The Reform Movement of 1898, also known as the Reform Movement of 1898, was a political reform movement in China during the Guangxu period of the Qing Dynasty (1898). This reform advocated that Emperor Guangxu personally led the political system reform, and hoped that China would embark on the modernization road of constitutional monarchy.
The real reasons for the success of Meiji Restoration and the failure of the Reform Movement of 1898.
Simply put:
1. The radical changes of Emperor Guangxu and several scholars offended the whole upper class, including intellectuals, and the abolition of the imperial examination blocked the promotion of some intellectuals. On the other hand, Japan is steadily reforming.
2. Both the Reform Movement of 1898 and the New Deal of Empress Dowager Cixi were destroyed by foreigners, and Japan's reform was supported by foreigners.
Of the above two reasons, the first is the most important. Let me elaborate on my reasons:
As for some people who say that the failure is due to "subjectively, the bourgeoisie in China is not fully developed, and it is weak and compromised. Objectively speaking, the feudal reactionary forces in China are too strong and seriously hindered. " This is the standard answer in textbooks, but it is not the case. In fact, the subjective and objective factors in Japan and the Qing Dynasty also had this problem. The resistance of Japanese feudal reactionary forces is even stronger than that of China. For example, after the Japanese Reform, Kyushu feudal forces launched an armed attack on the new regime.
1895 After the failure of the Sino-Japanese War, 1898, the Reform Movement of 1898 presided over by Emperor Guangxu came into being. Under the influence of textbooks and mainstream media, people basically think that Wude's reform movement was suppressed by Empress Dowager Cixi, who was the bane of China's progress. But this is not the case. How can Lafayette be indifferent to the fiasco in the Sino-Japanese War? According to Fei Xingjian's biography of Empress Dowager Cixi, as early as the beginning of the political reform, Empress Dowager Cixi said to Emperor Guangxu: "Political reform is an ambition. In the early years of Tongzhi, Zeng Guofan was invited to study abroad, and his children were sent to build ships and machines in order to be rich and strong. " "If you can be rich and strong, you can do it yourself. I don't do it internally." Emperor Guangxu has always been afraid of Empress Dowager Cixi. Empress Dowager Cixi, when her true feelings were revealed and her mood was low, took bold actions surrounded by several literati, hoping to complete the Millennium task within one week. Haste makes waste, but it backfires, offending a large number of vested interests. The radical changes advocated by Emperor Guangxu and the reformists have caused a strong shock to the whole social structure and threatened many social groups and political forces with interests in the existing society. During the Reform Movement of 1898, there were more than 1 10 imperial edicts, which were dizzying. Local officials complained bitterly. Emperor Guangxu severely punished officials who obstructed political reform and made too many enemies. As for the reform of abolishing stereotyped writing in the imperial examination system, it also caused widespread panic among a large group of scholars.
The actions of several literati will lead to the collapse of the Qing Dynasty, and Empress Dowager Cixi has to come out to stabilize the political situation and swallow the consequences of the "bloody coup". Empress Dowager Cixi had both merits and demerits in dealing with the Reform Movement of 1898. If Empress Dowager Cixi really wanted to be as ambitious as Empress Wu Zetian at that time, why didn't Empress Dowager Cixi become emperor later? For various reasons, Empress Dowager Cixi could not be uglier.
Empress Dowager Cixi supported the reform, and the new policy she personally led proved this. "Because of the deep domestic and international abuses, we have to make efforts to rectify them according to the requirements of the times. And hooligans, stealing the law, disturbing it. The industry has been severely punished to curb cross-flow. Whatever is politically related to the national economy and people's livelihood, the old and the new must implement it for the second time, and they must never give up food because of choking. " But in such an era of great social change, she does not have the knowledge and literacy that a supreme ruler should have. She didn't take the initiative to absorb new knowledge, so she showed amazing ignorance on many issues. For example, she thought that building a railway would destroy Feng Shui, and the train would use donkeys and horses (but this can't be entirely her fault, and the knowledge background of that era was like this). Her ignorance affected the Westernization Movement she supported and the achievements of Tongzhi Zhongxing. More importantly, due to the limitation of education level and times, she did not have enough psychological preparation and overall consideration for the seriousness of the situation, the process and goal of reform, and passively adjusted her policies under the stimulation of external forces. After the implementation of the New Deal, he still made the rash mistake of the Reform Movement of 1898 presided over by Emperor Guangxu. Japan's reform took 20 years to complete, and Empress Dowager Cixi took 8 years. Because the pace of reform is too big and too fast, it leads to political instability and decentralized power. The most obvious example is the road protection movement. It is emphasized here that the demise of the Qing dynasty was not due to corruption, but to its own great leap forward in reform. This is similar to the reason for the disintegration of the Soviet Union. The disintegration of the Soviet Union was not due to corruption, but to radical reform.
Judging from the international environment. The Meiji Restoration in Japan took place in the late 1960s in 19. At that time, the world was still in the period of free competition capitalism, and the climax of colonial conquest had not yet begun. The main target of western powers' aggression in East Asia is China, which has a vast territory and rich resources. In addition, the national liberation movement in Asia, especially the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom movement in China, contained the western powers and provided a more favorable international environment for the Meiji Restoration in Japan. Japanese reformists themselves pay more attention to the strategy of diplomatic struggle and make great use of the contradictions between Britain and France, Britain and Russia. The people of China and the Reform Movement of 1898 reached 19 at the end of the 1990s, when world capitalism was in the transition to imperialism, and the powers basically carved up the world through the climax of their struggle for colonies. China became the "only rich source" that the great powers competed for in the East, and there was a frenzy to carve up China. At this time, the imperialist powers never wanted China to become an independent and powerful capitalist country, and the international environment was very unfavorable to China's reform movement.
Because China has a vast territory and a large population, its development is unfavorable to other countries, and the resources in the world are limited. Other countries are also for their own interests, so it is not important to evaluate whether their aggression is good or bad. The West strongly supported Japanese reform and took destructive actions against the Reform Movement of 1898 in the late Qing Dynasty, precisely to make China, a sleeping lion, never wake up. Therefore, from the perspective of national interests, the West's suppression of People's Republic of China (PRC)'s development began with the first collision between the East and the West, and the West's policy of suppressing China continues now and will continue in the foreseeable future. The suppression of China by the West has nothing to do with Chinese surnames Feng, Zi and She. However, Japan is a small country, and no matter how it develops, it will not pose a serious threat to the West, which is why the West has been supported by the West since the Meiji Restoration, and a powerful Japan controls the development of China.
Westernization Movement
1840 After the defeat of the Opium War, the relationship between China and the world has undergone unprecedented changes. Successive external troubles and internal worries made the Qing government and a group of intellectuals gradually wake up to the need for change to strengthen themselves. During the reign of Xianfeng and Tongzhi, the Qing government began to carry out the Westernization Movement, hoping to "learn from foreigners for self-improvement" and improve production technology. All localities introduced new foreign technologies, set up mines and factories, built railways, set up telegraph networks and trained technicians; Militarily, it also established the largest Beiyang Navy in the Far East. 1894 to 1895, the Sino-Japanese War broke out, the people of China were defeated by the Japanese, and the Beiyang Navy was completely annihilated. It proves that the economic westernization movement alone cannot fundamentally change the backwardness of Chinese people. Then there was a voice calling for political reform, calling for reform from a more basic level, including the political system.
Imperial examination candidates jointly wrote to the emperor.
The reform movement began with a bus petition in Beijing on 1895. At that time, people gathered in 18 provinces in Beijing to take the imperial examination, and got the news that China cut Taiwan Province Province and Liaodong in treaty of shimonoseki and paid 22,000 Japanese reparations. At that time, the crowd got excited. In April, Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao wrote "A Million Words Book of Emperor Shang", proposing the idea of rejecting peace and moving the capital to reform, which was signed by more than a thousand people. On May 2nd, two people, Kang and Liang, juren from eighteen provinces and thousands of citizens, gathered in front of Duchayuan and asked to play on their behalf. Because people from other provinces went to Beijing by imperial car, the incident was also called a letter on the bus. Although the writing on the bus didn't get direct and substantial consequences at that time, it formed an atmosphere of citizens asking about politics, which in turn gave birth to various discussion groups. Among them, the die-hards initiated by Kang and Liang were the most powerful, and were once supported by the emperor Weng Tonghe, Nanyang Minister Zhang Zhidong and other senior officials of the Qing Dynasty.
Reform has begun.
1897 At the end of the year, there was a Caozhou religious case in Shandong, and two missionaries of the German Empire were killed. Germany took the opportunity to occupy Jiaozhou Bay (now Qingdao), Russia occupied Lushun Dalian, France occupied Guangzhou Bay (now Zhanjiang, Guangdong), and Britain occupied Weihai, Shandong, demanding the expansion of Kowloon New Territories. The fierce intention to carve up the Republic of China, which was just defeated by Japan, once again sounded the alarm in North Korea.
Although Emperor Guangxu was nominally pro-government at the age of 1887, the real power was still in the hands of Empress Dowager Cixi. Faced with the danger of dismemberment, 1898 (the year of the Reform Movement of 1898), Empress Dowager Cixi agreed to Guangxu's reform of state affairs. 1 1 In June, Emperor Guangxu promulgated the Imperial Decree on Determining the Country, which showed his determination to change the system, and this was also the beginning of the Hundred Days Reform. Later, Emperor Guangxu summoned Kang Youwei and asked him to walk for Zhang Jing as a think tank of political reform. Later, Tan Sitong, Yang Rui, Xu Lin, Liu Guangdi and others were used to assist the political reform.
The contents of the New Deal mainly include: eliminating redundant staff, abolishing stereotyped writing, opening schools, training new troops, equality between Manchu and Han, and so on; Policies and systems covering education and military affairs. Its ultimate goal is to implement constitutional monarchy. Kang Youwei presented Emperor Guangxu with Kang Youwei's own works on the Japanese Reform and Peter's Reform in Russia, as well as Timothy Richard's translation of The New History of Taixi and other books on the reform of various countries. I wanted to recommend it during the political reform, so much so that I especially regarded the model as the reform of Meiji Restoration.
1898 coup
The New Deal was resisted by former ministers from the beginning. In particular, Rong Lu, minister of Beiyang and governor of Zhili, was a conservative leader. /kloc-in September of 0/6, Emperor Guangxu summoned Yuan Shikai, the provincial judge of Zhili who commanded the Beiyang New Army, and was promoted to assistant minister after the interview. On the other hand, Rong Lu, the governor of Zhili, went to Britain and Russia and urged Yuan to return to Tianjin as soon as possible. According to Yuan Shikai's diary, Tan Sitong later visited Yuan Shikai's residence on the night of September 18, revealing that the emperor hoped that Yuan Shikai would arise and work hard to kill Rong Lu and surround the Summer Palace where Empress Dowager Cixi lived. Two days later (September 20th), Yuan Shikai returned to Tianjin and reported Tan Sitong's plan to Rong Lu. /kloc-in September of 0/9, Empress Dowager Cixi returned to the palace. On September 2 1 day, she came to the DPRK, declared martial law and stopped the train. In other words, Emperor Guangxu was imprisoned, the New Deal was abolished, and the reformists were searched. It was a coup in 1898, which only ended the reform in 103. Among the reformists, Kang Youwei left Beijing early and Liang Qichao fled to the Japanese embassy. Also arrested were Tan Sitong, Yang Rui, Liu Guangdi and He Kang, who were called the "Six Gentlemen of the 1898 Movement". Six people were beheaded in the food market on September 28th. Xu Zhijing was sentenced to life imprisonment; Zhang Fa matches Xinjiang. All the new policies, except Shi Jing University Hall, have been abolished.
The influence of political reform
In recent years, some historians believe that the reform movement had no hope of success from the beginning. Apart from the fact that Emperor Guangxu lacked the power and prestige to carry out reforms, the reformists (especially Kang Youwei as a think tank) were doomed to failure because of their ignorance of political reality and their rough understanding of western social systems.