Kangxi abandoned the sea and moved to the world, so he is not worthy of being called the "Holy Lord"

Emperor Kangxi was once praised by the world as "the Holy Lord of the Generation". Some scholars even called him "the first good emperor since Emperor Wen of Han Dynasty, and the only emperor in the Twenty-Five Histories who understood Western civilization and respected the scientific spirit." Of course, how to fully evaluate Kangxi as a person is beyond the scope of this book. However, from the perspective of the ocean, especially in terms of the sequelae left by its "border migration" to the country and nation, this evaluation should be marked with a big question mark. Indeed, Kangxi's insistence on independence and the unification of the country should be highly affirmed. In 1683, he sent Shi Lang to lead 300 warships and 20,000 elite navy troops to attack Penghu in a large scale. After seven days of fierce fighting, Zheng Jing's troops deployed in Penghu were forced back. Soon, Zheng Jing's son Zheng Ke sent people to beg for surrender, and the Qing army successfully entered Taiwan. The Qing government also accepted Shi Lang's suggestion and established one prefecture (?Taiwan Prefecture?) and three counties (?Taiwan County, Fengshan County, and Zhuluo County?) in Taiwan, which were affiliated to Fujian Province and under the unified management of the Central Government of the Qing Dynasty. Next, the relationship between Taiwan and mainland China has become closer. At the same time, Kangxi curbed the expansion of Tsarist Russia, personally conquered Junggar in Xinjiang, defeated Galdan, and made the Mongolian Turghut surrender to the Qing Dynasty, thus safeguarding the unity of the country, which was also indispensable. But if we look back carefully, the root cause of the loss of Taiwan and Penghu was the abandonment of the ocean by the Ming Dynasty. After Wen and Xuan, all Ming emperors turned a blind eye to the huge business opportunities rolling in from the sea, and also closed their eyes to the serious threats approaching from the sea. The Western colonialists drove away this one and that one. This one robbed this island, the other robbed that island, and they didn't take it seriously. After the Dutch took away the huge island of Taiwan from under their noses, Zhu Yuanzhang's grandsons were dumbfounded. However, the country's fortunes declined and they lost their temper. They could only hang Chongzhen from a tree with a crooked neck in Meishan. Make a conclusion. It stands to reason that with Kangxi's shrewdness, in the process of revolution, he should reflect on the profound lessons of the previous dynasty's loss of Taiwan, seriously think about the mystery of his old rival Zheng Chenggong's long-term stalemate at sea, and gain a good understanding of the decline and decline of the sea. The way of governing a country that thrives on the sea. Those who dare to learn and absorb the strengths of their opponents are truly saints. Strangely enough, Kangxi had the magnanimity to affirm Zheng Chenggong's loyalty to the previous dynasty, and left a popular elegiac couplet: "The four towns have many hearts, and the two islands have stationed troops, and they dare to fight for half of the southeast; the kings have no land, and they have the will to resist in one corner." , only then did he know that there was Gu Zhong overseas. "But he did not broaden his horizons to accept this old rival's successful strategy of focusing on operating the ocean, and did the opposite. Zheng Chenggong loved the sea, but he hated the sea. Zheng Chenggong regarded the sea route as his way of survival. The sea route is a dead end. During the many years of battles with the Zheng Jiajun, he actually listened to the bad idea of ??Huang Wu, the surrendered general of the Zheng family. Not only did he kill Zheng Zhilong, which strengthened Zheng Chenggong's determination to resist to the end, but he also continued to adhere to the Ming Dynasty's failed strategy of banning the sea to prevent civilian ships from collaborating with bandits, and continued to implement it. The "border relocation order" that lasted for more than 20 years, like driving away chickens and ducks, drove away all the people who had lived on the seaside for generations, creating an unprecedented coastal no-man's land. Now calm down and analyze, it seems that there is no decent reason for the "border relocation order" issued on the southeastern coast of the Qing Dynasty at the beginning of the founding of the country, whether from a military, political or economic perspective. The only explanation is that the nomadic Manchu royal nobles developed a fear of the sea because they were unfamiliar with the sea; or they believed too much in their hunting skills in the Xing'an Mountains and Changbai Mountains, thinking that as long as there was no man's land along the coast, they would be safe. It's like a big net is opened on a grassland. Catching Zheng Chenggong will be like catching roe deer or rabbits in the fence. Kangxi and Naifu Shunzhi, whose heads were locked in the mountains and old forests, could never imagine that if you treat the sea as a barrier, it will be a barrier to imprison you, and if you treat the sea as a thoroughfare, it will be a thoroughfare for you to roam freely. In the 13th year of Shunzhi (? 1656?), the Qing Dynasty Emperor was angry that Zheng Chenggong was haunting the seaside. He could not reach or avoid it, so he changed the previous dynasty's sea ban policy and strictly ordered "no board is allowed to go into the sea" and "no sails are allowed to go into the sea". "No entrance allowed" not only prohibited fishing and merchant ships from going out to sea for fishing and trade, but also prohibited foreign ships from entering the port and berthing in the port, in an attempt to trap Zheng Jiajun at sea. The coastal residents of Fujian and Guangdong were the first to bear the brunt, and then affected the fishermen and merchants who made a living on the islands in the South China Sea, fundamentally cutting off the livelihood of these Chinese islanders. After the "sea ban" was pushed back, although there was no forced relocation, a boundary was established around the coast, "merchants disappeared", and even the fish and salt trails were blocked. The island residents suddenly lost their basic production and living conditions, and had to abandon their homes and move inward, or flee overseas to make a living. Some islands that our ancestors had managed for many years suddenly turned into uninhabited desert islands, which seriously hindered the development of the South China Sea islands by the country and the nation. In March 1661, Zheng Chenggong successfully conquered the country via Penghu and was invincible along the way. Qing Dynasty became anxious and immediately intensified its efforts, promulgating a more thorough and brutal "border relocation order". The imperial court first sent people to inspect the terrain of the southeastern coast and draw a map for relocating the boundary, and then ordered two Manchu princes to supervise the local officials' operations according to the map. In the first "border relocation", from Shandong to Guangdong, all residents along the coast were moved 50 miles inland. All coastal ships were burned and no boards were allowed to remain. Cargoes are not allowed to cross the boundary of Fanxi and Hezhuzhan, and soldiers are deployed to "keep watch at all times, and those who violate the rules will be punished with death." In 1662, after the reign of Emperor Kangxi, the Dutch governor who occupied Taiwan signed a letter of surrender. Zheng Chenggong fully invaded and "gathered on the island to celebrate."

When the news came, the Qing government was furious and issued another "border relocation order", forcing residents of 24 prefectures and counties from Raoping, Chenghai, Jieyang, Chaoyang, and Huilai to Lianjiang, Hepu, and Qinzhou in Guangdong to move 50 miles inland, except for Macau. The nearby islands, islands, and ports outside the area have all been closed and ships destroyed, and inhabiting is prohibited. The imperial edict also ordered that all the houses in the areas outside the boundary be demolished, the fields were not allowed to be cultivated, the fishermen were not allowed to go fishing, and those who went out of the boundary would be killed immediately. Immediately afterwards, he ordered to build piers and stump fences along the edge of Qinzhou Fangcheng in the east and send heavy troops to defend it. The time limit for relocation is only three days, and the land must be "emptied and empty of people." Residents who do not want to move, regardless of gender, age or child, will have their heads chopped off. The land of southern Guangdong was instantly filled with the dead, mourning was everywhere, and there was a miserable wind and bitter rain. According to rough estimates, the death toll in eight counties in eastern Guangdong alone reaches hundreds of thousands. Qu Dajun wrote sadly in "Guangdong News": "Since the beginning of eastern Guangdong, no one has suffered more misfortune than this." In this way, Kangxi still felt that the "relocation" was not complete. In May 1664, the imperial court ordered another move 30 miles inland, claiming that "the emigrants had stolen fish and salt and feared it could still be used by sea ships". Residents of Shunde, Panyu, Nanhai and Haiyang in Guangdong, which were originally not included in the relocation boundary, have staged another round of demolition tragedies in which their families have been destroyed and their wives and children have been separated. After one, three, and three moves, the boundaries of the no-man's land along the coast were basically determined, with the longest distance reaching two to three hundred miles. Violent demolitions were also carried out at that time. Officials of all sizes held "relocation orders" and first set the two ends of the "relocation boundary" and straightened them with ropes as ironclad boundaries. Unfortunately, some residents' houses were built on the boundary line. When the boundary line passed through the middle, half of the houses within the boundary were forcibly demolished. The officials did not care whether the remaining half was inhabitable. Some even dig a deep ditch on the boundary line to distinguish the inside and the outside. Anyone who crosses the ditch and "steps outside the boundary" is punished by death. The patrol envoys sent by the Qing government went to Xinhui to demarcate the boundary, and even used the river surface where the tide surged as the standard for demarcation. They actually "forced the city as the boundary", leaving all the fertile fields close to the city abandoned. Today's prosperous suburbs of Huancheng, Liyue, and Jiangmen in Guangdong Province were also included in the migration scope at that time, and there was a tragic situation of "thousands of deserted households singing ghosts". Several border relocations involved 28 prefectures and counties in Guangdong, and penetrated into areas with contiguous fields and well-developed agriculture, industry, and commerce. Millions of people were relocated, and more than 5.31 million acres of farmland were abandoned. When the migratory people were forced to leave their homeland, they carried the old and the young, wandered on the streets, begged in the streets, and died of starvation and illness, countless of them. Huang Jushi, a poet from Shuinan, Jiangmen, wrote "Travel to the Village" and "Ai Jiangmen", describing the tragic situation of the border relocation at that time. Among them is a sentence full of blood and tears: "The new dynasty defends the sea but not the borders, and the threatening thunder will not delay... I was shocked to see a flag standing in front of the village, and was forced to move in a hurry by the king's order. He took his wife and carried the When the son is traveling, he is crying in the wilderness. No one has a grave and no one has a home. Once his homeland becomes a ridge, he will not be able to protect himself. "Boundary" makes nature bear the brunt. The Fujian government first used flags as boundaries, and then established wooden fences and fences as boundaries. Later, the standards for demarcation became higher and higher, and the requirements became more and more strict. Either they dug deep ditches or trenches, or they built a high separation wall with soil. Later, they simply ordered civilians to carry out large-scale construction projects and transformed the separation wall made of soil into a boundary wall with legal effect. At the same time, villages and piers were set up at a certain distance along the boundary wall, with one pier for five miles and one village for ten miles. It cost more than 3,000 taels of silver to build a village, and the cost of building piers was about half of that of building a village. The court refused to give this money, forcing the local people to pay out of their own pockets, "tortured and whipped, and countless people died in running for their lives." After the village and the pier were built, the pier was guarded by 5 soldiers, and the village was guarded by 6 soldiers. People were prohibited from crossing the border to the seaside, and anyone who violated the rules and crossed the border would be "killed without mercy." This province is close to Dongshan County in Guangdong. When the border was moved, the people were unable to leave their homeland and refused to move even after holding their clothes. The officers and soldiers went on a killing spree, and nearly 30,000 residents were massacred on the spot. The book "The Beginning and End of the Zheng Family in Taiwan" records that on the sixth day of March in the third year of Kangxi's reign (1664?), the Qing army's warships entered Dongshan and "drove all the coastal residents into the interior, built walls as boundaries, and allowed the soldiers to engage in sexual activities." Looting, killing people, accumulating mountains, and making the sea water flow freely." "Taiwan Foreign Journal" describes: "People on Dongshan Island were temporarily unemployed, and the sound of crying was heard. The villages were displaced and miserable. Husbands and children were abandoned, fathers and wives were lost, the old and the young were filled in the ravines, and the bones were white. Wilderness. "After the restoration of the border in the 19th year of Kangxi's reign, only 10 or 23 people from Dongshan returned to their homes. A TV series broadcast in recent years praising "Emperor Kangxi" featured Yao Qisheng as a cunning and glib character, and presented "Relocating the World" as a tender, benevolent and loving person. Not only did they say that "relocating the border" and banning the sea were for the long-term peace and stability of the country, they also said that the imperial court was always considerate of the people's relocation efforts and took care of them in every possible way. First, twice as much land has been prepared for the relocated people in the interior, and if no grain is paid within three years, whoever cultivates the land will get it after three years; second, if there are not enough transportation vehicles for relocation, the vehicles and horses from the military camp can be used to help transport the people. , all the elderly people over 60 years old were carried away in sedan chairs by Bing Yong. On the screen, the old lady was sitting in an official sedan with a smile, and men, women, old and young were busy moving happily. In fact, the Qing Dynasty did not take any measures to properly resettle the relocated people, but there were many measures to prevent the relocated people from returning to their hometowns. When residents were driven out of the place where they had lived for generations, their houses and walls were immediately demolished. Those who had no time to exit were crushed to death in the collapsed houses. As for the "nail households" who stayed in their places of residence and refused to move, the government immediately sent people to set fire to their houses. "No stone was left behind" and the people were wiped out. Immediately afterwards, the fields that farmers had worked hard to cultivate and sow were destroyed, and the forests that had been cultivated for generations were cut down. "Thousands of mature fruit trees and countless pine and cypresses were all gone", and "it was completely desolate as far as the eye could see."

For those who succumbed to the government's migration, "more than half of the people died on the road, sleeping on the road." With barely enough support to reach the mainland, what faced them was the despair of life being worse than death. It turned out that the resettlement conditions promised by Yao Qisheng and others were all lies. "Records of the Holy Lord of the Qing Dynasty" also has to admit: "The people who migrated lost all their careers." Indeed, as some scholars said, Kangxi was also keen to learn about Western civilization during his reign, and he was very fond of Tang Ruowang and Nan Huai. Ren, two missionaries from Europe, were particularly interested in the Western calendar they mastered. They once made the princes and ministers watch with great interest a competition between Chinese astronomers, Japanese astronomers and Western astronomers to calculate a solar eclipse. Nan Huairen and Tang Ruowang won by only 5 minutes. But it goes without saying that his level of understanding is still at the level of the previous Wanli Emperor, who regarded them as "strange and obscene skills", just to satisfy curiosity or serve as a small embellishment in court life. What is the core of Western civilization? It is the prosperity of the sea and the power of the country. Kangxi and his ruling team, who came from a nomadic tribe, were the same as the nomadic groups who used force to conquer the Central Plains in the past. At this time, what they yearned for and paid most attention to was to integrate into the Chinese farming civilization of more than two thousand years as soon as possible. The conquered people in the north and south of the Yangtze River were also keen on Yu used the teachings of Confucius and Mencius to transform these primitive and backward hunters, and used ancient culture to assimilate the conquerors to balance the originally extremely unbalanced mentality. Therefore, in the face of the influx of Western countries from the sea, merchant ships and warships from across the ocean were violently knocking on China's door, and both the government and the opposition turned a deaf ear. It even went in the opposite direction, using a border relocation order to destroy China's maritime assets accumulated over thousands of years, artificially turning a maritime country into an uninhabited "landlocked country" along the coast, paving the way for future invasions by Western powers. out of a vast space. The author has discussed with some experts and scholars that the most terrifying thing about banning seas and relocating borders is that they are self-imposed, imprisoning the vision of the entire country and the vitality of thinking of the nation. China is so big that it can hide in a "snail shell" for hundreds of years, close its eyes to the great changes in the world brought about by the European voyages, and relish the saying that "the sky has not changed and the path has not changed". The most intelligent intellectuals also They all got into the pile of ancient papers, and one after another aroused the enthusiasm for exegesis, the enthusiasm for annotating classics, and the enthusiasm for sorting out the national heritage... .Not only far away from the ocean, but also far away from reality. If Zhu Yuanzhang issued the "Sea Ban Order" with a narrow pastoral consciousness, China became a laggard in the world's great navigation; then, Kangxi implemented the "Border Relocation Order" with a narrow nomadic consciousness, sowing the seeds for China to suffer The bitter fruit of the expansion of maritime power by Western powers. The British, who are determined to turn China into an imperial "tea garden" where the sun never sets, will soon use their modern civilization achievements and maritime thinking to come face to face with our Emperor Qianlong.