The short videos I watched from all dynasties

It's another video in the series. Li Ranran looked at the length of the video. It's too long. So he decided to watch the latest one first.

【Political Gains and Losses of Successive Dynasties—Qing Dynasty】

[Hello everyone, I am up Xining. Today I will talk about the last issue of our series, the Qing Dynasty.

First of all, the political system of the Qing Dynasty was based on the "Qing inherited the Ming system", but some selfish ideas were added to this system.

When we talked about the politics of previous dynasties, we said that the political power in ancient my country from the Han Dynasty to the Ming Dynasty could be said to be a "scholar regime" ruled by scholars.

Scholars entered the government through various examinations. They were not a group that would support the emperor, so it was a fairer system to have these scholars who did not have hereditary privileges in power.

But after the Qing Dynasty, the regime changed from a "scholar regime" to a "tribal regime" and was supported by the Manchu tribes.

This meant that the political power of the Qing Dynasty was always based on protecting the Manchus, while the Manchus always had to support the Qing regime. The Qing emperors had the support of all the Manchus.

"The Qing Dynasty inherited the Ming system." The Ming Dynasty abolished the prime minister, and the Qing Dynasty did not set up a prime minister. The Ming Dynasty had a cabinet to manage state affairs, while the Qing Dynasty set up a Grand Council outside the cabinet and selected several cabinet ministers to assist the emperor in his work.

We all know that the establishment of the Grand Council during the Qing Dynasty was the pinnacle of feudal autocracy, but the "Grand Council" was actually the emperor's personal secretary, and its powers were not as great as those of the cabinet ministers in the later Ming Dynasty.

The Qing Dynasty’s edicts were also very different from previous ones.

In the Qing Dynasty, there was a system of "letters of imperial edicts" which were sent directly from the emperor's military affairs office to the person who was to receive the order. No one else knew what was written in the letters. Only the emperor and the person who was to receive the letters knew.

So many times, no matter how big or small the matter was, the emperor already knew it before anyone else knew about it. 】

[In addition to the Grand Council, the Shangshu of the Qing Dynasty was also very different from before.

The six ministers could not issue orders directly, and both the six ministers and the ministers-general could report to the emperor individually. In this way, the six ministers actually had no control over the ministers-general.

Not only that, each ministry in the Qing Dynasty must have two Shangshu and four Shangshu Shilang, including one Manchu Shangshu and one Han Shangshu, two Manchu Shangshu Shilang and two Han Shangshu Shilang.

Originally, a department only needed one Shangshu chief, but now there are six. 】

[In the Ming Dynasty, there was a special group called "Jieshi Zhong". The emperor issued edicts to the Shangshu, and each of the six ministries of the Shangshu had a Jieshi Zhong.

The Jieshizhong had the power to oppose government orders, so we often say that the emperors of the Ming Dynasty were not very comfortable with what they did, because the Jieshizhong always opposed it, making it difficult to implement policies...

This happened during the Qing Dynasty, which learned from the Ming Dynasty's lesson and did not give the Jieshi Zhong the power to seal and refute.

Correspondingly, there was a very special system in the Qing Dynasty, which was that public speaking was not allowed.

The Hanlin Academy had the power to make suggestions to the central government in every dynasty, but this was no longer allowed in the Qing Dynasty.

In all dynasties, people were not strictly prohibited from speaking out, but in the Qing Dynasty, on the lying tablets outside every prefectural and county school, it was written: "Students are not allowed to speak out. They are not allowed to form alliances or associations. They are not allowed to publish texts."

【 As for the appointment of officials in the Qing Dynasty, it was also very different. The appointment of officials below the fifth rank was originally under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Personnel, while the appointment of officials above the fifth rank was handed over to the prime minister or the imperial recommendation.

But in the Qing Dynasty, only the emperor knew about the appointment of high-ranking officials. Although the appointment of minor officials was still under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Personnel, there was a rule in the Qing Dynasty that all officials, regardless of rank, had to meet the emperor before they could take office.

The emperor wants to control everything. 】

【Local officials had no real power. The Manchu army "Eight Banners" were stationed all over the country. It can be said that the military power of the Qing Dynasty belonged to the entire Manchu tribe.

The Qing Dynasty also set up three restricted areas: the three provinces of Guandong and Xinjiang were reserved as retreat routes; because the Zheng Ming group had developed in Taiwan for a long time and there were constant rebellions in Taiwan, in order to facilitate management, the Han people were not allowed to enter Taiwan;

The restricted areas of Chahar and Suiyuan were designed to prevent contact between Mongolians and Han Chinese.

【Finally, let’s talk about the imperial examination system of the Qing Dynasty. We always say that the eight-legged essay of the Ming and Qing dynasties poisoned students and restricted their thoughts.

The Qing Dynasty's imperial examinations were designed to give Han scholars a taste of the sweetness so that they would not always think about rebellion. It was a system of compromise for the sake of ruling status.

In other words, "As long as you study hard and do well in the exams, we will make you an official, even a high-ranking official."

This imperial examination system was also discriminatory and defensive, and many Manchus and Han people were treated completely differently. Not only that, the aforementioned requirement that Manchus be present in every department was also to guard against Han people.

It can be seen that the Qing Dynasty rulers both suppressed and valued scholars, and gave some sweet treats to the lower-class people while also oppressing them.

Everyone knows about the Qing Dynasty's policy of "equalizing the land tax and the population tax", which meant never increasing population tax. After the land tax and the population tax were unified, the population tax was merged into the land tax, and the population also increased.

These are based on Wang Anshi's reform of the exemption money system in the Song Dynasty of ancient my country and Zhang Juzheng's reform of the one-whip system in the Ming Dynasty.

The Qing Dynasty directly referred to the Ming Dynasty system, and even the land tax amount was based on the method during the Wanli period.

Well, we have been talking for a long time in this episode, so let’s end it here! 】

＜But the truly privileged are the ruling class, the landlord class, and even within the Eight Banners there are high and low classes＞

＜The Qing Dynasty rulers modified all the patches before realizing that a new version had been launched hhh＞

＜How should I put it? After the Westernization Movement, the overall national strength of the Qing Dynasty was greatly improved. This also meant that although the Qing Dynasty had to cede territory and pay indemnities in the late Qing Dynasty, its economy did not collapse as much as the Ming Dynasty.＞

＜In the late Qing Dynasty, opium also gave it a new lease of life＞

＜Anyway, no matter which dynasty was destroyed, its ruling class was not innocent.＞

＜Although many people don’t like the Qing Dynasty now (including me), I feel that the Qing Dynasty was pretty good at that time. It died peacefully and left some foundation. Unlike the Ottoman Empire…＞

＜The Qing Dynasty was so good, why did we overthrow it [eating melon]＞

＜Sometimes I feel that the rulers of the Qing Dynasty were very cautious, unlike the previous Han dynasties, where the first few generations worked hard to govern the country well, and the emperors of later generations felt that they were born rulers and did not think that the people below would resist at all.

When it came to the Qing Dynasty, the emperors were always very careful to guard against the Han people from the founding of the country to the end of it.

＜When the emperor’s power is too centralized, it becomes a dictatorship＞

＜But it seems that because of the constant conflict between the Manchus and the Han, the emperor was always in the middle as the operator, so the emperor had great power.＞

……

In front of the light curtain, rulers of all dynasties carefully studied the political gains and losses of the Qing Dynasty.

The prime minister was abolished! Some of the positive policies of the Qing Dynasty seemed good, but it was indeed not easy for a dynasty to last for hundreds of years.

The emperors of the Qin and Han dynasties seemed to have reached the threshold of this examination system, the imperial examination system.

After the people of the Qing Dynasty understood the psychology of the rulers, they suddenly became enlightened.

“Feudal dynasties are not good things.”

Ming Dynasty Hongwu 27th year

Zhu Yuanzhang sat in the hall and pondered. There was no problem in deposing the prime minister, and there was no problem in the emperor's centralized power and dictatorship.

But what about this cabinet? The more we look at it, the more we feel that this is another prime minister?

"Fourth brother, you just know how to be lazy!" With a cold snort, Zhu Yuanzhang chose to throw all the blame on Zhu Di.

Seeing the light curtain saying that the eight-legged essay restricted the thoughts of scholars and students, Zhu Yuanzhang was so angry that he ordered someone to call the ministers.

I really want to scold them!

Ming Dynasty Wanli 7th year

Zhang Juzheng was conducting a pilot project in Fujian, and the land survey had long affected the interests of some people. Now that the light curtain mentioned Zhang Juzheng's Single Whip Law, one could not help but think of Wang Anshi's reform.

The idea of ​​opposition became more intense, and there were many people in the court who were dissatisfied with Zhang Juzheng.

Wanli respected Zhang Juzheng and also remembered Guangmu's words that Zhang Juzheng's reforms were to prolong the life of the Ming Dynasty and could not be stopped.

Note: The viewpoint comes from Qian Mu's "Political Gains and Losses in Chinese Dynasties"