"Abandoning vassals to protect themselves" or "consolidating vassals to protect themselves"?

/kloc-In the middle and late 20th century, in order to become imperialist countries as soon as possible, some western capitalist countries attached to the world started a "game" of repartitioning the world and seizing colonies, which led to the demise of many countries at that time. When the Qing government saw that the surrounding "vassal States" had become colonies of western capitalist countries, it immediately understood its situation at that time. It is no exaggeration to describe it as "artificial saber, I am a fish".

The Qing government had a heated discussion about this, and finally formulated the border defense policy of "protecting and consolidating vassals" in 1883. From the Sino-French War that began in 1883 to the failure of the Sino-Japanese War in 1894, this frontier defense policy was declared bankrupt. This strategy has played a certain role in hindering the war of western powers, but it is useless at all. Its biggest achilles heel is that this strategy only focuses on moral support, which is not surprising.

0 1. The "turning point" of peripheral relations in Qing Dynasty: the Opium War.

02, relying on the auxiliary cars of neighboring countries, the lips are dead and the teeth are cold.

During the Qing Dynasty, China not only bordered many countries, such as North Korea, Russia, India, Myanmar, Laos, Bhutan and so on. , but also faces many countries, including Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Ryukyu and so on. The attitude of the Qing government towards these neighboring countries has always been that "the emperor has a good way to prevent the four foreigners." Governors have the way to live next to each other, and thus establish the relationship between governors and governors.

The relationship between Ryukyu and China has been very close since the Ming Dynasty, and Ryukyu sent envoys to China in 1646, which further deepened the exchanges between the two countries. 1662, in order to express friendly attitude towards Ryukyu, the Qing Dynasty sent special envoy Zhang Xueli to Ryukyu, which made cross-strait relations closer. So until 1860, Ryukyu insisted on claiming to be a vassal of the Qing Dynasty.

In addition, as early as the beginning of16th century, the Qing Dynasty helped Ruan Group to stabilize the Li Dynasty. 1702, Ruan Fu sent envoys to thank the Qing Dynasty and expressed his willingness to accept the title conferred by the Qing government, but it was rejected by the Qing government. Later, in 1803, Ruan Fuzhong established the State of Vietnam, but he maintained close ties with the Qing Dynasty. Therefore, at that time, the Qing Dynasty formed a border defense system of "Ryukyu defends the southeast, North Korea defends the northeast, Mongolia defends the northwest and Vietnam defends the southwest".

03. Western powers came one after another and were forced to sign contracts.

After the Opium War, western powers attacked the border defense system of Qing Dynasty from one angle to another. In the southeast, Japan began to attack Ryukyu. Although the Qing government intervened in others, it didn't help. 1872, Emperor Meiji of Japan declared Ryukyu as his vassal state and forced the Ryukyu King to stop paying tribute to the Qing Dynasty. The Qing Dynasty negotiated with Japan many times, but the situation was still not optimistic. It was not until 18761October 24th that the suzerain-vassal relationship between the Qing Dynasty and Ryukyu officially ended.

In the northeast, Japan began to attack Korea from 1876, which opened Japan's brutal rule over Korea for more than half a century. But it was not until the Sino-Japanese War that the suzerain-vassal relationship between the Qing Dynasty and Korea finally ended. In the Indian zhina Peninsula, Britain invaded Myanmar three times from 1824 to 1885, which not only completely occupied Myanmar, but also put forward the "spirit plan" strategy of the Qing Dynasty going south. In addition, western powers invaded other neighboring countries bordering China.

Second, under the crisis situation, can the Qing Dynasty be reversed?

04. Strategic thinking: Zhi Zhi's national protection and strategic focus: paying equal attention to coastal defense and fortress defense.

1864 The Hui uprising that broke out in Xinjiang indirectly gave the Akuta bandits of the vast khanate the opportunity to invade Xinjiang. From 1865 to 1866, Agubo kidnappers occupied the whole southern Xinjiang and established their own kingdom. At the same time, the southwest border defense and the eastern coastal defense of the Qing Dynasty were also greatly impacted.

Faced with this situation, the Qing dynasty had a heated discussion, but still failed to find a good solution. However, some government officials put forward the strategic concept of "Zhi Zhi's national security". This idea is that "if China wants to strengthen itself, it is better to learn from foreign sharp weapons;" To learn a foreign weapon, we can only find tools to make it, but unfortunately it has not been realized.

1874, faced with the crisis of northwest frontier defense and eastern frontier defense, there was another fierce debate in Qing dynasty, which was called "the battle of coastal defense" in history. The origin of this argument is that Zuo Zai 1873 is busy strengthening the southeast coastal defense, and at the same time he urgently needs to March into Xinjiang. Both sides need to raise huge amounts of money.

In addition, the normal operation of the Qing dynasty also needed a lot of money, but at this time the treasury of the Qing government was empty, which eventually led to the outbreak of disputes. In this dispute between coastal defense and fortress defense, the courtiers headed by Li Hongzhang insisted on "coastal defense" and thought that "Xinjiang is no longer, its limbs are not damaged, and its maritime borders are not kept, and its pain is even greater". However, Hunan Governor Wang Wenshao and Shandong Governor Ding Baozhen insisted on "blocking defense".

In the final discussion, Zuo integrated the interests of both sides and thought that "the East helped the West to defeat". I'm afraid it's "the west can help, but the east can't." To this end, Zuo put forward the strategic focus of "paying equal attention to coastal defense and defense".

05. Strategic defense policy: protect the vassals and consolidate the State of Chu.

Before 1882, the maritime border was already facing the Korean crisis, and the land border was also facing the Vietnamese crisis. In the crisis situation of being attacked on both sides, the Qing Dynasty received "distress calls" from both sides. Faced with this situation, the Qing dynasty discussed it again, but officials from all walks of life in the court could not reach an agreement. This formed two camps above the imperial court: "abandoning vassals to protect themselves" and "protecting vassals to protect themselves".

Among them, Li Hongzhang, the head of the company, insisted on the idea of "abandoning the princes to protect themselves". Chen, a bachelor of imperial academy, Zhang Zhidong, the governor of Shaanxi, and Zuo, the governor of Liangjiang, strongly advocated "solid vassal self-protection".

Among them, Zhou Derun, a bachelor of imperial academy, pointed out in "Please Protect the Governors in Summer": "The foreign invasion of ancient enemies was very small and early, and it was too early to defend the border without preventing the four foreigners; It is even more impossible to hold the hinterland rather than the border. ..... I think today's plan is nothing more than using reason and force to stop it. " It can be seen that both sides are evenly matched.

This argument started at 1882 and ended at 1883. It involves many factors, and finally establishes the strategic defense policy of "protecting vassals and consolidating the situation"

Third, what is the root cause of the failure of "protecting and sealing"?

In 2006, the strategy of "protecting vassals and consolidating the situation" was fully implemented, but it encountered one setback after another.

However, from 1883 to 65438+February, France invaded Vietnam, and with the help of Vietnam, the Qing government suffered heavy losses. Although the Qing government thoroughly implemented the frontier defense policy of "protecting the vassals and consolidating the vassals", it suffered repeated setbacks.

07. Confidence in the strategy of "protecting and consolidating vassals" is counterproductive.

Facing the setback of the frontier defense policy of "protecting vassals and consolidating the potential", the Qing government not only failed to find problems from the policy itself, but continued to carry out this policy blindly and confidently. 1894, North Korea requested the Qing Dynasty to send troops to help suppress the peasant uprising. However, under the obstruction of the Japanese government, the Qing government had to declare war on Japan. But it was not until February 1895 that the Beiyang Navy was completely annihilated and the war ended. The Qing Dynasty was forced to sign the treaty of shimonoseki, which also marked the complete bankruptcy of the frontier defense policy of "protecting vassals and taking them".

In fact, this policy not only accelerated the end of many suzerain-vassal relations, but also greatly exploited the national defense strength of the Qing Dynasty and accelerated the attack of more western powers on China. In fact, fundamentally speaking, the failure of the frontier defense policy of "protecting and consolidating vassals" lies in itself. It does not reflect the strategic thought of active defense, and it is still a particularly conservative feudal thought. No wonder the Qing Dynasty tried hard to carry out the frontier defense policy of "protecting and consolidating vassals", and in the end it could only draw water with a sieve.

Four. abstract

1870, the frontier defense policy of the Qing dynasty was formally established in 1883 after constant debates within the Qing government. Finally, the complete failure of the Sino-French War of 1883- 1885 and the Sino-Japanese War of 1894- 1895 officially declared the bankruptcy of this strategy.

During this period, the Qing dynasty has always adopted an attitude of resisting foreign aggression, and did not adopt a very tough defense, which is doomed to be a feudal passive defense. In the Sino-French War and the Sino-Japanese War, at first, the Qing Dynasty fought with the strategic defense policy of "protecting the patriarchal clan and consolidating the patriarchal clan", but deep down, it just extended its moral hand and maintained the traditional relationship between the patriarchal clan and the vassal clan, which would lead to more and more fierce wars and irreparable losses.

In fact, in the face of the crisis at that time, the best and most effective way is to carry out active defense, which is not only moral, but also fundamentally for the vital interests of the country, its neighbors and their relations. As the great thinker Engels said, defense should not only be passive, but should draw strength from strength, and defenders should take offensive action whenever they have the opportunity.