Political and cultural geography has a profound impact on a country. Now that China is entering a new stage of development, how to strategically position different regions and build a new national development pattern is particularly important. This article analyzes the "capital theory" proposed by Mr. Qian Mu during the battle for China's capital more than 80 years ago and the cultural geography behind it, presenting us with a unique strategic perspective.
Mr. Qian Mu regarded the northwest region as the "heartland" related to China's future political destiny, so he advocated establishing Xi'an as the capital and Beijing as the companion capital. The capital of Xi'an has far-reaching economic and geographical reasons, and it is also a declaration of China's future founding plan: with a national spirit of making progress against the trend rather than settling for eternity, it declares its concern for the security of the northwest frontier and regional construction. regional construction to revitalize the whole of China. In a word, "If China is not governed, its troubles will be in the northwest; if New China is governed, its hope will also be in the northwest."
Qian Mu's unique thinking on the form of China's founding was different from that of the Soviet Union, which was a land power, and Britain and the United States, which were maritime powers at that time. He tried to explore a path for Chinese civilization that was different from Western capitalism. Although his idea could not be implemented due to various practical conditions, it triggered people's profound reflection on China's political and geographical pattern, state-building form and civilization development path. Nowadays, the resources in the northwest naturally tilt toward the southeast, and the population in the east has grown excessively, and its shortcomings and flaws have gradually been exposed. Whether China can now "return to others", embrace everything within its own historical and cultural context, and move toward "national rebirth" and even "China's moment in world history" requires more far-reaching planning.
“A nation is built on the earth”: Qian Mu’s capital theory, nation-building form and cultural geography
From November 1937 when Chiang Kai-shek moved the capital to Chongqing to when the Nationalist Government returned the capital to Nanjing after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War in 1945, the capital changes during this period aroused heated debates on the issue of establishing the capital in the Chinese political and academic circles at that time. The capital issue became a popular issue in the middle and late period of the Republic of China. A temporary constitutional issue. Fu Sinian, Hu Huanyong, Zhang Qiyun, Qian Mu and others each wrote articles and opinions, and gradually formed various opinions on establishing capitals in Xi'an, Wuhan, Beijing and Nanjing.
From 1942 to 1946, Mr. Qian Mu successively wrote and published political articles such as "The Issue of the New Capital after the War" and "On the Capital" in response, which shows that Qian Mu paid attention to and attached great importance to the location of the capital and the political and cultural implications behind it.
For Qian Mu, these articles are by no means simply responses to temporary political issues and the needs of the times. Qian Mu believes that the political geography and cultural geography significance of the capital are far from being fully explored and clarified by contemporary people.
In 1951, Qian Mu was invited to deliver a series of speeches in Taiwan. In the lecture "Geography and Characters in Chinese History", he reiterated his theory of capital at that time, and through the concept of "cultural geography", he looked at the founding form reflected in the capital issue and the relationship between China and China from the perspective of comparing Chinese and Western civilizations. Internal correlation with historical trends.
In short, Qian Mu's capital theory from 1940 to 1960 focused on the new historical period and world structure, and examined the form of modern China's founding and future prospects from the perspective of a century-old plan for the founding of the country.
These cultural geography discussions embody Qian Mu’s thoughtful consideration of the political geography of postwar China and the world as well as the future of Chinese civilization. Regarding the choice of the location of the capital, his views are very clear: the capital issue of New China is that "the northwest is more important than the northeast, the center is more important than the corners, and the mainland is more important than the sea frontiers." Therefore, Xi'an should be the capital, and Peking should be the companion capital.
The capital theory can be elaborated on from three progressive levels: modern China's national construction, the scale and spirit of founding the country, and the choice of the path of maritime and land civilization.
▍China’s “Heartland”: Xi’an as the Capital and the National Construction of Modern China
In 1943, China was in an era of rapid changes. The world anti-fascist war was raging. The global system led by Britain, France and other Western European countries was disintegrating. At the same time, a new world order was vaguely visible; on the other hand, During the domestic Anti-Japanese War, nearly half of the country was ravaged and the people were displaced. However, with the victory in the Battle of Stalingrad and the issuance of the Cairo Declaration, the Chinese people and the world anti-fascist alliance were able to look at the dawn of victory in the war. In this context of the times, Qian Mufang was able to think about the post-war world order and the political reconstruction of New China when the mountains and rivers were shattered.
From the perspective of world academic trends, this period was also a golden age when political geography flourished and reached its peak. Just a few months after Qian Mu published "On the Capital," Halford Makinder published the article "The Ring World and Winning the Peace" in the American magazine "Foreign Affairs", which provided an in-depth analysis of the postwar geopolitical situation. The political situation.
Roughly during this period, many treatises such as Carl Schmitt's "The Law of the Earth" and James Fairgriff's "Geography and World Hegemony" were published one after another. A series of political geography works continued to emerge, showing the contention of a hundred schools of thought. grand occasion. Both Qian Mu and the scholars who participated in the discussion of capital establishment at that time were influenced by this trend of thought to varying degrees. In this era and academic background, the issue of capital establishment gradually evolved into whether China will move towards land power or sea power in the future. The battle for the road.
For Qian Mu and other commentators at the same time, the capital issue is not just a matter of location for a city or a place. On the one hand, it is related to the location of the central government and is a symbol of national unity and political order. On the other hand, it is Its geographical location often reflects and profoundly affects the country's overall strategic planning in the future.
As far as Qian Mu is concerned, the focus of establishing Xi'an as the capital is the northwest region. Qian Mu advocated that the core focus of establishing Xi'an as the capital was to revitalize the entire China through the construction of the northwest region. The northwest region defined by Qian Mu mainly includes Tibet, Xikang, Xinjiang, Gansu, Ningxia, Shaanxi, Inner Mongolia, Suiyuan and Chahar. Qian Mu's northwest region theory and capital theory can be said to be two sides of the same coin.
In fact, China's northwest region has also attracted close attention from Western geopolitical scholars. The famous British geopolitical scientist Halford Mackinder basically classified China's northwest region in his two treatises "The Geographic Pivot of History" and "The Ideal and Reality of Democracy" published in 1904 and 1919. within the political geography of its “heartland”.
The concept of "heartland" pioneered by Mackinder embodies his core geopolitical ideas. If you could sum up Mackinder's heartland theory in one sentence, it would be "Whoever rules the 'heartland' controls the world island; whoever rules the 'world island' controls the world."
According to Mackinder, China's "heartland" has two channels into the hinterland of China, one is through Gansu Province to Xi'an, and the other is from Lake Baikal along the southeast into Beijing. Historically, China has been invaded by the "heartland" many times, and the conquerors will then establish new empires on Chinese soil and break away from the rule of the steppe people.
Therefore, Mackinder believed that both Beijing and Xi'an were capitals established by conquerors from the heartland. Although this statement is not entirely consistent with China's historical facts, there is no doubt that the two cities of Xi'an and Beijing becoming the capitals of different dynasties in China are closely related to the invasion of northern nomads. In addition, James Fairgriff and Spykman both responded to and developed the "heartland" theory in their works.
Qian Mu also divided the geographical location of modern China into two parts in his two papers "On the Capital" and "The Issue of the New Post-War Capital", and regarded the northwest region as the "heartland" related to China's future political destiny. Qian Mu was familiar with the historical fact that nomads from the "heartland" in Chinese history continued to invade, conquer, and rule mainland China. However, he was particularly concerned about the political and geographical significance of this area to the country at that time.
After experiencing the historical process from Zuo Zongtang's pacification of Xinjiang in the late Qing Dynasty to the establishment of the "republic of five ethnic groups" as the founding principle of the Republic of China, the national integration of modern China is bound to include the mainland of China, which is dominated by agricultural civilization, and the predominantly nomadic civilization. Regarding the vast northwest border region of China, Qian Mu pointed out: "Now that all ethnic groups are in a republic, the cultivation of culture and education is the top priority, and political education cannot be ignored." Qian Mu's in-depth thinking on the northwest region focuses on the modern Chinese state after the Anti-Japanese War frame this question. Qian Mu pointed out:
Looking at the world's great powers today, the most important so-called internal affairs issues must be two things:
1. There are many different ethnic groups in the country and they cannot be harmonious.
Second, the life of the people in the country is obviously divided into two classes, which cannot be reconciled.
The "internal affairs" mentioned by Qian Mu should be understood in a broader way and involve the basic issues faced by the construction of a modern country, namely national issues and class issues. Qian Mu cited a historical case based on each of these two issues. The first one was the Austro-Hungarian Empire before World War I. The country failed to handle the dual national governance structure of Austria-Hungary in the country, resulting in the Austro-Hungarian Empire's defeat in World War I. It was later split into numerous small nation-states; the other was Tsarist Russia, which was deeply troubled by domestic class divisions. The outbreak of World War I weakened the Tsarist Russian authorities’ control over domestic opposition forces, and then the October Revolution was launched. The Bolsheviks eventually seized power. Therefore, if national contradictions and class contradictions are not effectively settled, the country will face division and revolution at any time.
Qian Mu believed that China at that time was “suffering from both of these diseases.” China has been a large-scale multi-ethnic country with a vast territory and a large population since ancient times. In the process of transformation from traditional imperial China to a modern nation-state, ethnic issues have also been highlighted in this process.
With the establishment of the principle of "republic of five ethnic groups" after the Revolution of 1911, the separatist tendencies of China's ethnic minorities have been greatly suppressed. However, ethnic conflicts and secession crises are still core issues faced by modern China.
On the other hand, the class issues mentioned by Qian Mu should be understood in a broad sense, mainly emphasizing the inequality of wealth among different social classes, industry groups and geographical distribution, and the social phenomenon of the gradually widening gap between the rich and the poor. There is no doubt that throughout the Republic of China, due to the economic invasion of imperialism and the exploitation of bureaucratic capital, coupled with the later Japanese invasion of China, countless people had difficulties in making a living. At the same time, there was a huge gap between the rich and the poor in society, and class conflicts were very serious.
Qian Mu took a different approach and pointed out that the ethnic issues and class issues faced by China basically overlap on the same geographical reality: northwest China. On the one hand, the Mongols, Tibetans, Hui and other ethnic minorities in the northwest region “all have their own spoken and written languages, religious beliefs, and customs.” Coupled with the restraint policy adopted by the Qing government, this region only It was able to seek temporary stability, so that after the establishment of the republic, the ethnic minorities in the northwest region had a very weak national identity with modern China.
In addition, the northwest region is barren and dry, with a bitter and cold climate, making economic development extremely difficult. "The cultural, educational and economic and material environment are very different from those in the southeast and northeast, and they are like a foreign country."
Taking these two major problems together, most of China's human and material resources are currently concentrated in the southeastern coastal areas. Therefore, China is currently suffering from the "slow drought syndrome". The crux of this disease is in the ten northwest regions of China. . Qian Mu asserted: "The disease of partial dryness and failure must be eliminated, and then we can talk about unity, and then we can talk about public security. Otherwise, internal troubles will originate from these ten areas, and external disasters will take advantage of them. The world can become happy without partial dryness and failure." A healthy life and a sound physique." From a positive perspective, the northwest region as the "heartland" also has many positive factors for the development of China's national destiny.
Qian Mu pointed out that with the continuous development of transportation and exploration in the northwest region, its rich forest, agricultural, animal husbandry, and mineral resources will one day be able to make up for the lack of resources in the southeastern coastal areas and achieve a mutually beneficial and win-win situation. In a word, "If China is not governed, its troubles will be in the northwest; if New China is governed, its hope will also be in the northwest."
In addition, modern state-building is inseparable from the judgment of the international situation, especially the judgment of the military threats of modern war. Theda Scotchpo pointed out that "the state...inherently depends on two aspects: one is the socio-economic structure of class differentiation; the other is the international system of the state."
From 1942 to around 1945, the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and China all belonged to the World Anti-Fascist Alliance camp and jointly fought against the Axis forces. Therefore, at this time, Qian Mu was probably considering the overall strategic interests of the international alliance and was concerned about his country's post-war situation. It is inconvenient to name the powerful enemies we are about to face. However, it is not difficult to see that Qian Mu secretly identified the Soviet Union in the north as the main military threat to his country after the war.
Qian Mu borrowed ancient metaphors from the present and pointed out that the main military threats in each dynasty in Chinese history basically came from the north. "From the perspective of national defense, China has always had great enemies from foreign countries, whether in the north or in the south... This has been the case in the past, and it will continue to be the case in the recent future. ". Qian Mu believes that the main foreign threat faced by China after the war will still come from the north of China, and there is only one superpower in the north that poses a huge threat to China - the Soviet Union.
In addition, Qian Mu's awareness of land also deepened his judgment on this issue. "Although science is advancing day by day, machinery is changing, ships are in the ocean, and aircraft are in the sky...but the basis for the decisive victory of the two armies is still on the mainland." "Humanity The great war will still be waged on the mainland. The life-and-death war between the country and the nation must be staged on the mainland." In addition, China has been an agricultural country relying on the independence of the mainland since ancient times, so it is not afraid of imperialist naval blockades. However, once "China's northern mainland falls into enemy hands, the Chinese will be driven into the sea, just like the Song and Ming Dynasties, Macedonia to Greece, and the German barbarians to Rome." Qian Mu warned us that the Soviet Union would pose a potential threat to China's national security in the future.
Based on the above in-depth analysis of China's internal and external situation, Qian Mu mainly put forward two suggestions: one: establish Xi'an as the capital, with Peiping as the companion capital; the second is to carry out large-scale railway construction in the northwest region to strengthen New China through infrastructure construction. Infrastructural power, while popularizing education in the northwest region, building China’s national identity and “large group consciousness.” Probably because China occupies part of the heartland, Qian Mu is full of expectations and hopes for the railway construction in the northwest region: "Transportation is one of the most important things that affects the terrain in human history." In addition, Qian Mu quoted Sun Yat-sen and pointed out that "the railway "Architecture, the first is the northwest system", "This kind of railway actually occupies an important position in dominating the world."
Only by improving the transportation system in the northwest inland can the country truly realize control and development of China's "heartland" through resource allocation and military deployment. From this, talents can be transported to the outside to achieve economic cooperation and complementarity. Whether it is building railways or popularizing education, Qian Mu believes that the premise and basis for the effective implementation of these national strategies is to determine Xi'an as the capital of New China. So why is the geography of the capital so important to this?
"Although the choice of the location of a country's capital is not a political system, it actually has a deep and spiritual inner relationship with all political systems." In Qian Mu’s view, the inner connection between the capital and the system of a country is largely reflected in the spiritual aspect. The capital of a country means the location of the central government and the control hub of a country. Therefore, “all the material environment where the capital is located, Its influence on the spiritual aspect of the entire government is very subtle and profound." Qian Mu emphasized the impact of the capital's natural and human geographical environment on the spiritual and cultural aspects of a country's political system.
On the other hand, we cannot ignore the historical background of Qian Mu’s talk about the location of the capital. Qian Mu foresaw that after the war, China would usher in a critical founding moment, so the capital was highlighted as a far-reaching constitutional issue. "The choice of the status of the country's capital is a century-old plan for the founding of the country and must be consistent with its entire national policy. In other words, it must be consistent with the country's progress." Therefore, the capital actually reflects the positioning and scale of modern China's founding. Plan.
In this sense, establishing Xi'an as the capital was connected with Qian Mu's country-building strategy. Since the northwest region plays such an important role in the national construction of modern China, the location of the capital must also be consistent with the basic national policy of revitalizing China's inland. Xi'an's geographical location happens to be at the intersection of the northwest and southeast regions. It is an economic and transportation hub that transports human and material resources from the southeast region to the northwest and supports the development of the northwest region.
In Qian Mu's view, Xi'an as the capital not only has far-reaching economic and geographical reasons, but also is a solemn declaration of China's centenary founding plan in the future. It declares its commitment to national security and regional construction focusing on the northwest region through a fundamental political decision. Concerned.
In addition, the location of the central government often forms a center of talent and culture. Setting the capital inland is precisely to attract intellectuals and political elites from all over the country to return to these areas to solve the problem of China's "blood circulation is not flowing and nerves are not sound". disease.
In addition to intellectuals and elites, Qian Mu paid more attention to the masses in China's inland areas. Xi'an as the capital was precisely to "get close to the majority of the people in the country who wanted to get close to the government but were unable to get close." The northwest and even the entire inland region had long been far away from the country's politics. , economic and cultural center, and the local people also lack the conditions to understand and get closer to the government. In the long run, this will damage a country's internal cohesion and integration capabilities.
In addition, we naturally cannot ignore the significance of making Xi'an the capital in terms of national security and unification. Qian Mu highly praised Zhu Di, the founder of the Ming Dynasty, in his article. In Qian Mu's view, based on the historical moment of the Ming Dynasty, establishing Beijing as the capital was undoubtedly a far-sighted political decision.
"So the capital of Yanjing, established by Emperor Chengzu of the Ming Dynasty, was as large as the capital Chang'an of the Han and Tang Dynasties. It was also an aggressive national policy that bucked the trend." In this sense, the capital Xi'an seems to have a special meaning.
As shown above, Qian Mu positioned the greatest national security risk of the new China in the future as China's strong neighbor to the north, the Soviet Union. Therefore, establishing Xi'an as the capital is to follow the story of Chengzu of the Ming Dynasty and establish the country's political and military center in the defense of the country to compete with foreign enemies. line, and build China's new national defense system with an active defense posture and strategy.
It seems that we should also consider the domestic political environment that Qian Mu cannot express clearly in his article. The article "On the Capital" was written in 1942, when the Kuomintang and the Communist Party were carrying out their second cooperation to jointly fight against the Japanese aggression. "The Issue of the New Capital after the War" was written in August 1945. Japanese fascism was defeated and surrendered, and the Kuomintang and the Communist Party were about to start negotiations on the political unification of China after the war. In this context, Qian Mu is naturally likely to pay attention and think about how to make two political parties with different ideological programs and organizational principles reach an agreement and work together to reunify New China and build post-war construction.
It is not difficult to imagine that Xi'an is only about 300 kilometers away from Yan'an, the revolutionary base of the Communist Party of China in northern Shaanxi. Xi'an can also be regarded as the intersection of the spheres of influence of the Communist Party of China and the Kuomintang. Xi'an as the capital is not only a symbol of political cooperation for the two parties, but also promotes the integration and unification of the actual scope of power of the two major political parties through the realistic conditions of political geography.
▍The trend of advance and retreat and the scale of the founding of the country: Qian Mu discusses the relationship between the geography of the capital and the national spirit
Qian Mu’s great emphasis on the geographical location of the capital of New China is reflected in two dimensions. One is the real political level. Qian Mu attaches great importance to the intrinsic relationship between the location of the capital and national construction and national security; the second level, Qian Mu tries to use the new capital to reshape the national spirit of a new generation of Chinese people. If the issue of modern nation-building is mainly a response to the circumstances of the founding of the country, then the reshaping of the national spirit can be regarded as a century-old plan that will affect the future destiny of China. Here Qian Mu mainly relies on traditional Chinese political concepts to explain the inherent impact of geographical factors on the national spirit and national destiny.
In his article "The Problem of the New Capital after the War", Qian Mu discussed this issue by sorting out the relationship between the changes in the location of the capitals of various dynasties in China over the past two thousand years since the Qin Dynasty and the scale of the founding of this dynasty. In the opening chapter, Qian Mu started his typological classification of various countries at home and abroad in ancient and modern times by starting from "Some countries often have capital problems, while some countries do not".
In Qian Mu's view, countries throughout the ages are divided into two categories: natural countries and humanistic countries, or single countries and complex countries. Qian Mu believes that, with the exception of Western empires, all the countries in Europe and the West, from ancient city-states to modern nation-states, are natural single states because they all have natural boundaries and nations.
In contrast, China has entered the stage of a humanistic complex state since the Qin and Han dynasties. “The creation of its country is entirely formed by human culture and is no longer limited by the natural terrain and ethnic barriers.” In other words, China The formation of a country is less affected by natural geographical factors and more affected by Chinese civilization traditions. Therefore, the capitals of Western powers such as London, Berlin and Paris were formed naturally.
However, the geographical changes of China's capital have been very frequent since ancient times. Of course, there is no lack of evolution of geographical conditions, but it is mainly due to personnel changes. Therefore, Qian Mu pointed out, "In a culturally complex country, the choice of capital is actually a most important matter. The size and spirit of a country can only be determined by the choice of its capital, which is no more than showing in the palm of your hand."
In fact, the scale and spirit of founding a country mentioned by Qian Mu not only reflect the national spirit and cultural temperament shared by the people of a country, but can also be regarded as the country's macro strategy and basic national policy. Therefore, the scale of the founding of the country itself is the unity of institutional structure and cultural temperament. Qian Mu divided the scale and spirit of founding a country in Chinese history into two categories: progressing with the trend and retreating against the trend. The scale of China's founding is extremely closely related to China's topography.
Generally speaking, China's terrain is high in the northwest and low in the southeast. The northwest is an inland area with a cold and arid climate; the southeast is a monsoon area with a warm and humid climate. From an economic perspective, the southeast is rich in products and has a prosperous economy, while the northwest is lacking in materials and lags in economic development. Therefore, in terms of natural trends, China's human and material resources will naturally tilt from northwest to southeast, and "all customs and customs are also cut in the northwest and accumulated in the southeast."
In fact, the "natural trends" caused by China's geographical reality have adverse effects in all parts of China. The disadvantages to the Northwest Territories have been detailed previously. Briefly speaking, the barrenness and isolation of the northwest is not conducive to the national unity and national security of modern China, making China always face the danger of division and disintegration.
However, this situation is also harmful to the southeast region. The high concentration of human and material resources in the southeast will lead to "the danger of sedimentation and stagnation in the southeast." From the research of historians such as Fairbank and Kong Feili, we can clearly see that in the middle of the Ming and Qing Empires, the southeastern region of China experienced a series of social hidden dangers while experiencing high economic prosperity:
Excessive population growth has exceeded the capacity of local agricultural production capacity, resulting in a large number of landless refugees in Jiangsu and Zhejiang. The gap between rich and poor has become increasingly wide, and social conflicts have intensified. What Qian Mu values is that excessive wealth and comfort can corrode and wear away the spiritual temperament of a nation. Especially when China's capital is located in Jinling or Lin'an, the "Golden Dust of the Six Dynasties", China will naturally no longer have the majesty of the Han and Tang Dynasties. A magnificent spiritual temperament.
Qian Mu used this to divide China's history into two stages: Qin, Han, Sui and Tang Dynasties as one historical period, and Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties as the second historical period. The Western Han, Sui and Tang Dynasties placed their capitals in Chang'an; the Northern Song Dynasty made Bianjing its capital; the Southern Song Dynasty made Lin'an its capital; the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties made Beijing their capital. Qian Mu believed that all dynasties in history that had their capital in Chang'an showed a national spirit of going against the odds.
In terms of natural conditions, Chang'an is not the first choice for establishing a capital. The economy of the Guanzhong region is not enough to support the capital. Therefore, it is necessary to use water transportation to transport food and materials from eastern China, which costs a lot of labor. At the same time, China's cultural center since the Qin and Han Dynasties has been in the Central Plains. Luoyang and Bianjing are both hot spots for talented people in China. Chang'an needs to transport the elites from the east to Chang'an.
However, Qian Mu believes that in terms of the scale of each dynasty, the Western Han Dynasty and the Tang Dynasty were the most majestic dynasties in Chinese history. The inner spirit of the entire country is full of high-spirited tenacity and aggressiveness. In contrast, the Eastern Han Dynasty was more cramped and conservative, while the Northern Song Dynasty was too weak to fight against the northern nomads and the country fell.
Qian Mu believes that the whole of China is a political body. "The national situation is like a human body. If China is a big person, the head of the Western Han Dynasty is in Guanzhong and the chest is in Luoyang." Therefore, the head of the political body of the Western Han, Sui and Tang Dynasties directly faced the harsh and barren natural conditions and the military threats of foreign enemies in the north. "The mind was exposed to the outside world, and there was always a fresh and cold stimulation." Therefore, the entire country was always in a dynamic sense of crisis. Among them, this inspired a nation's proactive spirit of achievement and a martial spirit of struggle and survival.
In addition, China is an agricultural civilization country, and the characteristics of traditional agricultural civilization are to settle down and relocate, and to be closed and self-sufficient. Qian Mu believes that the choice of the capital should be based on the spiritual temperament of the entire civilization and overcome the shortcomings and shortcomings of adjusting Chinese cultural temperament. The resources and manpower of one city and one place in Xi'an are never enough to meet the scale needs of a capital, so it is necessary to establish and Maintain strong national mobilization and financial extraction capabilities, and replenish manpower and material resources from the country, especially the southeastern region, to the capital, so as to ensure that China's state machinery remains dynamic despite such adverse trends. Therefore, in Qian Mu's opinion, the political leaders of the Western Han, Sui and Tang Dynasties "often had a complex dynamic nature without conscious awareness. And this complex dynamic nature actually complemented the stability and purity of agricultural culture."
Qian Mu extended the above-mentioned inner connection between national capitals and national spirit to the investigation of the history of world civilization. Qian Mu believes that the center of Western European civilization began in Greece, followed by Rome, and in modern times passed through Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, and France to the United Kingdom, and then turned to the mainland again, and then from Germany to the Soviet Union. Generally speaking, the historical evolution of civilization centers follows the pattern of "from flat to high, from warm to cool, from small to large."
Qian Mu believes that the geographical changes in the center of Western European civilization have enabled European nations to continue to maintain a "full of energy and a sense of continuous advancement." Mackinder and other geopolitical scientists generally summarized this iterative and evolutionary process of Western civilization as the strategic advantage that land power ultimately had over sea power, while Qian Mu took the height of terrain as the intrinsic mechanism of changes in the center of civilization.
In contrast, the historical trend of Chinese civilization is exactly the opposite. "From the Yellow River Basin, centered on Chang'an and Luoyang, it gradually moved to the Yangtze River, and then moved from Jiangsu and Zhejiang to Fujian and Yue. It was really moving from a big land to a small land." Therefore, the overall scale of China's historical development is downward, lacking a cultural spirit of progress against the trend.
In fact, the "short-term" phenomenon of economic and social development among different regions in China is the symptom of this civilizational malady, and the simultaneous existence of two regions with mutually opposing forms in a country is often a precursor to impending chaos. Therefore, Qian Mu believes that the new life of Chinese history and culture must be found within its own civilization, so the central government should lead the country's intellectual and economic forces to return to China's vast alpine inland areas.
If we draw our horizons back to the historical world that Qian Mu lived and experienced, we can better understand Qian Mu's intention to promote Xi'an as the capital of New China from the national spiritual level. On the one hand, the capital has been located in Nanjing for ten years since the establishment of the Nanjing Kuomintang government. In Qian Mu's view, the political decision-making and institutions of the Kuomintang government at this time were already under the erosion and infection of bureaucratic capital headed by the four major families.
If China in the future wants to get rid of bureaucratic capital and the spirit of luxury and malaise contained in this capital power, it should separate the political center from the economic center. "According to the economic situation, the political capital does not have to be the same as the economic center. Rules and regulations... If we want to build a new country through hardships and hardships, if we want to transcend the filthy atmosphere of corruption and bureaucratic capital, then it is better to keep the political capital far away from commercial cities."
On the other hand, China is still under the danger and stimulation of foreign enemies and the destruction of mountains and rivers. However, Qian Mu believes that the future of Chinese civilization requires precisely this kind of extreme stimulation to prompt this ancient civilization to burst out its powerful spiritual power. And this new energy will be "the resumption of a new life for the Chinese nation."
In a natural and cultural environment like Xi'an, China's new generation of political elites, from politicians to soldiers to thinkers, should be baptized here and realize the perseverance, strength, tenacity, and greatness of the Chinese national spirit, so as to save the country from danger. The vitality in it has become the "living Great Wall" for realizing the rejuvenation of New China's civilization.
▍A mainland agricultural country with both land and sea: China’s path choice from the perspective of comparative civilization
"Will the construction of New China be inland development? Or will it be an ocean leap... This is a century-old plan for the country. It must be the first step. The national policy will be focused on the spirit, and the choice of the new capital will not be determined in words. Qian Mu keenly pointed out at the end of "On the Capital" that behind the capital issue is actually the issue of the choice of the land and sea civilization path of New China after the war.
On the surface, Qian Mu’s proposition is a typical “land China” concept. Qian Mu's emphasis on land was supported by national defense factors on the one hand, that is, the active defense against northern military threats as mentioned above. At the same time, Qian Mu also considered the spiritual reshaping of the Chinese nation. However, it is not difficult to find that Qian Mu did not simply position New China as a land or maritime country. Instead, he proposed the concept of a "mainland agricultural country", which concisely expressed his assumptions and expectations for the future path of Chinese civilization.
In the opening chapter of his article "A Preliminary Discussion on Agriculture and National Defense" published in 1943, Qian Mu clearly stated that "China is a mainland agricultural country." Since this article was published during the Anti-Japanese War, it is often regarded as a timely article focusing on national defense construction issues. In fact, as early as 1942 in "The Issue of the New Post-War Capital", Qian Mu raised the concept of "mainland agricultural country" to the level of cultural value to discuss, "Chinese traditional culture is also the most standard and ideal mainland agricultural country. culture". In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Qian Mu, in his "Introduction to Chinese Cultural History" and "Cultural Studies", systematically clarified the civilizational significance and value concerns behind the concept of "Mainland Farming Country" from the perspective of comparing Chinese and Western civilizations.
First of all, Qian Mu believes that the "mainland agricultural country" is a general summary of China's geographical environment and historical situation. "Everywhere in the country is rural, and people everywhere are farmers." China has been a country based on agriculture since ancient times. The majority of its citizens are also composed of farmers. Therefore, judging from historical facts and the current situation of the country, China is an agricultural country relying on the mainland.
According to mainstream political and economic perspectives, agricultural civilization is a closed and backward civilization compared to modern industrial and commercial civilization. Until recently, in many Chinese literary and historical works, the characteristics of agricultural civilization were often regarded as the root cause of China’s national problems today. and disease location. As early as 1943, Qian Mu clearly stated in "The Issue of the New Capital after the War": "China was a rural country in the past, and the Chinese will still be a rural country in the future. It just wants to become a new rural country in the New World."
If we want to understand Qian Mu's admiration for the agricultural country, we must place it in the academic and ideological context of the Republic of China and examine it. After World War I, Chinese intellectuals saw with their own eyes the cruelty and ruthlessness of European wars, and turned to examine and reflect on the root causes of the ills of Western countries' technological and material civilization.
In 1925, Zhang Shizhao published an article "On the Rural Country" in "Jiayin" magazine, in which the concept of "agricultural country" was proposed based on his understanding of the fundamental shortcomings of industrial and commercial capitalism. Zhang Shizhao defined the agricultural country in this way: "It is based on the principle of equality, so that the difference between surplus and deficiency is not too far apart, and it does not seize the interests of foreign countries...it is called a rural country." The corresponding definition of the workers' country is Yes, "Due to the concentration of assets and the huge disparity between the rich and the poor, the two classes of labor and capital in the country are like enemies. This is called a workers' country."
Therefore, in Zhang Shizhao's case, the agricultural country is no longer about agriculture, but uses certain characteristics and experiences in agricultural civilization and agricultural spirit to make up for the fundamental contradictions and shortcomings of modern capitalism.
Qian Mu's agricultural thought largely inherited the problem awareness and ideas of scholars such as Zhang Shizhao in the Republic of China, and went a step further to elaborate on the advantages and disadvantages of agricultural civilization from the perspective of a deep comparison between Chinese and Western civilizations. In "Introduction to the History of Chinese Culture" and "The Great Meaning of Cultural Studies", Qian Mu divided the origins of the world's civilizations into three types, which corresponded to different geographical environments.
"There are three major types of human culture in the world at its source: 1. Nomadic culture. 2. Agricultural culture. 3. Commercial culture." "Most nomadism develops in alpine grassland areas, while crops are mostly grown in areas irrigated by rivers in temperate plains. Commercial culture It flourishes on the seashore and offshore islands." Qian Mu further pointed out that these three types only need to be divided into two categories: agricultural culture, nomadic and commercial culture.
Qian Mu compares the different spiritual temperament and value concepts contained in these two kinds of civilizations. Nomadic and commercial culture has many fundamental common characteristics. First of all, these two cultures need to be dependent on the outside. Nomadic peoples live in water and grass, and they need to flow continuously, and the commercial nation also continues to migrate under the chase of profits.
This kind of space for survival is given this culture with distinctive enemies, so it has internal unity and external aggression. This kind of aggression and survival competition further gives nomadic business culture with highly developed tools, that is, the "rich tool sense", and at the same time, it also generates this developed economic rationality. Therefore, this culture is often better in the ability to seek prosperity and strength later.
It is not difficult to see that Qian Mu's nomadic and business culture is his analysis of the type of western civilization. Immediately after, Qian Mu actually analyzed the disadvantages of this culture to analyze the fundamental disease of modern Western civilization. First of all, because this culture is not enough to survive, it is necessary to continue to expand and conquer outwards. With a "anti -bull" function. When humans constantly conquer nature and continue to use foreign objects as their own tools, "it is the dependence of the tool. "Slave", modern machinery production and technology are also alienated humans as the main body.
What is Qian Mu's depth of the type of Chinese and Western civilization? It is not difficult to think that the Soviet Union, which is in the "high -cold area of the grassland" and the British and American is located in the "coastal and the islands of the sea". The gno civilization is essentially two branches derived from Western civilization. It not only share the same civilization advantages, and naturally has the fundamental disadvantages of the same incompatibility. Qian Mu mentioned this view in many articles, that is, in terms of civilization tradition, the Soviet Union of free and democratic countries such as Britain and the United States comes from a common western civilization tradition. In this sense, China can neither go to the West to the West In the sense, the sea power should not be moved to the land power in the Soviet Union, but to get out of its own civilization.
Therefore, the Chinese agricultural civilization is not a supplement and reconciliation of modern capitalist civilization, but a kind of civilization that is completely different from the source. In Qian Mu's view, due to the self -sufficiency of agricultural civilization, the agricultural ethnic groups are often light tools and do not conquer. The social organizations are scattered but the concept of humanity is extremely heavy, light and wealth is simple and simple.
These characteristics are just on the opposite of nomadic and commercial civilization. It is worth noting that in the relationship between the heaven and man of agricultural civilization, the agricultural nation emphasizes the combination of heaven and people, and keeps farming on a fixed land, born in Sri Lanka, and is old. Value significance, then at the level of human and social relations, Chinese culture regards life and society as a whole, and the individual's "ego" and nature are also a whole.
Qian Mu believes that agricultural civilization makes people feel peaceful, and the spiritual characteristics of unsatisfactory fighting can bring a real good life of human beings. Therefore, agricultural culture is "the first step of the ideal of life." At the same time, agricultural civilization also has certain defects. If you are not good at the way of being rich and strong, it is often easy to be invaded by others and cannot protect himself. Therefore, the farmer needs the geographical characteristics of the "mainland" as its guarantee.
"(Agricultural civilization) The small ones are easily invaded by the outside world to conquer the culture without being able to resist ... If China is a mainland farmer ... Therefore, its culture continues to stretch and has new life. It is also strong and strong. Conquer the invasion. "
Qian Mu also used the vision of civilization comparison here. He pointed out that other agricultural countries in ancient times, such as Babylon and Egypt, were small agricultural countries. Therefore, "its internal development is easy to reach saturated points, and it is not easy to defend rape. The lives of farmers' culture died unfortunately. "
As the only mainland farmer in ancient times, China "starts in a large environment from the beginning", which is not only conducive to the construction of a unified national form, but also has a stronger ability to resist the invasion of aliens.
However, in the late Qing Dynasty, the Chinese civilization was no longer facing traditional nomadic civilization, but a new Western industrial and commercial civilization with the Thai West countries as the main body. The characteristics of civilized mainland farmers are not enough to cope with the comprehensive challenges of Western countries in the political economy and cultural fields.
Qian Mu believes that the future of Chinese civilization lies in returning to the book to open a new, cooperate with the mainland agricultural country with the new industry, and develop agriculture with new machinery technology. At the same time, the focus of national strategy is placed inland to achieve civilized transformation. Such a civilization can not only achieve its own peace, but also "leading the current world peace, but also these countries must be."
In the end, Qian Mu must not pay attention to the ocean. In fact, in the geographical planning of Qian Mu's "mainland farmer", the ocean still has an important position. Qian Mu continued to complain to the summary of historical laws. He pointed out that since ancient times, China's "traditional humanistic basis essence" has constituted a semi -ring shape, which is "the edge of the mainland and the ocean."
From the Qilu Land of the Spring and Autumn Period, from the Jiangsu and Zhejiang of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the cultural center of China and the new vitality of the nation, all of which have begun to start above this "Chinese arc".
In the late Qing Dynasty, this arc has expanded to the northeast and southwest of China. Around 1942, Qian Mu moved to Sichuan, Yunnan, and other places. He successively taught in universities such as Southwest University and Yunnan University. This life experience made him deeply impressed with the local customs and historical geography of the Yunnan region. In 1947, Qian Mu published the article "The Freshman of Chinese Culture and Yunnan" in the Kunming Daily, which interpreted the historical characteristics of Chinese culture and the general trend of Chinese culture from geographical elements.
Qian Mu believes that Chinese culture "constantly has new humanities in new regions to participate in activities, which often makes new anger and new forces." In fact, the vast cultural territory and scale are crucial for the survival of civilization. "If you want to be a country's culture, you do not thank you, you will first seek the magnificent country of the territory and be a unified country." With the new humanities, maintaining a civilized body to be prosperous.
In Qian Mu's era, the southwestern region, especially Yunnan, is such a new region. He clearly stated: "Today, the life of the new and vibrant Chinese culture, one is the northeast, and the other is southwest." Look, Yunnan's climate is warm and pleasant, and the traffic conditions are "the country's Olympic area, the viscera and hinterland", which is better than the northeast of the north.
From the historical conditions, Yunnan has not accounted for an important position in the previous cultural status of China, but the development of transportation at home and abroad is now relocated to the southwest of the Kuomintang government during the War of Resistance Against Japan. In the future, Yunnan Humanities "In the near future, there will be a new vitality and new motivation for Chinese culture?"
At the same time, Qian Mu believes that the geographical space of this semi -ring shape, especially the new northeast and southwest coast, will indicate the freshness of China.
It is just that this half -ring symbolizing the vitality and essence of Chinese culture does not represent all the country. Qian Muyi invited us to pay attention that there is another curved shape opposite this curved, that is, "Xinjiang as the middle point, northeast to Mongolia, northeast to Mongolia. Half of the southwest to Tibet ".
Mr. Qian Mu's ultimate plan for China's political geography in the future can be summarized as communication between the four lines and Hengping: The third line is the Yangtze River Plain. The emperor should be made in this area. This place symbolizes the lively Wenliang, freshness and cleverness of the Chinese nation "; the most southern -line Pearl River Plain," represents the emerging spirit of modern China, sponged with the sea, breathe with the world, industrial and commercial manufacturing The relocation of exchanges, which symbolizes the turmoil of New China. "New China should shape the Pearl River region into an economic and cultural region of marine civilization.
Behind these two horizontal lines is the "vast continent. This continent is the lifeblood and rooting of the Chinese." Xi'an is the center of this mainland, and it can also be regarded as the heart of the "semi -ring zone". Therefore, Xi'an can naturally integrate various regions that contain different development prospects and spiritual temperament, which can fully condense the balance of humanities.
Therefore, the second line of New China is the Xi'an -Peiping Line, which constitutes the political center line of China. This line must show a kind of spiritual and resolute Han and Tang Dynasty spirit, cultivate a new generation of national elites, fill in the past 100 years The collapse of the central area, at the same time, make full use of the national resource allocation and mobilization capabilities to reverse human and material resources to the front line: Mongolia -Xinjiang -Tibet inland ring line.
From Pang Geng Qian Yin Qian Yin Qian Yin to the late Qing Dynasty, and Zhang Taiyan, such as the Most of the Capital, the political thinking that settled the capital and the political thinking around this problem, although it has not yet received the full attention of the academic community, it has always emerged in Chinese politics and ideology and culture. In the context of evolution. Qian Mu's capital theory inherits the consensus and theoretical summary of the traditional and even Chinese historical and political geography, and strives to create a new civilization imagination between ancient and modern Chinese and Western.
Qian Mu's hope of China in 1946 is a community of mainland agricultural and state civilizations that rely on their thousands of years of civilization tradition and the spirit of establishing the country, fully absorbing sea, land civilization and standing in the world. Therefore, Qian Mu used the image of "earth" many times in his argument. In his opinion, the "earth" in China contains the "legal and justice" of the Chinese nation.
Chinese civilization is unique in the origin. Chinese culture produces high -cold and bitter land. The difficult living conditions have shaped the spirit of the Chinese people, and the vast land makes the Chinese civilization strong. Qian Mu particularly pointed out that civilizations that grow on the earth can continue to accept new stimuli and development, and "gather together" in a new environment.
For China at that time, the hometown of Han and Tang dynasties centered on Xi'an and Luoyang had fallen for thousands of years, and it could be regarded as a new territory. In Qian Mu's view, Dingdu Xi'an was to place China's political center in A new environment, to rejuvenate a new life and vitality, "returning from the ground to the ground from the ground."
The oversized and agricultural civilization tradition not only means that the current regional differentiation and governance complexity of China's national strategy, but also provides potential possibilities for the self -transcendence of Chinese civilization. The geographical space characteristics of the unique civilization tradition and the "sea and land hub" make China do not necessarily take it. The development path of Western capitalism is to "reflect on all themselves" and harvest both in its own history and cultural context, and move towards " The regeneration of the nation, even "China Moment of World History".
