Did Napoleon, the sleeping lion of the East, really say that? No relevant records have been found.

Napoleon said, "China is a sleeping lion. Once it wakes up, it will definitely shake the world! "

After the revolutionary struggle in China in the late Qing Dynasty, "awakening the sleeping lion" became the ideal pursuit of many people with lofty ideals. So, did Napoleon really say that? How did this sentence come from?

The origin of "sleeping lion theory"

A popular saying is that Napoleon's "sleeping lion theory" comes from the memoirs of his personal doctor, Aumeras, from the Voice of St. Helena:

In 793, the king of England sent Magney to China, eager to open the trade gateway of China. However, their trade requirements were rejected by Emperor Qianlong of China.

1865438+On February 8, 2006, the King of England sent a delegation from Amherst to China again to discuss trade issues. Amish, head of the delegation, is a famous British diplomat. He served as the governor of India, and most of his members were members of the East India Company. On July 28th, Amish and his party arrived outside Tianjin. Emperor Jiaqing bluntly asked local officials not to be extravagant. For example, he asked to open a commercial port, sternly refuted it, invited a banquet, and refused to enter Beijing.

18 17, the unpopular Amish people set foot on their way home. After returning home, he wrote to the Parliament and the King of England, forcibly knocking on the door of China's foreign trade.

Just before and after Amish's visit to China, important events took place on the European continent. Napoleon, the powerful French emperor, was defeated in Waterloo and was escorted by the British army to St. Helena, a distant Atlantic island, for imprisonment. In his third year in prison, Amish came back from China in frustration.

On his way home, he happened to pass by St. Helena. Amethyst heard that Napoleon I, a world-famous figure, was imprisoned here, so she wanted to meet him and listen to the legendary figure's views on the China issue.

With the consent of the governor of the island, Amish people met with the former emperor. Amish described his experience in China and thought that only through war could China be knocked on the door.

At that time, Napoleon was full of contempt for what Britain had done and commented that fighting this huge and rich empire was the greatest stupidity in the world. They will beat you.

Amish retorted that China is a powerful giant with clay feet behind its surface, but it is weak.

But Napoleon thought: China is not weak, it is just a sleeping lion. Once China awakens, the world will be shocked.

This sentence came from Napoleon's mouth and caused a sensation. A sleeping lion, China, quickly spread all over Europe and the world.

Napoleon never said that China was a "sleeping lion"

In China, Napoleon's "sleeping lion theory" is well known to women and children. However, many western scholars thoroughly searched the original materials related to Napoleon and found that "no matter in French or any other language, Napoleon ever said this sentence."

John fitzgerald, an American scholar, believes that the "China Awakening Theory" should be attributed to Ceng Jize, the eldest son of Zeng Guofan and a famous diplomat. 1887, Ceng Jize published China's theory of sleeping first and then waking up in Eurasia quarterly. He mentioned in the book: "It's silly to think that China is like a man who slept soundly and didn't die."

However, the theory of awakening was not invented by Ceng Jize. According to an American scholar's rough statistics, from 1890 to 1940, more than 60 papers and 30 books in the United States used the expression of "awakening China" in their titles. However, the awakening objects mentioned in these titles are often "dragons" or "China giants", and the image of "China sleeping lion" has never appeared. So, who invented the sleeping lion image?

Dragon in the eyes of foreigners in the late Qing Dynasty

Choose a sleeping lion instead of a flying dragon.

Liang Qichao told a fable in 1899 "Animal Dialogue", which first linked the sleeping lion with China. Liang Qichao said that he lived in seclusion several times and heard four people next door, A, B, C and D, discussing the strange animals they saw.

Ding said that he once saw a monster that looked like a lion in the London Museum, and said it was a translated "sleeping lion" and a "giant who slept first and then woke up". So someone "tried to dial his phone" only to find that there was no response. He finally realized that the sleeping lion had rusted, and it would sleep for a long time if it could not be replaced more easily.

Liang Qichao listened, remembering that his motherland was still asleep, and sighed sadly: "Alas! You can sue 400 million people for me! "

Liang Qichao was exiled to Japan when he wrote about animals, so the sleeping lion theory was first popular among Japanese students. In the years after 1900, the image of the sleeping lion awakened or about to be awakened was endowed with symbolic significance of awakening the nation and inspiring the national spirit, which appeared in various emerging newspapers and periodicals many times, especially for foreign students with revolutionary tendencies.

Nationalists in the late Qing Dynasty chose sleeping lion instead of flying dragon, which was not only regarded as a symbol of decadent court, but also related to various negative images carried by dragons in the late Qing Dynasty. In the poet's mind, the dragon, a poor creature with east claws and west claws, has long been the object of teasing, and can only represent the image of the motherland with a mighty lion.

The Spread of "Sleeping Lion Theory"

After the Gengzi Incident, emerging intellectuals had a strong desire for enlightenment. Awakening the sleeping lion and using it as the image of the national flag and national anthem in the future gradually became the same idea of the revolutionaries in the late Qing Dynasty. Many famous scholars, such as gao xie and Jiang Guanyun, have written lion dance songs. Students' songs must be used in education. 1904 was published in April, and included 18' s recent new song "People around you", including two lion-awakening songs, a national awakening song and a gangster song.

At the beginning of the 20th century, students studying in Tokyo obviously mastered the right to speak in the enlightenment of the nationalist revolution. The manifesto works of two martyrs, Zou Rong and Chen Tianhua, invariably use "sleeping lion/waking lion" to symbolize the Chinese nation that is in urgent need of rising. These are two required books for nationalist intellectuals in the late Qing Dynasty, which have great influence.

Zou Rong Revolutionary Army directly compared China to a sleeping lion: "Country!" The sky is clear and white, with thunder and lightning, and the lion who has been sleeping for thousands of years dances. Is revolution and independence!

Chen Tianhua's unfinished book The Lion Roar is more expensive in Luoyang. The author wrote that he dreamed of being chased by a group of tigers and wolves, but holding a trombone, there was a big lion in the mountain who had been sleeping for many years. "I was the first, so I woke up, turned over and shouted at me. Those tigers and wolves, they left in despair. " .

The symbol of lion awakening was frequently used by revolutionaries in the late Qing Dynasty. Since then, various patriotic periodicals have sprung up in the name of Lion Dance, such as the bimonthly and monthly lion dance published by Shanghai Lion Roar Society, the bimonthly lion dance published by Shanxi University Bookstore and the weekly lion dance published by China Youth Party Lion Dance School. In addition, Changsha, Lanzhou, Tianjin and other places have also established youth associations in the name of "lion awakening" and published patriotic periodicals in the name of "lion awakening".

Looking for western spokesmen

After the revolutionary efforts in the late Qing Dynasty, the sleeping lion quickly became a universal political symbol. As long as the weak China, ignorant China, potential China, Soviet China and rising China are mentioned, almost all of them can be called "sleeping lions/awakening lions".

Although there is a lot of evidence that the sleeping lion theory originated from Liang Qichao's Talking about Animals, because of the differences between Liang Qichao and other revolutionary groups, revolutionary propagandists deliberately blocked Liang Qichao's pioneering contribution from the beginning.

19 1 1 year, some people question the sleeping lion theory:

Westerners say that China is a sleeping lion. The lion sleeps in the clouds and will wake up one day. With this language quality, West Renye Fang laughed it off. So I don't know what it means.

The author inquired about the original intention of the sleeping lion theory everywhere, but there was no answer. It can be seen that in the theory of sleeping lion in the late Qing Dynasty, not only Napoleon did not appear, but also Ceng Jize, Bismarck and others who appeared did not gain the initiative.

Hu Shi, who studied in the United States, wrote this passage in 19 15:

Napoleon tried to compare China to a sleeping lion, saying that when the sleeping lion woke up, the world should be shocked. For a hundred years, dialects have been debated all over the world, and they have not declined so far.

It can be known that American students at that time had put the sleeping lion theory under Napoleon's name. However, this statement does not seem to be very popular in China. In 19 19, when the sleeping man woke up, Zhu Zhixin still attributed the sleeping lion theory to German politicians.

Generally speaking, by 1920, the spokesmen of the sleeping lion theory had the specific theories of Napoleon, Bismarck and William, as well as the general theories of the British, westerners and foreigners, in addition to the theories of Ceng Jize and Wu Shili mentioned by Liang Qichao. There is no doubt that there is a potential competitive relationship between different spokespersons.

Napoleon finally won.

With the passage of time, the world situation is constantly changing. Bismarck and William, two second-rate political stars, hardly aroused the interest of the new generation in communication. In the first half of the 20th century, among the western political stars active in China media, Napoleon was the best.

In 1930s, especially after the September 18th Incident, when the nation was in danger, the sleeping lion theory was widely spread again. This time, Napoleon finally stood out and became the only spokesman of the sleeping lion theory.