History of Ancient Chinese Technology

Obviously the late Qing emperors were degenerates and their bureaucrats like Li Hongzhang made things even worse with their well intended but insufficient half measures. (Only a radical break with the old system would have saved China during this period just like the Japanese demonstrated with their Meiji revolution in 1868 and the liquidation of the Samurai caste after the Satsuma rebellion (1877).)

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While castes were abolished, almost all of the notable politicians from the Meiji era (and one could argue, even up till today) are from the former class. what really happened was that they abolished the caste in theory but had already well positioned themself to ensure the continued properity of their familes. this was why there wasn't significant backlash. Satsuma was the worst case and it was really nothing compare to the 1840s-1970s China.

You can do a quick search on the notable daiymo familes at the end of the Tokugawa shogunate, and you'll realize almost all of them are still heading some sort of profitable enterpieses today and/or in politics.

What really happened was that the Tokugawa Shogunate was set up in a fashion where much of it's ruling class (the samurai) could potentially benifit from it's demise. it was still effectively a collection of individual realms.

Meanwhile, the Qing dynasty was setup the other way around. the ruling class was nearly inseperatably tied with the dynasty through the imperial exam system. hence why you see in the Meiji restoration both sides were consisteted almost entirely of Samurais, yet in the Qing rebellions, the line was extremely clear. almost no official turned over to the rebellion, most even went out their way to fight it.

It was only until the gradual rise of warlord power coupled with the end of the exam system that truely destroy the Qing , and the backlash was extreme. it is difficult not to make a note of how there was almost 0 notable politician in the republic era who was also a Qing dynasty official, even a minor one.

In Japan, the Meiji restoration did not really change the entire social structure, it did open up relative social mobility somewhat yet the old order was still kepted in place just in a different form. meanwhile, the fall of the Qing up until the end of the cultural revolution saw the whole sell destruction of a social order that stood for a thousand year (since the imperial exam system was reached maturity in the Song dynasty). couple with the larger nature of China, and it's not hard to see the terrible history that went down during that span.

For the most part, the history of China after the late 1890s is one of the destruction of old social order, and then struggling to find a new one. first there was the issue of warlords. who obviously should not be the head of a modern social order yet held the keys of power. it took years for the revolutionaries to figure out what went wrong here before they started trying to match their powers (by raising their own armies).

Yet by then the need to push for a quick soluation was obviously eating at the KMT, with the Japanese threat so obvious that even a blind duck could see. so they made more comprimises with the warlords and other less than sound decisions.

So after the war, the KMT was already highly comprimised from their original intent. and from this it is again not difficult to see why the civil war eventually played out like the way it did.

RollingWave said:

It was only until the gradual rise of warlord power coupled with the end of the exam system that truely destroy the Qing , and the backlash was extreme. it is difficult not to make a note of how there was almost 0 notable politician in the republic era who was also a Qing dynasty official, even a minor one.

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*cough* Yuan Shikai *cough*

Yuan was a general, not someone out of the traditional power system (imperial exams, although he did try a few times in his youth but failed). the fact that he held the ultimate power at the very end of the dynasty was a clear sign that the old order was already on the brink of abosluate destruction.

The influential early Republic polititian who worked for the Qing are almost entirely from this sort of origin, aka army personals at the very end of the dynasty. meanwhile. the traditional officials who ran the dynasties virtually vanished from sight. some went into seclusion and did some work on history and other cultural studies, while others were persecuted (or both really).

The Chinese dynasties from the Song onward was strongly built around civil servants rising through the exam system, and worked hard on seperating the military from the administration (something most European country did not achieve until the 18th-19th century or later and is basically a no brainer starter for any modern country today). yet that order fell apart utterly at the end of the 19th and early 20th century, first the warlords ate into administrative power. then the whole sale collapse of the exam system without any truely viable replacement system in place for a long time . when that happens. there is always only one result, the guys with the bigger guns do the talking.