Summarize the changes of world outlook from Qin Dynasty to Opium War.

On the eve of the Opium War in China, although it had reached the end of feudalism, new social factors gradually accumulated in quantity, showing a transitional state of mutual infiltration between the old and the new to some extent. But on the whole, the old pattern and outlook of society are basically preserved. The contradiction between the landlord class and the peasant class is still the main contradiction in society, and this contradiction is more serious than before, and feudal rule is facing a crisis. The seeds of capitalism have increased, but the feudal system has not changed. From the second half of the18th century, the Qing Dynasty embarked on the road of decline, with dark politics, weak national defense, financial constraints and declining national strength. /kloc-After the 0/9th century, Jiaqing and Daoguang were even worse.

1, economically backward

The Qing Dynasty, which ruled China, has entered a dangerous "declining world" after experiencing the "prosperous period of kanggan". The self-sufficient natural economy, which combines small-scale agriculture with cottage industry, still dominates the country. Land annexation is very serious. A large amount of cultivated land is concentrated in the hands of nobles and landlords, and the emperor is the largest landlord in the country. According to the statistics of 18 12 (the seventeenth year of Jiaqing), the land directly or indirectly held by the emperor reached 830,000 hectares. In Ganjia, Quan Chen and Kun occupied more than 8000 hectares of land. Qishan, a great bureaucrat in Daoguang period, owned 252 hectares of land. Farmers, who make up the vast majority of the country's population, have almost no land. Under the heavy exploitation of feudal land rent, taxes, corvees and usury, the peasants were trapped in poverty, bankruptcy and displacement. The contradiction between the peasant class and the landlord class was the main contradiction in society at that time.

2. Politics of corruption

The highly centralized monarchy in the Qing Dynasty has decayed. The emperor was arbitrary, arrogant and indulged in the dream of "going to heaven and going to earth". General government officials are ignorant and closed, official corruption is rampant, and official management corruption. Since Ganjia, among the senior bureaucrats of the Qing government from the central government to the local government, amazing corruption cases have been exposed many times, which is only a small part of the scandals exposed due to contradictions within the ruling group. At that time, some people satirized that the Qing emperor was "slaughtering fat ducks" in investigating corruption cases. Corruption became an irresistible epidemic of the ruling clique in Qing Dynasty. Joining the party for personal gain also formed a bad atmosphere in the ruling group at that time.

3. Military laxity.

On the eve of the Opium War, although there were 890,000 soldiers of the Eight Banners and Green Camp in the Qing Dynasty, there were many shortages, backward weapons and inferior equipment. Moreover, military affairs are lax, lack of training, military discipline is corrupt, and national defense forces are very weak. It consumes more than 22 million yuan in reimbursement every year (accounting for nearly half of the annual fiscal revenue of the Qing Dynasty at that time), all of which are decadent.

4. Dull ideology and culture

The rulers of the Qing Dynasty also carried out a harsh policy of cultural autocracy and followed the stereotyped imperial examination system. Vigorously advocate the study of empty song dynasty, that is, divorced from the actual neo-Confucianism and Chinese studies, and vigorously promote the literary inquisition to clamp down and imprison scholars' thoughts. At that time, the ideological circle was in a rather numb, depressed and dreary atmosphere, while Gong Zizhen had the momentum of "everyone was drunk and I woke up alone". He sang Long song and cried, and spared no effort to expose and attack the shortcomings of the times.

5. Closed diplomatic relations

Before the Opium War, although the Qing Dynasty maintained a feudal system that was one era behind the capitalist system, although it was quite corrupt, it was an independent country with sovereignty and was not controlled by foreign countries. The foreign policy adopted by the Qing Dynasty was a "closed door" policy. The policy of "closing the country to the outside world" originated from the "sea ban" in the Ming Dynasty and was also implemented in some periods in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The closed-door policy not only has the same origin, but also has different backgrounds, purposes, specific contents and methods in different periods. To make a concrete analysis, the focus here can also be said to be concrete, that is, the closed-door policy after Qianlong. The rulers of the Qing dynasty used the closed door as a diplomatic weapon, which was tantamount to a person dancing a paper sword and calling himself a hero. The closed-door policy did restrict foreigners to a certain extent, but in the long run, from the overall point of view, this policy did not and could not play a positive role in resisting colonial aggression, on the contrary, it restricted China itself, and ultimately it was self-inflicted. So fundamentally speaking, this is a negative, backward and wrong policy. The Qing government was addicted to thousands of years of prosperity, unwilling to accept the changes in the world, and did not believe that any country in the world would surpass itself.

After the Opium War:

1, the change of social nature. After the Opium War, China's territory, territorial sea and judicial sovereignty were destroyed. Taking advantage of the privilege of aggression, foreign invaders frantically dumped goods and plundered raw materials in China, gradually involved the China market in the world capitalist market, and China's self-sufficient feudal economy gradually collapsed. China began to become a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society.

2. Changes in major social contradictions. The main social contradiction, from the contradiction between the landlord class and the peasant class, began to change into the contradiction between foreign capitalism and the Chinese nation, feudalism and the masses; The contradiction between foreign capitalism and the Chinese nation has become the most important contradiction among various social contradictions.

3. Changes in social revolutionary tasks (revolutionary objects). After the Opium War, the people of China shouldered the dual revolutionary task of opposing foreign capitalist aggression and domestic feudal rule. China has since entered the period of the old democratic revolution.

Before the war, China was a politically independent country, and the Qing government could exercise its sovereignty without foreign interference. After the war, China's territorial integrity was destroyed, its sovereignty was violated in many ways, and it has lost its completely independent status.

Before the war, China was an economically independent country, and the self-sufficient feudal economy was dominant. After the war, foreign goods poured into China, and the original feudal economic base began to be destroyed. China has become a vassal of world capitalism and lost its economic independence.

Before the war, the main contradiction in China society was the contradiction between the peasant class and the landlord class; After the war, the social contradictions in China became complicated, and foreign capital-a pair of contradictions between imperialism and the Chinese nation-increased, which became more and more prominent. Comrade Mao Zedong said: "The contradiction between imperialism and the Chinese nation, feudalism and the masses of the people is the main contradiction in China society ... and the contradiction between imperialism and the Chinese nation is the most important contradiction among all kinds of contradictions." ("China Revolution and China * * * Production Party") It is precisely because of the content and form of this contradiction that the people of China began to shoulder the dual tasks of anti-imperialist and anti-feudal democratic revolution from the Opium War, which also determined the social nature of modern semi-colonial and semi-feudal society in China.

4. Conclusion: The Opium War was an important turning point in the history of China. China society began to move from a feudal society to a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society, marking the beginning of modern China history.