The late Qing Dynasty has been swaying in the wind and rain! Kang Youwei proposed colonizing Brazil

Since the Opium War, the Qing Dynasty, a riddled "aircraft carrier", has been slowly moving forward in the ocean of history. The Western powers relied on their powerful ships and artillery to open the door of the Qing Dynasty. With the influx of Western artifacts, new ideas and concepts from Europe and the United States gradually entered the Chinese people's sight.

The late Qing court was unable to put out the peasant uprising internally, and it was also unable to resist the unreasonable demands of the great powers externally. A group of advanced scholar-officials emerged, and they were the reformists. The core character is Kang Youwei. We look back at history and find that Kang Youwei was not only a famous politician in the late Qing Dynasty, but he also had many investments abroad. Many Chinese banks in Mexico, Brazil and other places had Kang Youwei's shares. Before and after the failure of the reform movement, Kang Youwei was worried about the overcrowding situation that led to many hungry people. What should we do if there are too many hungry people and not enough land? Kang Youwei had a bold idea. What's the idea? It has caused many historical scholars to ponder.

We can see from historical data that China's population reached 400 million during the Guangxu period, and it can be regarded as a world superpower. However, although the population in the late Qing Dynasty was large, the quality of the population could not keep up. Having more people does not mean that there is power, sometimes it is also a burden. At that time, the level of economic development in the late Qing Dynasty was still very low, and productivity could not meet the requirements to feed 400 million people, which would inevitably lead to many people without food. What should these people without food do? Naturally, many people rose up and resisted the rule of the Qing Dynasty. Kang Youwei was also a well-educated person, so he could naturally see that the biggest problem facing the Qing Dynasty at that time was the problem of hungry people.

At that time, there was no concept of family planning, so how to deal with these people who were constantly being born? Kang Youwei came up with a bold idea, that is, to find colonies and immigrate from the country to the colonies like the Western powers. Over time, they will inevitably form a strong force in the local area and eventually become a colony.

We can see from the early literature left by Kang Youwei that Kang Youwei did have the idea of ??colonial immigration at this time. For example, in 1888, Kang Youwei mentioned the "Immigration to Reclamation" plan in "The Second Book of the Shangqing Emperor" , Original content: As for where to immigrate, Kang Youwei at this time did not have a clear answer: "Today, our people are poor, the most scattered, and they are slaves of beautiful women. It is still not allowed, and they will be expelled, and the Australian and Southeast Asian islands will follow suit. How can we resettle the people who are hundreds of times more unemployed?" It can be seen that Kang You had the idea of ??colonization a long time ago, and he only now mustered up the courage to report this matter to the emperor.

So, is Kang Youwei just talking? No, Kang Youwei actually went on an inspection trip to various parts of the world to see where it was suitable to be a colony of the Qing Dynasty. After Kang Youwei's research, he believed that Brazil is the most suitable country. On the one hand, we know that Brazil's longitude and latitude are relatively consistent with ours. On the other hand, Brazil is also very vast, and there is an Amazon River in Brazil, which is comparable to China's Yangtze River and the land there. It is very fertile and very suitable for immigration.

Kang Youwei's plan to colonize Brazil was also related to Brazil's recruitment of workers to China. If large-scale immigration to Brazil could be implemented, the Chinese would inevitably form powerful forces there, and these forces would become The vanguard of the Qing Dynasty's colonization of Brazil.

However, history often does not give everyone a chance. So why did Kang Youwei’s great plan to colonize Brazil fail? Let’s first take a look at the world situation at that time: the late Qing Dynasty was sluggish under the blow of the peasant uprising, and faced the frenzy of partition by the great powers. It was difficult to defeat the four-legged country with one punch. At this time, Kang Youwei's plan to colonize Brazil was tantamount to wishful thinking, and it was difficult to put it into practice. In addition, the Qing Dynasty was not good at maritime warfare, and Brazil was too far away from Asia. How to deliver a large number of Qing troops to Brazil was also an unsolvable problem, so the failure of the plan was inevitable.

Reference historical materials: Kang Youwei's "The Second Book of the Shangqing Emperor"