What would China be like now if there were no Cixi in its history?

Though Cixi still authorized the study of Western "practical science" - science and technology - in the midst of the slogan "Seek truth from facts," she approved the conversion of some of the academies into new schools and continued to support the development of capitalism in the economic field, even opening some ports of entry. Cixi, in the economic field, continued to support the development of capitalism, and even took the initiative to open some ports, but still banned freedom of speech, censored newspapers, prohibited assemblies and associations, prohibited general officials and ordinary people from petitioning, prohibited the reform of the imperial examinations, and in the ideological and cultural field of authoritarianism, the obscenity of the power. This Cixi, actually support the most stupid magic "help the Qing Dynasty to destroy the foreign countries", willing to risk universal condemnation to take the initiative to besiege the embassy, take the initiative to declare war on the Powers, the five ministers who dared to criticize its stupidity, immediately beheaded, and broke into the Eight-Power Allied Forces invasion, the capital was occupied again, pay huge sums of money, and almost died of the great disaster. The latter this Cixi against the tide of history, stifle reform, kill the aspirants.

Both Cixi's are real. Why does the old Buddha have a yin-yang face? This has both social institutional reasons and personality factors. The former is decisive, but the interplay of necessity and chance is very complex.

Cixi is not an isolated individual, she is a representative of the upper social class nurtured by traditional culture and education system. Contrary to what the barnyard historians portrayed, she grew up in a wealthy Manchu bureaucratic family, was well-bred, and had smooth sailing after joining the palace (Xu Che: The Great Biography of Cixi, 29 pp., Liaoshen Shusha, 1994). Though she did not receive enough cultural education in her teenage years, and jokes about misspellings appeared in the early days of her rule, she learned to rule by studying the "Ruling Book of the People," which was written by her courtiers to summarize the experience of ruling in the past generations. calligraphy and painting, reading novels, listening to books and watching plays, and in her later years, she actually dared to volunteer to tutor her personal female officers in Chinese culture. In her later years, she even dared to give tutorials on Chinese culture to her personal female officers. In terms of both classical and popular culture, she embodied in a concrete and subtle way the Chinese culture inherited by the Chinese gentry. At the same time, she was surrounded by a large number of ministers and relatives who were specifically involved in decision-making and governance, all of whom were bureaucrats nurtured by traditional culture. These were the decisive factors that constrained Cixi's words and deeds.

Traditional culture at that time has formed a rigid system and system, the content of knowledge fixed, creed, self-renewal mechanism is very weak, and the lack of equal exchange with foreign cultures of the tradition, and it is the basic virtue of the honor and disgrace of the scholarly class, so that they dare not step out of the minefield, and thus, the whole country will inevitably appear in the systematic group of ignorance. Under such a cultural system, understanding and absorbing advanced foreign cultures was usually the behavior of a few people, and was often accompanied by greater or lesser risks. A deep-seated rejection of foreign cultures, even to the point of Boxer Rebellion-style violence to confront them, are the inevitable products of this system.

The crux of the problem is the system, but the system can be changed under certain conditions. Cixi failed to play such a role for most of her reign, and that will have to be answered in terms of personal character.

Cixi, like most Chinese emperors throughout the ages, prioritized the maintenance of absolute personal authority and enjoyment. It is well known that she sacrificed the defense of the sea for the sake of enjoyment. And in order to maintain personal authority, she also did a few big things to the country: one is the selection of young children as the emperor, the second is not allowed to violate both the custom of the Qing dynasty curtain, and against the ancestral system of clansmen to participate in politics, seize the supreme power, and to the power of the Office of the military machine to a few princes, no matter how they are how stupid and greedy, as long as the loyalty and obedience on the line. The direct cause of the Hundred Days' Mutiny was not so much a policy dispute as the fact that she sensed Kang's plan to seize power by raising an army against her personally. With the final decision at stake, she could not calmly distinguish between the rash actions of a few and the reforms that would make a difference to the country's prosperity. With her power in hand, it would have been very easy for her to take measures to quiet the few arrogant scholars on the one hand, and steadily continue to push forward the reforms that had come too late on the other.

Cixi was not a quiet person, or she would not have staged two coups to seize power. But when power came to her, she preferred to stay the course -- to operate under the old system. When the ministers to the more consistent views, not a lot of resistance to the new measures submitted for approval, she will nod approval - from the Office of the Tongwenkuan, send young children to study abroad, the construction of shipyards to the end of the Qing Dynasty New Deal are in this category. Thus, a pro-reform Cixi appeared on the stage of history. However, in terms of personal character, she was an unambitious figure. She held supreme power for nearly half a century, and neither took the initiative to propose major governance measures, nor seriously updated and supplemented her knowledge (there were many channels available to her in that position), so she could not help but leave a string of records in history of the country's major problems due to ignorance.

Starting in the 1960s, educated people repeatedly called for the railroad to be built, but Cixi dared not support it in the face of foolish objections such as destroying feng shui. It was not until 1881 that the Tangshan-Xuguozhuang railroad, about seven miles long, was built for coal transport, and "fearing that the imperial government would ban locomotives, it was declared that they would be hauled by donkeys and horses, and then permission was invited" (Mi Rucheng, Modern Railroads in China, Volume 1, page 121, Zhonghua Shucheng, 1963) - initially, horses were indeed used. -It is also true that horses were initially used to drag the carriages on the tracks, leaving yet another record in the history of the world's railroads that would make the Chinese blush.

In the early 1970s, some ministers, already recognizing that government-run enterprises, which did not seek to survive in the marketplace, were bottomless pits that the treasury could not fill, repeatedly suggested that the Western path should be followed and that they should be turned over to private businessmen. This suggestion, which, if accepted, could have led to a rewriting of 19th-century Chinese history, was unfortunately shelved.

Over the years, many learned men and women have bitterly criticized the content of the imperial examinations as outmoded and impractical. A year before the Meiji Restoration, Ding Richang in response to an imperial decree in the speech of the scholars, "used not learned, learned not used," the proposal to change the imperial examinations into eight subjects: "one said that loyalty and respect to spy on its character; two said that the straight talk of current events to spy on its knowledge; three said that the examination of the history and history of the hundred to spy on its learning; four test post to spy on the talent of the poetry and fugue; Five inquiry criminal name money rice to spy on its long in the government; six inquiry mountain and river situation, military law in and out to spy on its ability to soldiers; seven test arithmetic gezhi to spy on its through, ask machine manufacturing to do its best; eight test foreign affairs advantages and disadvantages, language and literature, in order to see if it can not be humiliated." ("Preparing for the Yi Affairs Beginning and End", Tongzhi dynasty volume 55.) This proposal both take care of the original foundation of the imperial examinations, but also to adapt to the requirements of the times of the major improvements, once adopted, the late Qing dynasty education and talent selection system will undergo a fundamental change in the functioning of the mechanism of the whole society will also have far-reaching implications. Cixi on this zhangzhi but indifferent. The light of wisdom flickered and left no trace in the foolish mind.

Before exploring further, it may be worthwhile to look at another paragraph of Cixi summoned Sheng Xuanhuai record: "on (Cixi) asked: what is the school? Play right: is to teach foreign affairs of the school, once played in tianjin, shanghai two places opened." (Sheng Xuanhuai: "jihai year (1899) the second day of September Zaoyu zhi zhi", "Sheng Xuanhuai unpublished letter manuscripts", 279 pages, the China Bookstore in 1960.) 1895, 1897 Sheng Xuanhuai successively founded the Tianjin University Hall and Nanyang Public School, in the history of Chinese education has left a brilliant page, two things have been asked for court approval, that is to say, have been recognized by the Cixi, this summoned on October 6, 1899, the coup d'état has been more than a year, the country has been the Chinese people run by the school of 175, all over the country's 17 provinces, and usually have been asked to the court! Approved or known, this time the old Buddha actually do not know "what is the school", this is not the national affairs as a child's play?

From the situation of several power struggle, Cixi is quite bold and sensitive. But from the overall development of the country and history, she is very stupid. She swung with the tide and did not take the initiative to manage the overall situation. Her mind was mainly used to maintain her own power and honor. If she had been born in the era of peace, she could have been a good supreme ruler, and her selfishness would have been no more powerful than that of her husband (Emperor Xianfeng) and son (Emperor Tongzhi), who were famous for being the "flirtatious son of heaven". However, she was born at the wrong time, a time of great change requires a great renewal of concepts and knowledge, to have the courage to break through the traditional ideological and cultural constraints and have enough courageous characters to open up the future. She did not become such a character, her ignorance has missed the opportunity of the nation. Why was she unwilling to seek knowledge? The supreme power of an authoritarian system is not subject to scrutiny, does not have a constant challenge, and loses the internal motivation to constantly improve itself. The main determinants of a ruler's personal character are culture and institutions, and without strong external pressure, it is difficult to change the inertia of autocratic rulers who are usually unwilling to break the stereotypes and do not seek to improve. For Cixi, it was the foreign wars every 10 years and the invasion of the Eight-Power Allied Forces that caused her to embark on the path of the New Deal. This is not only a personal tragedy, but also the price paid by the Chinese to get rid of the ignorance brought about by the traditional cultural system.