On August 1, 1936, a major event occurred in both the Eastern and Western Hemispheres.
Western Hemisphere: The 11th Olympic Games, also the first modern Olympic Games, opened in Berlin, the capital of Nazi Germany. Hitler pioneered the "Torch Relay" based on his own creativity, which was retained by every future Olympic Games.
Eastern Hemisphere: The former prisoners of the Qing army who had been released took to the streets of Nanjing to demonstrate today, besieging and sitting in front of the capital's official residence, resolutely opposing the Ming government's return of them to the Qing Dynasty.
Ordinarily, the Olympic Games and a demonstration in a certain city are not two important events. After all, the Olympic Games attract global attention, and Nanjing is a city where people hold demonstrations every three days.
But because the "protagonist" of the latter is too special, or too ironic, and the advantage of scale is unusually large, it has become a focus that can compete with the Olympic opening ceremony and attract international attention.
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Half of the 150,000 Qing soldiers captured by the Ming army in the Ming-Qing War half a year ago, or about 80,000 prisoners, have been released one after another a few months ago. The remaining 70,000 or so prisoners are still in prisoner-of-war camps.
has not been released yet. According to the practice of previous Ming and Qing wars, the two sides will exchange prisoners within six months to one year after the war ends.
Of course, this is just a tacit understanding between two hostile regimes, and is not bound by any international conventions. If we follow some international conventions that have appeared in modern times, both sides must have released all prisoners of war after the war. After all, the prisoners in their hands are not
Your citizens, but foreigners, are useless if you keep them in your hands. But during the Ming and Qing Dynasties
Neither side recognizes that the other is a sovereign country. The default state of both sides is that this is a situation of political separation that has occurred many times in Chinese history, and the other side is not therefore a "foreign country." Moreover, separation is temporary and will definitely happen one day.
To restore unification. It's just that both sides believe that they should "unify" the other party.
Therefore, the two sides are generally limited to "equal exchange", that is, you exchange 10,000 captives for my 10,000 captives. However, the number of captives in the hands of both sides is definitely different. The remaining "unexchanged" captives are usually
If you don’t put it back, just be on your own side
In this war between the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the number of prisoners in the hands of both sides was even greater. The Manchu and Qing Dynasties only had a few thousand Ming army prisoners in their hands. In the battle of the southern suburbs, the Eight Banners Division of the Qing army ambushed thousands of Ming army prisoners.
The number of Qing prisoners in the hands of Nanming was as high as 150,000.
At the beginning, everyone in the Ming Dynasty was relatively optimistic about the exchange of prisoners. They thought that all the thousands of their own soldiers could be exchanged. If the Manchu and Qing Dynasties were unbalanced and uncooperative, the most they could do was exchange a few more. It would be a big deal.
I will exchange two for you and one for you, or I will exchange three for you for one. It’s not a big deal.
But what no one expected was that in the decades between this Ming and Qing war and the last Ming and Qing war, the Northern Qing Dynasty was far from the "normal" Northern Qing Dynasty before. And the Southern Ming Dynasty was far from the "normal" Northern Qing Dynasty.
Nan Ming understood it years ago. A few decades ago, before the reform, the differences between the two sides were still small.
If it were not that big, then the two sides are simply worlds apart now. Especially the various values and the ideas of the decision-makers are simply opposite. The differences are far greater than the similarities. In addition to speaking the same language and using the same writing
Besides, it is almost like two countries.
After the war, the basic tone of Qing Emperor Guangwu’s internal propaganda was:
——Our Chinese army won a complete victory and successfully completed His Majesty's strategic goal of "capture Nanjing on New Year's Eve". This time our Chinese army conquered Nanjing in the south and achieved a complete victory. All officers and soldiers successfully returned to the country.
As for why they had conquered Nanjing but did not seize the opportunity to seize the whole of Jiangnan, but wanted to "smoothly return to the DPRK", neither the "Da Qing Daily" nor the "Da Qing Radio" ignored this, and it was just overwhelming propaganda.
Our Qing army conquered Nanjing and won brilliantly, but the Nanming army was in ruins and collapsed.
Formed an army...Also, since the enemy was "successfully dispatched" just after the battle, can it be called a "complete victory"?...So is it a "defeat" or a "victorious enemy"?...Although these are common sense
If the Manchu and Qing propaganda machines did not mention the problem, the Manchu and Qing people, whose brains no longer knew how to spin, would not think about it and would just accept it out of habit.
But this also brings up a problem: since it is a "complete victory" and since it is a "smooth return to the imperial court", it naturally does not make sense to allow 150,000 people to be captured. Moreover, Guangwu himself set the tone and emphasized that
If "all the officers and soldiers" successfully returned to the DPRK, it would be even less likely that they would be captured in large numbers.
Sure enough, Nanming contacted the Manchus through Japanese intermediaries to discuss the exchange of prisoners. The Manchus claimed that none of their soldiers had been captured, not even a single one.
The thing that Nanming was most worried about appeared: Emperor Guangwu really didn't want to have his 150,000 soldiers for his own face and pleasure.
However, at this time, the Ming and Qing parties only made tentative contacts through Japanese intermediaries and did not bring it to the table. It was not the focus of outside attention at that time. Xiang Xiaoqiang happened to be in Europe at that time and did not interfere.
After the Ming army captured 150,000 Qing troops, they first conducted an investigation to determine how many of them were willing to return to Beiqing and how many were willing to stay in Nanming after their release. At that time, nearly 150,000 Qing troops were willing to stay in Nanming.
Half, later I saw the treatment in the Nanming prisoner-of-war camp
After that, more prisoners of the Qing army asked to stay in Nanming one after another. In this way, the number of prisoners of the Qing army who requested to live in Nanming reached about 80,000. The other 70,000 were not because they did not want to stay in Nanming, but because there were already some prisoners in the north.
If you have a wife and children, you won’t be afraid that your wife and children will be persecuted.
Therefore, Nanming gradually released the 80,000 people who requested to stay. The other 70,000 people were not released for the time being and retained their status as prisoners of war, waiting to exchange for thousands of their own prisoners of war with the Beiqing.
For the 80,000 people released, the Nanming government paid each of them 100 yuan in resettlement allowances according to the treatment given to those who fled south. A total of 8 million Mingyang was spent. This huge sum of money aroused a lot of criticism in the country at that time. Many people in the Ming Dynasty
Those who opposed it were scolded in newspapers and paraded on the streets. However, the number of people who opposed it was still in the minority, and more citizens understood it and believed that these were our compatriots after all. Since they yearned for the Ming Dynasty, they should have national treatment.
But just a few days ago, when public opinion in Nanming was focused on the Spanish Civil War and the Berlin Olympics, Emperor Guangwu met with foreign reporters in Beijing and said that he was willing to exchange the Nanming prisoners of war for the return of Nanming.
Qing prisoners of war. But
Both parties must exchange everything, and cannot engage in equal exchange. In Guangwu's words, that is "disrespect for life, life is not a simple addition and subtraction arithmetic." Of course, this is only said to the outside world in front of foreign reporters.
The common people in the Qing Dynasty did not know this.
Emperor Guangwu's rogue face was obvious to everyone. He was taking this opportunity to blackmail the Southern Ming and create problems for them. The Southern Ming had previously said that it would exchange prisoners with the Beiqing, but the Beiqing said it was unnecessary because we had won the battle.
So no one was captured. Now Nanming has released most of the Qing prisoners who voluntarily stayed, and paid them resettlement allowances. These 80,000 people have also received "green cards" and happily started a new life in Daming...
…
So, Beiqing saw the opportunity, overturned what he had said before, and said, I will exchange with you, but I have to exchange all of them. And I will exchange the few thousand in my hand for the 150,000 in your hand. As for the eight
I don't care about the prisoners you have released. Anyway, if you don't give me all the 150,000 prisoners, you won't want to get back the thousands of Ming army prisoners of war in my hands. If you don't exchange them, the thousands of families in your country will
I won't agree. It depends on what you do.
As for those nice words, such as "disrespect for life, life is not a simple arithmetic of addition and subtraction"... Everyone knows that he said it with a shy face. When did Emperor Guangwu respect life? Emperor Guangwu said
Respecting life, Qin Shihuang and Genghis Khan both laughed.
The 80,000 former captives who have become citizens of the Ming Dynasty have already had their eyes opened during this period. They have read newspapers in the past few months and have been exposed to more news than in the past twenty years. They are no longer just concrete heads like terracotta warriors.
During this time, I went shopping in Nanjing and saw Xinjiekou Square. Every day in front of the official residence of the First Minister, people demonstrated with different demands. I had already gained a lot of knowledge and understood what methods were used in the Ming Dynasty.
Best to use.
What these 80,000 new citizens of the Ming Dynasty feared most was that the Ming Dynasty would hand over tens of thousands of their "descendants" and send them back to Beiqing in exchange for thousands of their "own children." This was something they would rather die than do.
So, on August 1st, they contacted nearly 30,000 former Qing prisoners of war who were still in Nanjing, started a mighty demonstration, and held a demonstration and sit-in in front of the official residence of the Chief Minister.
To put pressure on the Ming government.
Although people parade and give speeches on the streets of Nanjing every day, which has become a normal part of citizens' life, the number of people this time was too much: 30,000, which was the largest since the last Donglin student parade. And their
His identity was so newsworthy that he suddenly became the center of attention.