The “Jokes” and “Truth” of History
Ladies and gentlemen, make yourselves comfortable.
Open a history textbook, and the Qing Dynasty is often presented as synonymous with “decay, backwardness, and isolationism.”
A few lines sum up its three hundred years: the High Qing, the Opium Wars, national humiliation and the loss of sovereignty, and then... the end.
But history is never a simple question with only black and white answers.
The truth about those three hundred years is far more fascinating than the textbooks suggest.
It was a comeback story launched by “barbarians” from the northeast, as an “unorthodox” startup team took over the most civilized empire by the most barbaric means.
With the sword that demanded “keep your head or lose your hair,” they forcibly shaved the Han people’s heads. Then, with the words of the Complete Library of the Four Treasuries, they tried to erase the Han people’s memories.
They succeeded, and they failed.
The story of those three hundred years features Nurhaci’s thirteen suits of inherited armor, Hong Taiji’s “sowing discord,” Dorgon’s “wrath over a beauty,” Kangxi’s “ousting of Oboi,” Yongzheng’s “Bloody Dagger,” Qianlong’s “Ten Great Campaigns,” and Cixi’s “rule from behind the curtain.”
There was passion, political intrigue, love, betrayal, and countless “brilliant moves” that are as ridiculous as they are hilarious.
For instance, an emperor trying to save money by making eunuchs serve as “human alarm clocks”; a minister presenting the emperor with a “wig” to flatter him; and a war sparked by a disagreement over the proper way to kowtow.
