boondocks after so much toil would be no good but an increase in duty for nothing, and of course not.
Therefore, many Han and Miao people joined forces to fight against the chieftain, offering advice, issuing documents and even repairing weapons. During the period from the founding of the Qing Dynasty to the Reign of Emperor Yongzheng, there were more than 50 uprisings between The Miao and Han people in Guizhou. Yongzheng years of the Miao uprising, the Manchu mobilization of the two Lakes, Guangdong and Yunguichuan seven provinces forces reluctantly suppressed. In 1727, The governor of Yunnan-Guizhou, Ertai, wrote to the court that “the stubborn young people are doing their best to fight against traitors” and that “The province of Guizhou is causing great harm… Yin and evil are not better than traitors. “This means that the reason why the Miao people went into trouble is that they relied on the traitor of the Han people to give them advice.
Yongzheng replied: “Chieftain’s dare to be reckless, most of the traitors ordered… To be brave and brave, to do anything, to hate. The word “traitors”, which was a formal character in the official documents of the Qing Dynasty, became a proprietary term.
During the Qing Dynasty, the Miao and Han dynasties united against each other throughout the uprising. In fact, most of the uprisings of ethnic minorities were actively participated in by the Han people. Qianlong to this hate gnash one’s teeth: “Seedling person natural disposition is stupid, not have traitors to lure to dare not breed trouble…” He threw the dirty water directly at the traitors.
Guizhou rebelled against the Han people of the imperial court. In our eyes today, was it wrong?
This is the revolution against oppression and exploitation that we have been singing about. They have no choice but to defend their own rights and interests and fight for their own land, which is the humanity and blood of a normal person. If it is just because it is not willing to kneel down to you, not willing to stretch out its head to be killed by you, it becomes the “non-me kneel clan, that is, the traitors”, isn’t it ridiculous? You “three years of qing zhi Fu hundred thousand snow silver” is loyal to the country, I in order to make a living revolt tax payment is “traitors”?
After the invention of this word with an obvious tendency of racial oppression, the Manchus adopted it and greatly expanded its use. Since then, it was not limited to the Han people, but traitors threatened the court’s rule.
For example, Lin Znu is a Han minister who, when banning smoking in Guangdong, issued a special “Nu Traitor” and say to the point: “… Come to Guangdong to investigate haikou events, first be strict with a traitor.” He believed that the reason why opium was rampant in China was that the policies of the imperial court were all good, but that the traitors colluded with foreigners to profit from it. This pan is a neat throw.
In guangdong and the British during the war, Lin zexu found that many of the underlying people not only help the court, but happy to see the court make a fool of yourself even helped the British, so in 1841, after three yuan against the British sent a special “righteous nation is investing to yi said post of guangdong”, said: “who communicate without father, without you, as a traitor, insurrection.” After the British occupied Guangzhou, he believed that the reason why the Qing army could not defeat the British army was not that the British were terrible, but that “now we are using our country as traitors, not dogs.”
in charge of the Guangdong military affairs jing Anti general Yi Shan is a vegetarian food waste, in order to cover up their incompetence, simply with daoguang on a secret note: “Yue people are traitors, Yue soldiers are thieves party”, so “the defense of the people more than the defense, and the defense is more than the defense of the bandits”. As a result, he was the first to raise his flag after the defeat of the British…
Daoguang hated the “traitors”, so the special edict “caught after the line of justice”. The British, however, are very loyal and never forget to protect the Chinese “traitors” who helped them in the Opium War. When the Treaty of Nanjing was signed, the British specifically requested that article 9 of the Treaty be written: “All Chinese… Those who had dealings with the English, those who followed them, and those who were waiting for the English officials, were all transcribed by the Great Emperor, with full impunity.” In fact, the Chinese who had helped the British army had to be issued a special decree from the Qing court not to be investigated afterwards.
After being beaten by foreigners, manqing officials have no way to vent, but also hate everything associated with the word “foreign”. The military minister is a stubborn, even as long as you hear someone talk about westernization, will denounce it as a traitor. Shao Zhengwat, the imperial historian, even wrote that those who studied Foreign language were traitors. Guo Songtao, the first Chinese minister to the UK, was one of the rare officials of the late Qing Dynasty who possessed the consciousness of modern civilization. After he arrived in The UK, he made extensive investigation and felt deeply that the strength of The UK lay in the system of government. Therefore, the westernization movement, which only studied other people’s science and technology and did not study the civilized system, was in fact “to cure the end of the country and forget its source, and to make no effort to understand its source”. For this reason, he wrote a book called “Make the West Chronicle” in the hope that the court would take it seriously. As a result, the whole officialdom reviled Guo Songtao for worshiping foreign countries, and even his deputy told him that he was a traitor to China. The only liberal who did not scold him, Li Hongzhang, could not accept his idea of changing the regime. Guo Songtao had to resign ahead of schedule and return to his country.
When it came to the battle of the Eight-power Allied forces, the term Traitors became even more popular. Became politically correct under the fanatical populism of the Qing Dynasty. The Boxers attacked and killed their religious compatriots under the banner of “killing traitors”. Against the attack to the han nationality of foreign embassies Yuan Shuang autumn, Xu Zhu Yun, moving in the class directly that she denounced as “traitors”. More interestingly, the Manchu minister Lian Yuan also opposed the attack on the embassy, resulting in being called “Manchu traitors”. Even guangxu, who advocated the New Deal, and the tang Emperor were called traitors by the later Party behind the scenes…
For the Manchu pot li Hongzhang signed the Treaty of Shimonoseki back, also sigh with emotion “seventy old man, the name of the Chinese traitors, a few have to survive, not to die the potential”.
The manchu Dynasty, which was obviously a means to protect the small interests of the ruling group, but made use of the general principles of the country to make a name for it, had a profound influence on the thinking of most Chinese people for many years. In the tide of saving the nation and striving for survival in the late Qing Dynasty, it became a perfect term for populist assassins. After the fall of the Qing Dynasty, it still flourished. Once it was thrown out, it seemed to occupy the moral high ground.
For example, Kang Youwei, who promoted the new policy, was regarded as a traitor by the Qing court. After returning from exile in Japan, he was already the Republic of China. Because he was a royalist and advocated constitutional monarchy, he was also called a traitor by the revolutionary Party. They were traitors before and after; As part of its campaign, the Revolutionary Party of 1911 also launched a campaign to combat traitors. As part of the “General appeal to Compatriots” initiative, the Guangfu Congress referred to “manchu thieves and traitors”. The manchu officials were traitors, the army and the people in the system were traitors, even those who did not follow the revolution. In fact, the Beiyang government made a lot of achievements in the diplomatic field. The Peace Conference of Paris was also an example of weak state diplomacy. However, the people who did not know the reason denounced Lu Zhengxiang and others who fought for the country as traitors.
Master Zhang Taiyan is not immune. In 1908, after the Americans rejected the boxer indemnity and returned the money to demand schooling, he published an article in The People’s Daily, “The Benefits of the Alliance between the Qing Dynasty and the United States”, saying that “The United States’ return of New Year’s money, in the name of helping China to develop its education, is in fact the best policy to encourage traitors”. Somebody else returns money to help you run a school, you say somebody else is to raise traitors actually. I do not know now from the evaluation of the world’s first – rate Tsinghua how to look.
For hundreds of years, Chinese people have lived in an environment of selective information supply and still unable to communicate freely, which has resulted in the degeneration of collective thinking. They seldom think about problems with “tolerance and empathy”, the most precious characteristics of human nature. It is particularly easy to create distorted values and illusory pride in slave life. I like to distinguish right from wrong from the perspective of the imperial court, define love and hate based on the preferences of my master, and visualize the world beyond the well from the perspective of the bottom of the well. It’s like the orangutan in the tree who can’t understand the ape-man walking on the ground — so he never takes the small step to become a man.
You see, to this day, those who carry the flag of patriotism, although they certainly cannot tell the historical origins of the traitors, do not prevent them from using it to attack anyone who is open to the world, unwilling to bend their knees, or even trying to save them.
Only in the corner of history, Aixinjueluo’s home, has been sniggering.
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