Brandon Li, I have enough of an education to know how to use Google and the libraryChina never really made a whole hearted effort to modernize, mainly because of arrogance, corruption, and the fact that the ruling Manchus were a small minority within the country.During the First Opium War, the Qing government was already rotting from within. At this point, China could have still overwhelmed its Napoleonic era opposition. However, different local governors pretty much held their own armies and the British faced the weakest areas which were in the south. Instead of calling for help, local leaders lied to the central government to save face, leading to the emperor not even knowing about the war’s existence until it had been going on for over half a year.
Brandon Li，接受了足夠的教育懂得如何使用Google和
圖書館古代中國從來沒有真正致力於現代化。這主要是因為傲慢，腐敗以及執政的滿人在國內只佔少數。在第一次鴉片戰爭期間，清政府已經從內部腐爛了。那時中國本來還能打敗處於拿破崙時代的英軍，然而，地方大員各自為戰，而英國人面前是疲軟的南方。為保住臉面，地方官員一直對中央政府撒謊，直到戰爭持續了半年後皇帝才知道打仗了。When the British and French returned in greater numbers later, this was more significant, but was still viewed as secondary to the Taiping Rebellion, which was raging through the Chinese heartland, killing millions. China’s only attempt to improve its military in the mid 19th century paid dividends though, in the form of the Ever Victorious Army, a small but elite force of European trained and led soldiers that was feared across the battlefield. It was disbanded after the Taiping Rebellion. Afterwards, it spent decades building up a stockpile of modern weapons. So China did actually try to modernize a bit and on the surface it was a formidable country by the end of the century, although this facade would come crashing down when China faced a newly emerged Japan.
後來英法聯軍到來時，這種情況更嚴重。但相比於在中國核心地帶肆虐，造成了數百萬人死亡的太平天國之亂來說，中國仍將英國和法國視為次要的威脅。在19世紀中期，中國進行了一次提升軍事水平的嘗試，訓練出了一支“常勝軍”。這支得到歐式訓練的小型精銳部隊在戰場上備受矚目。但這支軍隊在太平天國之亂被平定後就解散了。之後中國花了數十年建立了一支現代化的軍事力量，到19世紀末，中國成為了一個強大的國家。但強大的面具很快就被崛起的日本撕破。
In 1894, Japan and China went to war, and most Western observers predicted an easy victory for a Qing Empire that had spent the last 3 decades building up its military. It is only afterwards that people found out how much of a paper tiger Qing China was. The quality of its soldiers was terrible and its leadership matched. They had modern weapons, but none of the necessary modern ideas to achieve victory. As countless colonial wars earlier on had shown, especially in India where musket armed Europeans faced musket armed Indians, tactics and discipline were at least as important as equipment. Being that as it may, the Chinese didn’t exactly have stellar equipment either though. Although it had some of the most modern ships in the world for example, purchased from Germany, almost the entire budget to buy ammunition was embezzled, so poorly trained Chinese sailors had to resort to ramming after firing a few shots. And of course, all along the way, reactionary forces in the imperial court tried to limit modernization as much as possible. On the surface, none of this makes sense. No government would intentionally work to weaken itself and allow foreigners to run roughshod over it. But remember, the Qing were foreigners in China as resented as such. Modernizing the military would mean arming and training hundreds of thousands of Han Chinese people who hated them. Doing such a thing could very well lead to the overthrow of the Manchus. So, of course, when the Qing finally built a modern army, it did overthrow them in the form of Yuan Shikai and his Beiyang Army.
1894年，中日之間發生了戰爭。當時大多數西方觀察者都預測，清王朝能憑藉過去三十年建立起的軍隊輕易取勝。然而事後人們才知道中國只是一隻紙老虎，士兵和指揮都一塌糊塗，雖擁有現代武器，但沒有取勝所必須的現代理念。正如從前無數次殖民戰爭中體現的，戰術和紀律與裝備一樣重要。舉個例子，裝備滑膛槍的英國人打敗了同樣裝備的印度人。況且中國也沒有最先進的裝備。中國有從德國購買的世界一流船隻，但購買彈藥的預算都被貪汙了，缺少訓練的船員開幾炮就只好換成實心彈。朝廷裡的保守派也一直在阻止軍隊現代化。正常來說，不應該出現這種情況（指阻礙軍事改革），因為任何政府都不會去刻意削弱自己，受外國蹂躪。但是要清楚一點，清政府是外族的政府，軍隊現代化意味著將武裝和訓練成千上萬仇恨滿族的漢人，這很可能導致滿族人的統治被推翻。現實中當清朝最終建立起一支現代軍隊後，它就變成了漢人領導的北洋軍，推翻了清朝。
Meanwhile, Japan did not have this ethnic conflict at play and could clearly see how behind it was. Its first military confrontation with the West in centuries was absolutely embarrassing, with the United States Navy simply steaming in and dictating terms. The Japanese knew what was at stake. It also helped that they were more willing to completely transform their nation and its institutions, not just buy a few weapons because weapons are only as good as the men who use them. As for Russia, that country was always in the loop with European technological advances. When it fell behind, it only fell behind as much as any other European country, like Italy or Austria-Hungary. The difference wasn’t vast.*Matchlocks required gunners to hold a match or other flame source in order to manually ignite the powder in their weapons. This system was rather unreliable as can be imagined and was replaced with flintlocks in the early 1700’s. By the time of the Opium Wars, the West was already phasing out flintlocks too for an even more advanced musket mechanism, the caplock. This puts the most advanced Chinese soldiers at the time two generations between the Europeans. Even then, most soldiers didn’t even have these outdated guns and used swords and spears instead.
日本沒有這種民族問題。他們面對殺氣騰騰的美國海軍和被迫簽訂條約時深感威脅，因此更願意徹底改革國家和機構，而不僅僅是購買一些武器，他們知道好武器只有在好的使用者手上才能發揮最大的用處。至於俄羅斯，它一直處於歐洲技術進步的循環中，落後的時候也不過落後於意大利和奧匈帝國，差距並不大。*火繩槍需要槍手用火柴或別的火源手動點燃火藥。可想而知這個系統相當不可靠，所以在1700年左右就被燧發槍取代了。在鴉片戰爭時期，西方國家已經逐漸淘汰了燧發槍，選用更先進的雷管槍。這時候中國最先進的武器介於燧發槍和雷管槍之間，而大多數士兵沒用過這些已經過時的武器，還在使用刀和矛。
Jason Li, lived in ChinaFor the period in question, China was ruled by Manchus in the Qing dynasty.The Qing court didn't want to create a modern standing army of Han Chinese, for they fear they'd be overthrown. They were right, for they were overthrown by the first modern army they created led by Yuan Shikai.They couldn't create a modern army of Manchus, because they were few in number, and it goes against the explicit edict of the mighty Qianlong emperor, who conquered musket-armed Dzungars with an army of horse-riding archers. In the Qing political system, words of dead emperors are important, if not sacrosanct.Both conundrums can be solved by political reform, but the reform itself carries political risks that could also easily remove them from power. I found this to be the most convincing explanation for much of the marches of folly we observe in history books.
Jason Li，住在中國中國當時處於滿族人掌權的清朝。清廷不想建立一支由漢族人掌控的現代化軍隊，因為他們擔心被推翻。他們是對的，因為接下來袁世凱率領的中國第一支現代化軍隊就把清朝推翻了。他們也無法建立一支現代化的滿族軍隊，因為滿族人數量不多，而且這樣違背了乾隆皇帝“騎射為我朝根本，一切技藝尤賴熟悉”的諭旨。乾隆曾以他的騎射軍隊打敗了裝備火繩槍的準格爾部。在清朝政治中，先帝留下的諭旨神聖而不可違背。這兩個問題都可以通過政治改革來解決，但是改革的風險很大，可能會把滿族人趕下臺。我認為，這是對於我們在歷史書中所看到的，對清朝的那些愚蠢行徑最合理的解釋。
Ronald Hanson, A Chinese with a patriotic foreign mind; Deep interest in China's everything.I think you are talking about the Qing Dynasty. The reasons are manyfold.First, also the most fundamental, the political system then was outdated, which hinders the industrial development. Corruption was widespread in the government. They didn’t have the expertise to manage or encourage industrial development.Second, China had long been implementing the policy of “closing the border”, very few people really know much about he industrila revolution happending in the west. Though later the government spent huge money on purchasing almost the most advanced weapons and equipment from western countries, they didn’t know how to use them to fight a war. These equipments were only trained for performance.Third, the feudal system put great oppression on the farmers, that accounted for overwhelming majority of the Chinese populaiton then. Revolts were often and almost all of them were brutally oppressed, so the government could not focus on the external threats.China has had too many lessons from history. That’s why she is trying her best not to repeat any one of them.
Ronald Hanson，具有外國思維的中國人，對中國的一切都深深著迷我想你是在說清朝。原因很多。第一，也是最根本的，清朝的政治制度已經過時了，阻礙了工業的發展。政府普遍存在腐敗現象，他們沒有管理或鼓勵工業發展的專業知識。第二，中國長期執行“閉關鎖國”政策，很少有人真正瞭解西方發生的工業革命。雖然後來政府花費巨資購買了西方國家最先進的武器裝備，但不知道如何使用它們來作戰。第三，封建制度對佔當時中國人口絕大多數的農民造成了極大的壓迫。起義頻發，而且都受到殘酷的鎮壓，所以政府不能集中精力處理外部威脅。中國從歷史中學到了太多教訓，這就是為什麼她盡全力不重蹈覆轍。
Pieter BuisGive a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.Short term military upgrading can be helpful but in the long run the economy of a state matters more. They could buy modern weapons and to a degree they adapted modern tactics but all that was going to be outdated in another few decades, the only option being to buy new weapons from other countries again.By the time of the First Opium war the Chinese economy had essentially been stagnant for over three hundred years if not more, meanwhile the population boomed leading to mass poverty. While their economy didn’t decline there was no real incentive to modernize either. Investing in fixed assets to improve labor productivity was unnecessary because it was cheaper and more profitable to just hire more manual labor.A few European countries and Japan experienced a rather natural industrial revolution with minimal loss of human lives. A country like China only industrialized when it was forced to do so despite food shortages and whatnot.
Pieter Buis授人以魚不如授人以漁。短期的軍事升級可能會暫時有所幫助，但長遠來看，經濟對一個國家更為重要。他們可以購買現代武器，並在一定程度上適應現代戰術，但所有的這些在未來幾十年後會過時，那時唯一的選擇是再次從其他國家購買新的武器。第一次鴉片戰爭時，中國的經濟基本已停滯了三百多年。同時人口的暴增導致了大規模貧困 。雖然經濟沒有下滑，但也沒有任何現代化的動機。沒必要通過投資固定資產來提高勞動生產率，因為僱傭便宜的勞工賺得更多少數歐洲國家和日本經歷了一場死傷較小的工業革命。像中國這樣的國家只有面臨糧食短缺這類生死攸關的問題時才會工業化。
Richard ChoiAll of the answer are very well.Here a addition, the center government in Beijing lose they power in controlling the country.Since Taiping Rebellion began. “zhong-yang-ji-quan” (centralization) system had collapse, local government can hold their own military forces.From than on, the warlords have very strong affect on the government.Meiji reformWhich The Emperor get the power from The Tokugawa shogunate. The military belong to the Japan Emperor.
Richard Choi所有的答案都很好。另外，北京的中央政府失去了掌控國家的能力。自太平天國起義以來，中央集權制度崩潰，地方政府可以擁有自己的軍事力量。從此之後，軍閥對政府有很大的影響力。明治維新天皇從德川幕府那裡繼承了權力。軍隊屬於天皇。
轉自西諾網
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