Who accurately predicted the demise of the Qing Dynasty after 50 years?

According to the existing literature, Zhao Liewen, Zeng Guofan's most valued aide, was the first person who accurately predicted the demise of the Qing Dynasty. In the sixth year of Tongzhi, that is, A.D. 1867, he predicted that the decadent Qing Dynasty would perish within fifty years. The Qing Dynasty perished at 19 1 1, and it was forty-four years since Zhao Liewen made this prediction 1867, not fifty years.

Zhao Liewen, born in 1832, was born in Changshu, Jiangsu. He was famous and insightful when he was young. He is knowledgeable and has profound attainments in Buddhism, Yi-ology, medicine, military affairs and economy.

Xianfeng five years (1855), good friend Zhou Tenghu recommended Zhao Liewen to Zeng Guofan's shogunate. At that time, Zeng Guofan was trapped in the front line of Nanchang and was completely humiliated by the Taiping Army. Most of the accompanying assistants left. As a newcomer to Zhao Liewen, Zeng Guofan didn't hold out much hope at first. As an intern, he wanted to do something, but Zeng Guofan had no mind to arrange any specific work for him. Just ordered him to visit the amphibious battalion stationed in Zhangshu Town first to familiarize himself with the working environment. Unexpectedly, Mr. Zhao found the problem as soon as he went. After he came back, he reported to Zeng Guofan: "The system of Zhangshu Camp is very slack and the morale is old. I'm afraid I'm unreliable. "

Zeng Guofan's most shameful scholar is "no one can talk about, no one can compare, and there is nothing to do." He assumed that Zhao Liewen also belonged to this generation, so he was disgusted with Zhao Liewen's so-called perception. He was not very happy, thinking that the little boy could understand what a military event was! Also at this time, Zhao Liewen's mother was ill, and he might also see that Zeng Guofan didn't value himself, so he might as well leave here. So Zhao Liewen said goodbye to Zeng Guofan on the grounds that his mother was ill, and Zeng Guofan didn't keep him-the iron soldiers had flowing water and the personnel flow was normal.

Just as he was about to leave, the news that Zhou Fengshan's Xiang army was defeated in Zhangshu came, which was unfortunate for me. Zeng Guofan saw Zhao Liewen's extraordinary knowledge and immediately had a new understanding of Zhao Liewen. Later, Zhao Liewen was valued by Zeng Guofan more and more, and he often discussed military affairs together. In the end, he talks about everything, sometimes even several times a day.

Zeng Guofan was an important official and pillar of the late Qing Dynasty. It is precisely because of his unremitting efforts and hard work with a group of people that the so-called "Tongzhi Zhongxing" came into being in the late Qing Dynasty. At that time, few people questioned how long the dragon flag of the Qing Dynasty could last. Zeng Guofan, who had a deep study on the rise and fall of past dynasties, realized that there were endless crises lurking in the ruling and opposition circles, and he might be dying. However, he believes that through some efforts, it should still be possible to pull the dangerous building to the edge.

Zhao Liewen doesn't think so. His views are deeper and sharper than Zeng Guofan's. He has written many works, such as Zhao's diary of Geng Shen avoiding chaos, diary of calming down, diary of falling flowers in the spring rain nest, diary of Geng Shen avoiding chaos and so on. In Diary of a Quiet Life, Zhao Liewen recorded a very important conversation with Zeng Guofan in detail. In this conversation, Zhao Liewen surprisingly predicted that the Qing Dynasty would perish within fifty years!

On the evening of June 20, the sixth year of Tongzhi, that is, July 2 1867, Zeng Guofan, then the governor of the two rivers, was chatting with Zhao Liewen and said with great anxiety: "People in Beijing said,' The weather in Doumen is very bad, and cases of naked fights occur from time to time, and beggars are swarming in the city. "People are poor and rich, and they are afraid of change. What can we do? Zhao Liewen replied, "The public security in the world has been unified for a long time, and it will be broken. However, the main prestige is heavy and the atmosphere is not open. If it is not a bad heart, the disintegration will not succeed. In terms of intensity, the future disaster must first be fundamentally overthrown, and the rear States will have no owners and the people will be autonomous for almost 50 years. "That is to say, now that the world has been unified for a long time, it will inevitably split gradually. However, because the emperor has always been very authoritative and the high-level officials have not rotted first, there will be no current disintegration. However, according to his estimation, the catastrophe in the future will be that the imperial court will collapse first, and then there will be a split regime; He further judged that this kind of disaster would happen in about fifty years.

Zeng Guofan heard about Bi Dun's worries and pondered for a long time before saying, "But what about moving south?" Zeng Guofan thought that the Qing Dynasty would not be completely overthrown, and it might be like the dynasties that appeared many times in China's history, with the regime moving south and the north and the south divided, maintaining "half the country".

Zhao Liewen clearly replied: "I am afraid that Lu Chen may not save energy during the Jin and Song Dynasties." In his view, the Qing government could not move south like the Eastern Jin Dynasty and the Southern Song Dynasty, and it would be completely destroyed.

Zeng Guofan retorted: "This dynasty was virtuous, otherwise it would not be here."

Zhao Liewen then replied: "The monarch is virtuous, and the prosperity of the country is not unreasonable. At the beginning of the country, it was too easy to start a business, the slaughter was too heavy, and there were people in the world. What a coincidence. Heaven is hard to know, good and evil do not hide from each other, and the virtue of the first monarch is insufficient. " In his talk, Zhao Liewen denied the moral legitimacy of "winning the world" in Qing Dynasty. The Ming Dynasty died in Li Zicheng, and Wu Sangui led the Qing Dynasty into the customs. The Qing army "started a business too easily"; After the Qing army entered the customs, it killed many Han people, such as "Yangzhou Ten Days" and "Jiading Three Slaughters", which determined the lack of legitimacy in the Qing Dynasty. The virtues of Kang, Gan and Jia, the late masters of the Qing Dynasty, are of course very pure, but good and evil are not hidden and complement each other. Moreover, "Heaven" brought them the "flourishing age" of literature and martial arts as a very generous reward. Therefore, the "virtue" of these later monarchs can not offset the ignorance when the Qing Dynasty was established, and it is still not enough to make up for the lack of legitimacy of its rule.

Zhao Liewen denied the legitimacy of his rule from the contingency and brutality of the Qing Dynasty, which was quite politicized. For Zhao Liewen's incisive remarks, Zeng Guofan was lost in thought and seemed to be thinking.

The river of no return is full of heroes. Zeng Guofan and Zhao Liewen died in 1872 and 1894 respectively. History accurately witnessed that the Qing Dynasty, which Zhao Liewen predicted was exhausted, finally collapsed in 19 1 1, while it was predicted to collapse completely in 1867, which happened to be forty-four years. What followed was Zhao Liewen's long-term prediction that "Zhou Fang has no owner, and the people are the masters", that is, the chaotic situation of warlord separatism.

Zhao Yuan, where Zhao Liewen once lived, still exists. It is located in the southwest corner of the ancient city of Changshu, Jiangsu Province, the site of Little Wang Chuan in the Ming Dynasty. During the Jiaqing and Daoguang years of Qing Dynasty, Wu Jian had a kettle garden, also known as the water dance garden. During Tongzhi and Guangxu years, Zhao Liewen bought and added to his hometown after retirement. It is called "Zhaoyuan" or "Zhaowu Garden" and is one of the famous classical gardens in the south of the Yangtze River.