Measure China's material resources and win the favor of the country.

I don't know when it started, but a subversive wind began to become popular in China. Subvert tradition, belief, morality, criticism-even history. I am not an old man or a representative of the so-called old forces. On the contrary, I am also a member of the post-80s generation who are active in various fields. I have never opposed change, and I have never opposed changing some wrong understandings. However, when all this becomes worse and worse, and it seems to subvert all inherent values, I have to question: What do they want?

I am writing this article to talk about the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, because I recently read an article criticizing the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom movement, and I feel very depressed, so I have to pick up a pen and say something.

First of all, please note that I am defending the peasant uprising against oppression in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

Having said that, I can't help feeling. When I was at school, like many people, I always thought philosophy was a mysterious course, and I didn't have to do anything but eat my stomach. But now I find that so many people really lack the ability to think philosophically. They always look at problems simply, unilaterally, absolutely and impulsively, rather than dialectically, developmentally, objectively and deeply. I always like to draw a conclusion from one person or even one person's affairs that the whole career that this person is engaged in is not worth doing.

Sadly, alas! If China's decision-making power is dominated by such a group of narrow-minded and impetuous people, I really shudder for the future of the country.

Anyway, let's keep talking about the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

My contribution to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was to inspire the people to resist oppression and create the Taiping Army (of course, Feng Yunshan and others contributed). What I am discussing here is whether the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement led by Hong Xiuquan is a great retrogression of history and a great destruction of social productive forces, as some people say.

First of all, I want to sternly refute those ignorant people who accuse Taiping Army of being a cult. In fact, how much influence does religion have in the Taiping Army?

I don't deny that many junior Taiping soldiers are afraid and believe what their father said. However, they joined the Taiping Army to fight, not just because they believed in God. China has never had a social atmosphere in which religion dominated everything, as in medieval Europe. On the contrary, China has had a strong social hotbed of realism since ancient times. Workers' prayer to God and Buddha is not so much a pious belief, but actually mostly a psychological comfort. Secular thought is the mainstream of China's history for thousands of years. In this environment, the general public may join the Taiping Army, which everyone knows is against the imperial court, just for psychological comfort. Will it destroy Jiuzu, and it will never be recovered?

In fact, there are always people who like to quote one side's point of view and say that they are "wrapped up". However, if you trust the Qing documents so much, why don't you trust the other side's point of view? This is obviously unfair.

Opening the thick archives of the Qing side and the relevant documents of Britain and other countries involved are full of similar accusations against the Taiping Army and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Ironically, there are a large number of people in modern society who take this as "conclusive" evidence and accuse the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of being a heinous rabble. Excuse me, everyone, is the credibility of this hostile article from the enemy that high? Think about the mutual propaganda and slander between China and the United States during the Civil War. How credible is it?

We can't experience what happened 100 years ago. But as a great movement that lasted for more than ten years, it also had a certain impact on the world. Some foreigners who didn't know much about the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the Qing government came to China out of curiosity and described the two sides from their perspectives. I think, for some people today, you were dismissive of the records of conscientious China people at that time, so these foreigners' records, you should not be selectively blind, right?

There is an Englishman whose name is Tiao. Originally a British navy, he knew nothing about the history and present situation of the Far East. He came to China in 1859 and entered the territory of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in 1860. We might as well see if the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom he saw with his own eyes was, as his compatriot and British envoy to Qing said, "a group of bandits who plundered for a living." They plunder women and are arrogant and extravagant. " "Where (they) succeed, there will be complete destruction." Or as the British Consul General in Ningbo Xia Fuli said, they don't have any ability to organize the government? At first glance, these remarks are the origin of some people's campaign to denigrate the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom today.

Because Zuo Ling entered the Taiping Army from the Qing Dynasty at that time, he had a deep feeling about the differences between the two sides. He pointed out that people under the yoke of Manchu feudal rule had their hopes and spirits suppressed and destroyed, and they were stupid, cold and full of slave-like attitudes. In the occupied area of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, "because they got rid of slavery in both physical and mental aspects", the whole character also showed amazing superiority, especially women, whose status was greatly improved and their appearance was obviously more cheerful and beautiful than that of women in the Qing Dynasty. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom banned opium and prostitution, and there was no exorbitant taxes. I used to do business between the Qing army and the Taiping army, that is, I bought silk from the Taiping army and then bought food from the Qing army and transported it to the Taiping army. He said: In the Qing Dynasty, he encountered dozens of checkpoints, large and small, all of which extorted money at will, raised tax prices, straggled and robbed everywhere. In the occupied area of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, only one import tariff is paid, that is, it is unimpeded. This point, even in the Qing Dynasty, had to be simply affirmed in The Cape Continuation. This monk, because of his deep personal feelings, finally decided to join the Taiping Army, and finally died in the Taiping Army with his English girlfriend.

Let's talk about the destruction of social productive forces by the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, which has already been talked about. As we know, the Taiping Army occupied the richest area in China. After 1860, all silk-producing areas and most tea-producing areas were under the jurisdiction of Taiping Army. To judge the development of social productive forces, we might as well directly examine the output of silk and tea in this period. As these materials are exported, they are recorded. In the eight years before the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom made Nanjing its capital, China exported no more than 26,000 bales of silk every year. 1In June of 860, the Taiping Army occupied Suzhou, an important silk producing area, and later captured Jiaxing, another silk producing area. By the end of May of 186 1, the silk output suddenly increased to 88,754 bales, each of which came from the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. A few years later, the Qing army counterattacked, and the Taiping army was forced to retreat from the silk-producing area, and the output immediately dropped by half. So, is it clear at a glance who is destroying the productive forces and who is developing them?

As for the population decline in Jiangnan, it is even more wrong to blame it on the Taiping Army. As Ling said, after the Qing army occupied Wuxi, it slaughtered more than 6,000 civilians on the charge that they came from the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Some people are keen to say how many so-called landlords and gentlemen have been slaughtered by the Taiping Army. Why didn't anyone with a conscience stand up and speak for the ordinary people of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom who were slaughtered more? Because of their low status, can their life and death be ignored? )

On his way back to Shanghai, he saw with his own eyes the fairly prosperous villages under the jurisdiction of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom a few months ago, all of which were burned and looted by the Qing army, and the bodies left by the footprints of the Qing army were everywhere. He also made his own statistics. From 1860 to 1864, the Qing army killed more than 2 million soldiers and civilians!

These, I think, are by no means fabricated? Because we all know who said "Nanjing will lay down for three days", and we all know that the slogan shouted by the Qing army in "warlords" is "rob money! Grab food! Grab a woman! " In the face of such obvious evidence, what is it to blame the Taiping rebels for the depression in the south of the Yangtze River, instead of hitting their own mouths?

He also hit the nail on the head and pointed out that those Europeans who opposed the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom movement were "all those who participated in the opium trade (the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom banned opium), all British officials who represented the binary China policy, all mercenary businessmen and foreign mercenaries." A large number of foreign friends of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom are "people who are broad-minded, concerned about human suffering and the happiness of the oppressed nation, and just businessmen who are not enthusiastic about the opium trade."

Others complained that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom delayed China's modernization movement. It's a joke, not to mention that the real reason for the Taiping Rebellion is that the people live in poverty and can't live any longer. For example, a group of backbones of the Westernization Movement did not start with the suppression of the Taiping Army. It was this great movement that indirectly led to the appearance of Westernization School and began to influence the political situation in China.

Finally, I would like to pay tribute to the heroes of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. In that Qian Qian, in order to get rid of the slave status of selling women and children, to stop begging at the feet of evil slave owners, to stop being inferior and starving to death in the streets, and to fight back, thousands of heroes and heroines emerged in the Taiping Army, trying to build a new society. Their deeds are as bright as the sun and the moon! , Li, Feng Yunshan, Chen Yucheng, etc., a large number of resounding names, lit up the dark sky. We saw the heroic city of Jiujiang City, the unyielding death of Chen Yucheng, the great achievements of Taiping Army in catching and killing monks, the men, women and children who tied their leggings, let go of foot binding, disbanded the braids of slaves, set themselves on fire in Tianjing City, and never became slaves again ... Without them, a page of Qingming would be bleak, and the clank and iron bones of the Chinese nation would not be passed down.

In the past, I had no intention to beautify all aspects of this peasant uprising against oppression, but I would never allow it to be defiled and subverted. Just as we can't belittle what utopian socialists do or even their beautiful ideals just because they are unrealistic. But, you know, Qian Qian's thousands of Taiping rebels, their purpose is not to stop selling children, women, cattle and horses as slaves, but for their own ideals! What is God? It is just a symbol, a spokesman, just looking for a symbol to support the facade, but below it is a just struggle for survival and development.

The real representative of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement should be the representative of human beings who were brutally oppressed by slave owners.

Needless to say, history has its own fair evaluation, and I believe everyone's conscience also has judgment.