20. 中国

你好，欢迎收听《余下皆历史》，这是一档敢于在不到一小时内探讨重大主题的播客。

Hello, and welcome to the rest is history, the podcast that's not afraid to tackle the really big themes in under an hour.

今天的主题是一个真正宏大的主题。

Today's theme is a truly massive one.

中国的历史长达四千年，它既是一个帝国，也是一个民族国家，如今似乎正不可逆转地重返其在过去数个世纪中作为地球上最强大强国的地位。

The history of China, 4,000 years old, an empire as much as it is a nation state and today returning inexorably, it would seem, to the status it enjoyed for centuries in the past as the greatest power on the face of the planet.

然而，尽管中国如此迷人、辉煌且重要，西方人却往往对它知之甚少。

And yet for all its fascination, its brilliance, its importance, it's a story that we in the West tend not to know much about.

今天和我在一起的是我的共谋者，多米尼克·桑德布鲁克。

With me here is my co conspirator, Dominic Sandbrook.

多米尼克，你和我之前为《GQ》做过一次关于这个播客的采访，对吧？

And Dominic, you and I, we did an interview for GQ, didn't we, about this podcast.

当时你被问到：你最不了解的历史领域是什么？

And you were asked the question, what is the field of history you know least about?

你回答说：中国。

And you said China.

所以，显然，我的意思是，我们得做一期关于这个的节目。

So, obviously, I mean, you know, we've gotta do an episode on this.

这太非凡了，不是吗？

It's extraordinary, isn't it?

我今天在做这个之前就在想。

I was thinking today just before doing this.

我知道毛泽东，对二十世纪有一些模糊的认识。

You know, I know Mao, and I have some vague sense of the twentieth century.

但在那之前，我不确定我能说出任何一个中国统治者或政治家的名字。

But before that, I'm not convinced I could name a single Chinese ruler or politician.

我认为这对很多人来说都是真的。

It's all I think that's true of a lot of people.

这简直就像一片模糊。

It's just a sort of blur.

所以我们需要一位顶尖专家，对吧，汤姆，来

So we needed somebody top dollar, didn't we, Tom, to

来帮助我们吗？

to help us?

我们确实需要。

We absolutely did.

我认为在第一次封锁期间，我最喜爱的读物之一是《中国的故事：一个文明及其人民的肖像》，作者是我一直敬仰的迈克尔·伍德。

And what I think one of my favorite lockdown reads in the first lockdown was a book called The Story of China, A Portrait of a Civilization and Its People by one of my all time heroes, Michael Wood.

于是我联系了迈克尔，问他是否愿意来参与，帮助我们探讨这个庞大的主题，我很高兴地告诉他同意了。

So I got onto Michael, asked him if he would come on and help us deal with this huge topic, and I'm delighted to say that he said yes.

所以，迈克尔，非常感谢你加入我们。

So Michael, thanks so much for joining us.

能和你们一起做节目真是荣幸，你们的播客做得太棒了。

It's a real pleasure to be with you, such a great podcast, you do.

希望我能帮上忙。

I hope I can help.

正如你所知，你对中国的了解越多，就越会意识到自己知道得越少。

As you know, the more that you discover about China, the more you realize, the less you know.

嗯，你肯定比我们俩都更了解这一点。

Well, you know more definitely know more about it than either of us.

所以我们有一个非常有趣的问题，我想可以以此开场，因为显然我们都是欧洲人，来自世界的另一端。

So could we we've got a very interesting question, I think, to kick off with because obviously we are all of us European, so we're from the far end of the world.

但这里有一个来自格雷戈里·多尔的提问：在中国历史上，对他们自己来说最重要的历史事件是什么？

But we've got a question here from Gregory Doyle, he asks, what is the historical event in their history that is most important to the Chinese themselves?

他还提到，多米尼克和我一直在说的，除了蒙古入侵和共产主义之外，我对他们的历史几乎一无所知，这让我自己都感到惊讶。

And then he also says what what Dominic and I have been saying, I'm amazed at my own ignorance of their history except for Mongol invasions and communism.

所以你对此有什么看法吗？

So do you have a sense of that?

哇。

Wow.

这真是个绝佳的问题。

Well, that is a fantastic question.

谢谢，格雷戈里。

Thanks, Gregory.

几年前，我在上海世博会的一个大型展览中做过一次街头采访，问普通中国游客这个问题，结果非常有趣，尤其是没有人提到1949年的中国革命，我简直不敢相信。

I actually, I actually did a Vox Pops in the middle of a big exhibition at the Shanghai Expo just just asking ordinary Chinese tourists this question a few years ago, and it was really, really interesting, I mean not least because nobody said the Chinese Revolution of nineteen forty nine, I couldn't believe that.

当你问他们最喜欢中国历史上的哪个时代或朝代时，大多数人会说唐朝，这就像英国的《贝奥武夫》时代，时间大约在公元600年到900年之间，你问他们为什么？

Everybody, you ask them about their favorite time or dynasty in Chinese history, and most people said the Tang dynasty, which is like the Age of Beowulf in Britain, it's from the 600s to the 900s, and you say, why?

他们会说，那是文化，是文明，是我们诗歌的黄金时代。

And they go, well, you know, it's the culture, it's the civilization, it's our poetry.

我们至今仍热爱那个时代的诗歌。

We still love the poetry of that time.

他们是我们最喜爱的诗人，而且那也是中国走向世界的时候。

They're our favorite poets, and it's also when China went out to the world.

我们曾是一个伟大的文明，那时我们走向世界，世界也来到中国，所以从时代角度看，这是他们最钟爱的时期；但当你进一步问他们，那具体是哪个历史事件呢？

We were a great civilization, but we went out to the world and the world came to China, so in terms of a time that's the favorite thing, but when you ask them but what about an event?

最有趣的回答是鸦片战争。我想这受到他们学校教育的影响，因为中国所谓的‘国学’教育仍保留着这样的叙事：鸦片战争爆发，邪恶的外国人使国家衰落，经历了‘百年屈辱’和不平等条约，而这一切最终由中国共产党救赎，如今‘中国梦’和中国的复兴正是由此而来。

The most interesting answers were the opium wars and the Now I think this is influenced by what they learn at school, because what's called national studies school in China still has this narrative that, you know, the opium war happened, the wicked foreigners laid the nation low, the century of humiliation, the unequal treaties, all of which was redeemed by the communist party, and now the China dream and the recovery of China sort of comes out of that.

因此，结合这一点，很多人说鸦片战争和百年屈辱是触发这一切的事件，但我们现在普遍认为的是‘中国梦’——我们已经复兴，再次成为世界上的伟大国家，我们的餐桌上有了食物。我甚至打电话给一位朋友，问她仍住在湖南农村的母亲，她母亲说：‘你根本不懂我们小时候经历的大饥荒和其他苦难是什么样子。'

So coupled with that, a lot of people said well the Opium Wars and the center of humiliation were the events that triggered it, but what we all think now is the China dream, you know, that we've recovered, we've become the great nation again in the world, and that there's food on our tables, and I actually phoned a friend of mine to ask her about her mom who still lives in rural Hunan, and the mom said you don't understand what it was like for us as children during the great famine and everything else.

如果你理解了这一点，你就会明白我们为什么会有这样的感受，而这引出了所有这些讨论的最后一点：四十年前邓小平开启的改革开放，所有人都认为这是推动现代中国发展的关键，此后发生的一切都源于此。几年前我在做一些采访时，也向几位经历过这一切的美国顶尖专家提出了同样的问题——那些经历过革命等重大事件、如今已年迈的人，他们的回答是：中国历史上最伟大的事件就是1978-1979年的改革开放，这也是世界历史上最伟大的事件之一。这就是我们思想的框架。

If you understood that, you'd understand why we feel the way we do, and that leads on to the final thing that comes out of all this, is the opening up forty years ago under Deng Xiaoping, and all of them say that that was the key that triggered the growth of modern China, everything that's happened since, and I asked the same question when I was doing some interviews a couple of years ago to one or two great American experts in this, people who'd been through it all, you know, the revolution and everything else, and looking back as older people, and the answer from them was that the greatest event in Chinese history was the opening up of nineteen seventy eight-seventy nine, it's one of the greatest events in the history of the world, so that's the matrix of ideas.

有趣的是，没有人提到1949年。在感到沮丧时，我最终回应汤姆的说法：‘喂，伙计们，我们有四千年的历史啊，不能只说1978年吧？’我的中国朋友蒂娜说：‘好吧，那肯定还有别的，’她接着说：‘那我就说秦始皇，以及公元前3世纪中国的大一统吧。’

Nobody picks on 1949 interestingly enough, and in my frustration finally, you know, in response to what Tom said, you know, you're kind of come on guys, you know, we've four thousand years of history here, we can't, you know, 1978, and my Chinese friend Tina said, well, I said there must be something else, and she said well all right, Qin Shi Huang Di and the unification of China in the third century BC.

所以这就是你们所看到的观念多样性，根本不可能给出一个单一的答案。

So there's your spread of ideas, Impossible to give you give you one.

迈克，你看过电影《英雄》吗？

Mike, have you seen have you seen the film Hero?

你一定看过这部电影。

You must have seen it.

嗯。

Yeah.

嗯。

Yeah.

没有。

No.

太棒了。

Fantastic.

太棒了。

Fantastic.

但某种程度上也有一种阴森感。

But but kind of a sinister as well in a way.

多米尼克，你看过吗？

Dominic, have you seen it?

没有。

No.

我没看过。

I haven't.

给我讲讲吧。

Tell me about it.

这部电影讲述了一群刺客奉命去刺杀秦始皇的故事。

It's about a team of assassins who are sent to kill the emperor of Qin.

但后来他们发现，命运要求秦始皇必须活着，因为他将建立中国，并使其成为一个强大的国家。

And then it turns out that they've they've, they've recognized that destiny requires the emperor of Qin to live so that he can found China, and it will become a great power.

但我觉得，迈克尔，这一点非常明确地针对了台湾、西藏以及一般的分离主义者，那种中国起源与当前中国地位紧密相连的观念。

But I think, Michael, the point of that was very fairly squarely aimed at Taiwan and Tibet and separatists generally, and that kind of sense of a nexus that the beginnings of China and China's status now are kind of bound up.

我只是想知道，当我们谈论中国时，我们是在谈论一个连续体，还是在谈论一系列恰好占据同一地理空间的不同帝国和国家？你觉得呢？

And I just wonder, when we talk about China, are we talking about a continuum, or are we talking actually about a succession of different empires, different states that just happen to occupy the same geographical space, do you think?

是的。

Yeah.

这是个非常有趣的问题，它确实是一个连续体。

It's a really interesting question, and it is a continuum, really.

有人曾经说过，西方人看待历史时，认为它是罗马、希腊、亚述、埃及和加洛林王朝等不同帝国和文明的更替，而在中国，它则是一场单一文明的节奏；而在西方，却是多个不同文明的循环。

Somebody once said that when history in the West, people view history as being the succession of of different empires and different civilizations from Rome and Greece and Assyria and Egypt and the Carolingians, different, whereas in China it's the of it's the rhythm of one civilization, whereas in the West, it's a cycle of many different civilizations.

我的意思是，你可以争论——读了你的书，汤姆——西方拉丁基督教世界构成了一个文明。

I mean, you could argue, and reading your book, Tom, you you could argue that Western Latin Christendom constitutes a civilization.

别怂恿他，迈克尔。

Don't encourage it Michael.

一个单一的文明，它兴衰起伏等等，但在中国这是一个连续体，他们对此非常清楚。

A single civilization which has risen and fallen and whatever, but in China it's a continuum, and they're very conscious of that.

要知道，在唐朝之后十世纪那可怕的崩溃时期，就有人说新的中国将会崛起，我们会重建王国吗？

Know, you get these guys in the terrible breakdown after the Tang dynasty in the tenth century saying you know a new China will arise, will we reconstitute the kingdom?

中国最著名的小说之一《三国演义》的开篇有一句话大致是说：天下大势，分久必合，合久必分，你知道，所以这是一个连续体，并且要呼应你刚才提到的当今，我的意思是，这是习近平政权的一个关键部分，一个核心纲领。

The beginning of the most famous, one of the most famous novels in China, the Romance of the Three Kingdoms begins with a line which roughly says, it is a truth universally acknowledged that every empire that falls apart will come together again, and that every empire that is united will fall apart, you know, so it's continuum, and just to pick up on what you said about today, I mean, it's a really key part, a plank of the President Xi's regime, you know.

他们必须实现经济增长。

They've got to deliver growth.

如果你看看他们的计划，他们必须实现经济增长，因为公众舆论只会支持他们正在做的事情，所以这是其中一个重要方面，但民族研究现在对他们来说确实很重要，习近平主席不断强调中国过去的伟大。你看秦始皇，公元前三世纪的第一位皇帝，秦朝只持续了大约十年就被推翻了，因为它深受人民憎恨，但它的遗产对中国人来说具有象征意义，支撑秦帝国的思想是法家思想，由一位名叫商鞅的政治哲学家提出，他写了《商君书》，主张建立一个绝对压制的国家，每个人都被列入人口名册，实施残酷刑罚，所以这是一个非常严格的法家秩序，没有儒家的人文主义。实际上，习近平主席不久前在一次演讲中提到了一位法家哲学家，说这些思想仍然是我们存在的一部分。

If you look at the planks, they've got to deliver growth because public opinion will only stick with them with what they're doing, you know, so that's an important aspect of it, but national studies are really important to them now, and President Xi is constantly harping on about the greatness of the Chinese past, know, and when you look at Qin Shi Huangdi, the first emperor in the third century, I mean the Qin Empire only lasted about ten years and was overthrown because it was so hated by the people, know, but the legacy of it is emblematic to the Chinese, and the ideas that underwrote the Qin Empire were legalist ideas by this political philosopher called Lord Shang, who wrote this book of Lord and it argues for an absolutely repressive clampdown state where every person is itemized in the kind of population lists and where cruel punishment, so it's a really strict legalist order without Confucian humanism, and actually President Xi not long ago did a speech in which he dropped in one of the legalist philosophers as being, you know, these ideas are still part of our being.

让我接着你刚才说的关于王朝兴衰的事情问你一个问题。

Let me just ask you a question following up what you were saying about, you know, dynasties rising and falling and stuff.

为什么中国这么大，而且一直这么大？

Why is China so big, and why has it always been so big?

那么为什么历代王朝能够将其统治施加在如此广大的领土和如此庞大的人口上，相比之下，正如你提到的汤姆关于西方基督教世界的观点，那里却是分裂的？

So why have successive dynasties been able to impose their rule on such an enormous territory and such a huge number of people compared with the fragmentation of you know, you mentioned Tom's idea about Western Christendom.

西方基督教世界一直无法统一。

That Western Christendom has been impossible to unite.

中国为何能延续为如此庞大的实体？

Why has China survived to such an enormous entity?

是的。

Yeah.

这真是个有趣的问题，不是吗？

It's such an interesting question, isn't it?

因为在中国历史上，像十世纪这样的时期，中国曾多次分裂。

Because there's plenty of points in Chinese history like in the tenth century where China broke apart.

在十世纪早期，曾有16个不同的政权，包括五个拥有官僚体系的大型王国，但始终有一种强烈的动力要回归统一的理念，这深深植根于孔子关于我们文化的观念之中。

There were 16 different dynasties during that early part of the tenth century, including five major kingdoms with civil services and everything else, but the drive was to come back to this concept of unity and that lies very deep in you know Confucius' idea about this culture of ours.

我们捍卫的是汉语言、汉字和汉人习俗，这与欧洲不同。

We're defending Han speech, Han writing, Han customs, and that's the difference with Europe I think.

不过，当你看中国的疆域规模时，地图上它扩张又收缩，几乎像一个活体生物；比如宋朝，十至十一世纪，那是人类历史上最伟大的文明之一，可能是当时在科学、技术、文学、印刷等各方面最先进、最发达的文明，但那只是中国的中原核心地带，也就是被两条河流环绕的平原地区；而其他时期，比如离我们最近的清朝，从十七世纪到1911年，他们征服了蒙古、新疆和西藏，我们今天脑海中所熟悉的中国地图，其实正是那个时期的产物。

I mean when you look at the size of China though, if you look at the maps, it expands and then it contracts almost like a living organism, and you look like you look at the Song dynasty, for example, tenth, eleventh centuries, one of the greatest civilizations that had ever existed on the face of the earth, probably the greatest and most advanced till that point in terms of science, technology, literature, printing, everything, you know, but it's only the heartland of China, you know, that kind of circular land that is encompassed by the two rivers in the plain, you know, and then you get other periods, for instance the Qing dynasty from the well, let's take the Qing dynasty as the one that's closest to us from the seventeenth century to 1911, and they conquer Mongolia, Xinjiang and Tibet, and that picture that we have in our minds of the map of today's China is really the product of that.

你知道，明朝和宋朝统治的是中国的腹地，也就是所谓的中国本部。而今天的中国人，由于其极具侵略性的民族主义政策，非常不喜欢这样的观点：即如今的中国是帝国对非汉族人群扩张的结果。一些美国学者最近出版了几本关于新疆和清朝扩张的书，但他们被禁止在中国举办公开活动，即使他们的书已经在中国以纸质形式出版，因为中国人坚持认为这些地区是祖国不可分割的一部分，而实际上并非如此。

You know, the Ming, the Song, they ruled the heartland of China, you know, China proper, and the Chinese today of course with their very aggressive nationalistic policies, they really don't like the idea that they were that what is now China was the product of imperial expansion over peoples who are not Chinese, and American academics who've recently written a couple of books on Xinjiang and on the Chinese expansion under the Qing, they were barred from doing public events in China, book events, even after their books had been in a cup form printed in China, because the Chinese like to insist that these are an enviable part of the motherland, when of course they're not, you know.

西藏在其大部分历史中都是一个独立的王国。

Tibet had been an independent kingdom for most of its existence.

所以为什么它会这么大，这是一个有趣的问题。

So why is it so big is an interesting question.

早在汉朝时期，也就是罗马共和国时代，他们就通过丝绸之路向西扩张至新疆，建立了堡垒，连接中亚乃至更远地区。

They went out under the Han dynasty in the time of the Roman Republican Empire into Xinjiang with the Silk Road and forts going out west to link up with Central Asia and beyond.

唐朝在公元七世纪末也进行了同样的扩张，但中华文明的核心区域实际上要小得多。今天所见的版图，实际上是帝国对非汉族人群扩张后的结果，而这些非汉族群体至今仍对此感到不满，因此新疆目前正发生着严重的镇压。

They went out the same time in the late six hundred's under the Tang dynasty, but the essential core of Chinese civilization is much much smaller, and what you look at today is really the aftermath of imperial expansion over non Chinese peoples, and those non Chinese peoples are still aggrieved at that, hence the terrible suppression happening at the moment in Xinjiang.

这些腹地基本上是围绕河流形成的。

And those heartlands are based around rivers essentially.

你书中有一句话是我最喜欢的，我特意抄了下来，你在谈到十八世纪的清朝时说：这就像古埃及法老时代一直延续到十八世纪，仍崇拜阿蒙神，官僚体系仍精通象形文字，却早在欧洲之前就发明了蒸汽机和欧几里得数学。

It's like you have an amazing one of my favorite sentences in your book, I copied it out here when you're talking about Qing China, so eighteenth century: It was as if pharaonic Egypt had come through to the eighteenth century still worshiping Amon, its bureaucracy still skilled in hieroglyphs, while having invented the steam engine and Euclidean mathematics centuries before Europe.

我非常喜欢这句话，因为它生动地传达了一种古老文明延续至今的感觉。

And I love it because it does convey that sense of an ancient civilization lasting into the present day.

这就像电子游戏《文明》里，罗马人发明了摩天大楼之类的东西。

It's kind of like the computer game civilization where the Romans invent skyscrapers and things.

那么，我们可以追溯几个世纪的中华文明有哪些特征，使我们能够谈论其连续性，尽管经历了种种动荡和蛮族入侵？

So what are the features of Chinese civilization that we can trace through the centuries that enable us to talk about there being continuity despite the kind of bust ups and barbarian invasions and so on?

是皇帝的权威吗？

Is it is it the sense of an emperor?

是儒家思想吗？

Is it Confucianism?

这种传统能追溯到多久以前？

And how far back does that reach?

它能追溯到第一位皇帝之前吗？

Does it reach back before the time of the first emperor?

嗯，想想看，你知道吗，大多数专家会说，当你阅读20世纪50年代西方学者关于毛泽东时期的研究时，所有那些著名的汉学家都指出，这惊人地、不可思议地复制了帝国时期——比如明、清——那种中央集权的专制官僚体系，也就是说，共产党实际上是在回归一种中国模式，他们试图改革，试图改变农村，建立农业公社等等，但本质上仍是那种控制严密的专制官僚体系，因此中央集权的官僚帝国是一个关键要素。

Well, think, you know, most experts would say it's very interesting when you read scholars writing in the fifties and 1950s, Western scholars looking at what was happening under Mao, and all of them, you know, distinguished sinologists are saying that it's eerily, uncannily replicating the centralized authoritarian bureaucracies that you saw in the imperial period, you know, under the Ming and the Qing, you know, that the communists actually going back to a Chinese template, I mean, they're trying to reform, they're trying to change the countryside and have, you know, agricultural communes and all that, but essentially it's that gall controlling authoritarian bureaucracy, so a centralized bureaucratic empire a key thing.

皇帝的地位非常有趣。

The position of the emperor is very interesting.

目前，许多学者都在研究这位圣君的概念，权力和权威最终都追溯到他身上，皇帝必须智慧且无所不见。

There's been a lot of work by scholars at the moment on this idea of the sage emperor, and this figure who ultimately power and authority goes back to him, and the emperor must be wise and all seeing.

当你看到这种观念如何转移到对毛泽东的崇拜中，看到毛泽东如何被颂扬，比如‘万水千山总是情，所有中国人皆归于你，伟大的领袖’，如同太阳照耀，你不可言喻，收听广播中的这些宣传，简直难以置信。

And when you look at how that was transferred to the cult of Mao and how Mao was adulated, as you know, all rivers flow to the sea and all the Chinese people flow to you, great leader, you know, as the sun shines, you, this, you're ineffable, you know, the publicity of peaking radio, you listen to all this stuff, it's unbelievable.

因此，毛泽东确实吸纳了这种帝王崇拜，这就是其中一点。

So Mao really took on board that cult of the emperor, so there's that.

当然，还有儒家伦理，孔子生活在公元前500年左右，与佛陀和古希腊的伟大人物同期，他在世时彻底失败，但他的思想被后来的王朝采纳，中国历史上始终存在一种平衡：一方面是专制的、以法律和惩罚为基础的严酷官僚体系，另一方面是孔子的人文主义思想，尽管这些思想在某种程度上非常顺从。

There's the Confucian ethic, of course, which really was Computers lived about 500 BC, you know, the same time as the Buddha and the great figures in Greece, and his ethos he was a total failure in his lifetime, but his ethos was adopted by later dynasties, and there's always a balance in Chinese history between the authoritarian, legalist, punishment based, pretty ferocious bureaucracy and the humanist ideas of Confucius who which are very conformist in their ways.

也就是说，二十世纪的许多人曾说，我们必须抛弃这一切，因为它在吞噬我们的孩子。

I mean, a lot of people in the twentieth century were saying we've got to get rid of all this stuff because it's cannibalizing our children.

我们至今仍受制于这种顺从的、仪式化的传统，但在中华历史最辉煌的时期，这种人文主义思想具备伟大的自我革新能力，

We are still in hock to this subservient ritual based, you know, but in the best periods of Chinese history, this humanist idea was capable of great reinvention, you know,

什么是人文主义思想？

What is the humanist idea?

你说‘人文主义’，它的本质是什么？

When you say humanist, what's the essence of it?

嗯，这些事情都很复杂，我可能没有资格谈论它们，但你知道，那些声称是孔子所作、由他的弟子记录下来的著作，包含了各种关于正义、人人平等、兄弟情谊的思想，认为社会必须建立在统治者以德治国、以礼治国的基础上，伟大的统治必须遵循这些原则，如果统治者暴虐，人民就有权反抗他，这是一套文明秩序的体系。

Well, know, these are complicated things, and I think I'm probably not qualified to talk about them, but you know the works which purport to be those Confucius, which were written down by his pupils, contain all kinds of ideas about, you know, justice and all people being equal or men being brothers, that we have to have a society where the ruler where the actions of the ruler are based on virtue and civility and great rulership must adhere to these principles, and if they are if a ruler is tyrannical, then the people have a right to rise against him, you know, so it's a system of civil order.

他不关心神灵，也不关心来世，从不谈论来世，他关心的是如何在地球上实现平衡的文明生活。

He's not interested in gods, he doesn't he's not interested in the afterlife, he never talks about the afterlife, he's interested in how we have a balanced civil life on earth.

他当然不怀疑伟大统治者的存在，但伟大的统治者必须以德行行事。

He didn't doubt, of course, the figure of the great ruler, but the great ruler must act according to virtue.

所以，那种文明礼仪、待人接物的方式和恭敬态度，你知道，你提到的这些直到今天仍然留存下来的东西。

So those but that sense of civility and the way you are and deference and all that, you know, you talk about what survived until the present day.

在另一个层面上，任何去过中国并真正与中国人相处过的人，都会知道我们对中国人有一种奇怪的看法。

On another dimension, anybody who's traveled in China and actually spent time with the Chinese people, and you know, we have a funny idea of the Chinese people.

大家都觉得中国人现在态度冷淡、冷漠，似乎被各种事情裹挟着，但事实上，任何去过中国的人，都会知道中国人是多么亲切、随和。

Everybody thinks around there's a rather cool attitude to them and frosty at the moment, and the Chinese people are caught up in all this, but actually anybody who travels in China, you know how affable and sociable Chinese people are.

他们热爱社交，喜欢一起吃饭，因为中国腹地人口极其稠密，人们必须和谐共处，因此集体意识非常重要，我认为这种集体意识对中国来说极其重要。

They love being in society, they love eating together, they have to rub along together because there's so many of them in the heartland of China, it's very very densely populated, so you have to have a sense of the collective, I and think the sense of the collective is very, very important to China.

你看他们对新冠疫情的反应，政府要求人们遵守规则，人们不仅服从了规则，还帮助邻居，组建了社区委员会等等。

You look at their response to the COVID outbreaks and the way that people obviously they were told by the government they had to, you know, obey the rules, but people obeyed the rules and helped their neighbors and set up neighborhood committees and everything else.

不仅仅是共产党在管理，还有一种深厚的集体意识。

It's not just the Communist Party running it, there's a deep sense of the collective.

所以我说，既有宏大的政治图景，也有中国人如何团结相处的社会图景，这种团结是非常强大的。

So I would say there's the big political picture and there's the there's the social picture of how Chinese people are together, and and that solidarity is a very, very powerful thing.

迈克尔，我们需要引入一些来自公众的问题。

Michael, we need to, get in some of the questions from the the public, from the punters.

是的。

Yeah.

是的。

Yeah.

其中一个大问题是，中国发生了什么？

And one of the big ones is, this question about what happened to China.

那么，为什么中国没有更早成为世界强国？

So why didn't China become a world power earlier?

所以艾伦·奥尔波特问：在郑和下西洋之后，为什么中国放弃了对西方的全球探索优势？

So Alan Allport asks, why after the voyages of Zhengqi, I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly, did China give up its global exploratory advantage over the West.

马克·沃尔索说，中国有多大的帝国扩张能力？

And Mark Walthouse says, how capable were China of imperial expansion?

中国长期以来一直占据主导地位。

So China was so preeminent for so long.

那么，哪里出了问题？

And then what went wrong?

为什么他们转向了内向？

Why did they turn inwards?

如果你在十五世纪，也就是郑和七次下西洋之后中国取消了进一步航行的时候，去问一位儒家官僚，他们那时已经到达了东非和波斯湾，要知道，这并不是中国船只第一次到达那些地方。

Well, if you'd ask that of a Confucian bureaucrat in the time in the fifteenth century when they canceled any more voyages after the Zhunhe seven voyages, you know, when they'd gone to East Africa and the Persian Gulf, I mean, weren't it wasn't the first time the Chinese Chinese ships had been out there.

他们会说，你什么意思，扩张能力？

They would have said, what do you mean capable of expansion?

这并不是我们文明的目标。

That's not the goal of our civilization.

我们文明的目标是耕种中国的土地，维持这个庞大人口的公正秩序，确保每个人都有饭吃，并让官僚、领导层和学术界培养内在世界、科学以及其他一切。

The goal of our civilization is to cultivate the soil of China, to maintain a just order for this enormous population, make sure that everybody's fed, and for the bureaucracy and the leadership and the scholarly world to cultivate the inner world and the sciences and everything else.

作为一个文明，我们的目标并不是出去征服他人。耶稣会士利玛窦在16世纪80年代来到中国，并在此度过余生，他的日记得以保存下来，其中有一段极为有趣的记述：东西方之间、欧洲国家与中国之间存在显著差异——西方人总是不安分，永远不满足于自己已有的东西。

It is not our aim as a civilization to go out and conquer other people, and there's a fantastically interesting passage in the diary of the Jesuit Matteo Ricci who went in the 1580s to China and lived the rest of his life in China, and his diary survives, and Ricci says there are very interesting comparisons to be made between East and West, between the countries of Europe and the countries of China, that in the West they are never they're restless and never satisfied with what they've got.

他们必须不断外出夺取他人的土地，而这绝非中华文明的目标。我认为这是一个非常有趣的历史事实，当然，像唐、汉这样的帝国也曾沿着丝绸之路向外拓展并建立据点，但它们并非以征服他国为目的。

They have to go out and seize the lands of other people, whereas this is not the goal of Chinese civilization at all, and I think that's a very interesting historical fact, although of course, empires like the Tang and the Han had gone out along the Silk Road and established their bases, but they hadn't they hadn't gone out to conquer other countries.

是因为他们太富有了吗？

Is that because they were too too rich?

是因为他们陷入了所谓的‘高水平均衡陷阱’，太过安逸了吗？

Is that because they there's this talk of the high level equilibrium trap that they were sort of too comfortable?

你对比一下，你之前做过关于征服者的系列节目。

So you compare that I mean, you did the series about the conquistadors.

那些征服者来自西班牙西部贫瘠的小镇，那里几乎没有机会让他们发家致富。

They were coming from scrubby, you know, towns in sort of Western Spain where there wasn't much money to make their fortune.

中国人只是太富足了，所以才不愿做同样的事吗？

Were the Chinese just too well off to to do the same?

嗯，他们可能根本没想过这一点——当他们的船队抵达东非等地时，大概只是觉得：‘我们有必要这样做吗？’但这种念头根本不在他们的思维模式中。我认为郑和下西洋的意图被一定程度上误解了。

Well, it probably didn't occur to them to you know, when their ships went to East Africa and places like that, they probably thought, well, you know, do we but it wasn't in their mindset to do that, although the Junghe voyages are slightly misunderstood I think.

上周我读了大卫·阿贝拉菲亚关于海洋的书，他仍然略微坚持认为，中国在这些远航中只是展示旗帜；但我认为，所有现代学术研究都表明，他们真正试图做的是牢牢掌控并保护贸易路线，在巨港（Palembang）和印度尼西亚等地建立据点，这些远航背后是有明确目的的，正如明朝向中亚派出的外交使团一样，因此我认为，他们的思维比我们想象的更务实，但他们的目标并不是去征服其他国家。

I was listening to David Abelafia's book about the oceans the other week, and he still slightly hung on to the idea that the Chinese were just showing the flag in these great expeditions, whereas I think all the modern scholarships suggest that what they were trying to do was really pin down and protect trade routes and establish bases in Palembang and places like that in Indonesia, you know, and there was a purpose behind these, just as there was a purpose to the Ming dynasty diplomatic expeditions into Central Asia, so you know they were more practically minded I think than we think, but it wasn't their goal to go out and conquer other nations.

这是第一点。

That's the first thing.

这回答了一个非常有趣的问题，如果你回看十世纪、十一世纪、十二世纪的宋朝，显然他们在科学和技术方面是最先进的文明。

It answered to this very interesting question, and if you look back at the tenth, eleventh, twelfth century under the song, you know, clearly they were the most advanced civilization in terms of science and technology.

所以包括火药、街灯，所有这些吗？

So that's gunpowder, street lights, all that?

航海技术、印刷术，

Naval technology, printing,

他们比其他任何文明都更领先，但他们的思维中并没有去征服其他国家的念头。

they were further ahead than anyone else, see, but it wasn't in their mindset to go and conquer other countries.

事实上，他们与今天中国领土范围内的其他强大王国，比如十一世纪的西夏，在陆地上共存，但通过谨慎的外交、建立良好关系以及定期访问邻国宫廷等方式，他们达成了平衡。实际上，到了12世纪，宋朝在许多方面已经准备好成为第一个现代国家，因为在政治组织、经济和财政政策等方面，他们已经非常先进。

In fact, they shared the landmass of China, what is today the landmass of China, with other powerful kingdoms in the eleventh century like the Jiaochen, but they established an equilibrium by careful diplomacy and establishing good relations and having regular visits to the courts of their neighbors and all that sort of stuff, so they were and actually the Song dynasty by the 1100s was in many ways poised, you would have said, to become the first modern nation, because in terms of political organization, you know, economic and financial policy and all this, they were they were much more advanced.

想想看，当征服者威廉在十月后蹂躏诺森布里亚时，王安石和中国的朝臣们却在思考税收水平、缩小贫富差距，‘我们该怎么做？’他们收集所有人口普查数据，说我们必须为这些地区制定经济政策，让人民富裕起来，不能让社会中大量人口贫困潦倒、勉强维生。因此，他们在许多方面如此现代，而关于这一点的历史争论，始于肯尼斯·彭慕兰那本著名的《大分流》，他在书中认为，某些物质性因素发生了变化，尤其是煤炭的使用。

I mean the time William the Conqueror's devastating Northumbria in the aftermath of October, Wang Nan Shi and the Chinese council are sitting there thinking about, you know, taxation levels and evening up the equality gap, you know, what are we gonna do with you know, and they're getting all the censuses in and they're saying we've got to have an economic policy for these regions that lifts the people up, know, we can't have a society where a lot of people are really poor and barely hang on, so they were so modern in many ways, and I think you know, the big argument about this historiographically, and it started with a famous book by Kenneth Pomerantz called The Great Divergence, in which he argued there were certain material facts that happened and especially the use of coal.

他非常强调煤炭的使用。

He's very hot on the use of coal.

中国人早在几个世纪前就发明了所有这些技术，但西方对煤炭的使用推动了技术的发展，使我们突然实现了飞跃，而这一飞跃得益于历史上首次出现的那些小型、机动、富有侵略性的海上商业强国能够远渡重洋，征服整个新大陆，驱逐当地居民——其中大多数人死于疾病，掠夺其自然资源，这在某种程度上不正是一种突如其来的历史偶然吗？

Chinese had invented all these processes centuries before, but the use of coal in the West pushed the development of technologies and suddenly we made a leap forward, and that leap was helped by the fact that for the first time in history, these small, mobile, aggressive maritime commercial powers in Western Europe could go out across the world, conquer the entire New World, dispossess its population, most of whom died of disease, plunder its natural resources, and it's a sudden historical happenstance in some ways, isn't it?

而中国人仍然维持着这种谨慎而有序的治理，突然间却面对了这些新来者。

And the Chinese, who are still maintaining this careful, well governed order suddenly found themselves with these new people.

我认为这是一个绝佳的停顿点，同时也引出了中国拥有非凡文化自信这一观点。

I think that's a brilliant note on which to take a break, but just as kind of setting up the idea that China has this incredible cultural self confidence, I guess.

当马戛尔尼勋爵——乔治三世的使节——到来时，中国仍自居为‘中央之国’，对工业革命的所有成果不屑一顾。

It's the Middle Kingdom when Lord McCartney, George III's emissary turns up, bury all the fruits of industrial revolution.

中国人对此不感兴趣，因为谁才是野蛮人？

The Chinese aren't interested Because who's a barbarian?

谁会关心野蛮人带来的东西？

Who's interested in what barbarians are bringing?

但我认为，我们将在休息后探讨的十九和二十世纪历史，实际上是中国人逐渐意识到外部世界拥有他们必须学习的东西，以及他们如何应对这一现实的历史。

But I guess that the history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, which we'll look at after the break, is really the history of how the Chinese wake up to the fact that the outside world does have things that it needs to learn and how it has dealt with that.

所以我们会在休息后谈到这一点。

So we will come to that after the break.

欢迎回到《历史的其余部分》，我是多米尼克·桑布鲁克和汤姆·荷兰，今天我们邀请到的嘉宾是伟大的迈克尔·伍德。

Welcome back to The Rest is History, With me, Dominic Sambrook and Tom Holland, and our guest today, the great Michael Wood.

汤姆，所有这些让我感到羞愧的是，当迈克尔在谈论时，我意识到自己对这类事情知之甚少。

Tom, the shaming thing about all this is, as Michael's been talking, I'm conscious of just how little I know about all of this kind of stuff.

你对这些了解得多吗？

Are you are you more clued up?

我对秦始皇非常感兴趣，很好。

I'm very interested in the first emperor Very good.

我自然对早期中国与希腊化王国，以及后来与罗马和丝绸之路之间的可能联系感兴趣。

Predictably, and about possible links between early China and Hellenistic kingdoms and then with Rome and then the Silk Roads.

但关于中国近现代史，我知之甚少。

But modern Chinese history, I know very little about.

我写《主宰》一书时，曾研究过耶稣会士来华的历史，以及我们刚才休息前谈到的——与中国文明相比，耶稣会士从罗马或西班牙等地带来的东西是多么微不足道。

I did have to study about the Jesuits going to China when I wrote Dominion, and what we were talking about just before the break, about just how stupefying Chinese civilization was compared to what the Jesuits had seen coming from Rome or from Spain or whatever.

他们到达那里后说，这是一个无与伦比的地方。

And they go there and they say, this is a place like nowhere else.

他们写信给上级，说我们不能像对待印第安人那样对待中国人。

And they're writing back to their superiors and saying, we can't treat the Chinese like we treated the Indians.

这些人是地球上最精明的民族，我们必须极其谨慎地行事——公平地说，耶稣会士确实以非凡的效果做到了这一点。

These are the most sophisticated people on the face of the planet, and we need to tread very, very carefully, which, to be fair to the Jesuits, they did with kind of remarkable effect.

我想，这与十九世纪的区别在于，当英国人驾着炮艇蛮横闯入时

And I guess the difference between that and the nineteenth century is that when the British come blundering in with their gunboats

是的。

Yeah.

他们自恃优越，轻视他们眼中所谓的落后。

They are in a position to scorn what they see as kind of backwardness.

尽管我认为，即使在十八世纪，那种方式也令人动容，比如约翰逊博士。

Although I think even in the eighteenth century, it's really touching the way that Doctor.

约翰逊，你通常认为他是英国人性格的化身，一生大部分时间生活在伦敦，但他最大的梦想却是亲眼看看长城。

Johnson, who you think of as kind of the embodiment of John Bull, the man who lives in London most of his life, it's his great dream to see the Great Wall Of China.

他敦促博斯韦尔去旅行。

And he urges Boswell to take a trip.

他说，是的。

He says, yes.

你必须去。

You must go.

当你回来时，你就会被称为见过长城的人。

And and when you come back, you'll be known as the man who saw the Great Wall Of China.

也许他只是急着想把博斯韦尔打发走。

Maybe he sure he wasn't just desperate to get rid of Boswell.

是的。

Yeah.

也许吧。

Maybe.

但话说回来，所有那些家伙

But, mean, all the all the fellows

你知道，伏尔泰和所有人，他们都对中国着迷。

you know, Voltaire and everybody, they're obsessed with China.

他们把中国视为现代、精致、自由、开明国家的典范。

They see China as the kind of the the the archetype of how to run a a modern, sophisticated, liberal, enlightened state.

所以这与十九世纪发生的事情形成了鲜明对比。

So it's kind of such a contrast with what then happens in the nineteenth century.

那么，迈克尔，我们能聊聊鸦片战争吗？

So Michael, can we just talk about the Opium Wars?

对于不了解的人来说，鸦片战争发生在十九世纪三十年代、四十年代，以及五十年代、六十年代。

So for people who don't know, the Opium Wars were in the eighteen thirties, forties, and then eighteen fifties, sixties.

当时英国军舰炮击中国，试图迫使中国开放市场，以便我们的商船销售鸦片。

It was British gunboats sort of blasting the Chinese in an attempt to open up China to our merchant ships, basically selling opium.

我们想卖给他们毒品，然后直到他们同意为止，不断轰炸他们。

We want to sell them dope, and we're gonna pummel them until they agree to do it.

这在中国留下了深远的影响，对吧？

And that's something that really has left this legacy in China, hasn't it?

这是一个极具分裂性的遗产。

It's very divisive legacy.

我是不是说得对，我们基本上被看作是反派？

And am I right in thinking that we're basically I mean, people perceive us as the baddies.

是这样吗？

Is that is that right?

我们是坏人，而他们是受害者？

We were the bad guys and they were the victims?

这是中国人的说法，但我的一些中国朋友，包括学者，对此感到沮丧，他们会说：‘天哪。’

Well, it's how they tell it in China, but the the I mean, a number of Chinese friends of mine, including scholars, say are exasperated by this, and they go, oh god.

这种受害者叙事，中国政府真该放弃了。

This victim narrative, the Chinese government just gotta drop it.

我们不能修订该死的课程吗？

Can't we revise the bloody curriculum?

你知道，这种受害者情结如今如此强烈，每个朝代都经历兴衰，当朝代开始瓦解时，总有一个催化剂推动下一个复兴时期，而英国人就是那个催化剂，新的中国在19世纪60年代的上海开始成型，那时他们正在建造汇丰银行等建筑，那是一个残酷的时代。

You know, this victim stuff is just so high today, every dynasty rises and falls, and when at the moment the dynasty is starting to come apart, there's a catalyst for the next period of rebirth, and the Brits were the catalyst, and the new China starts to be made in Shanghai in the 1860s when they're building the HSBC and all that, it is a brutal time.

如果你稍微回溯一下，就在鸦片战争之前不久，汤姆提到了1793年的马戛尔尼使团，而当时中国在文明和治理方面已经取得了百年辉煌成就。

Mean if you just backtrack a slight, you know, just a few moments before the Opium War, Tom mentioned the McCartney expedition of seventeen ninety three, and China had had hundred years of amazing achievements in civilization and governance.

我认为有三位伟大的君主，他们都长寿且统治时间很长。

I think three great rulers, all of them long lived and long ruling.

他们三人合计统治了大约一百三十年，我记不清确切数字了，当英国人到来时，年迈的乾隆皇帝仍在位。当你阅读马戛尔尼使团的日记时，会发现英国人对所见的许多事物印象深刻，他们清楚地看到这是一个存在了非常久远的强大政体。

Ruled between them for about one hundred and thirty years, I can't remember the exact number, And and and the old Qianlong was still on the throne when the Brits came, and when you look at when you look at McCartney's diary of that ex expedition, the Brits are very impressed by many of the things that they see, and they can see that this is a great polity which has existed for a very, very long time.

你必须记住，在英国人的认知中，存在着中国人并不真正理解的地缘政治。

You've got to remember in the British mind, there are geopolitics which the Chinese don't really understand.

当时许多中国作家说，我们根本不知道外面发生了什么。

A lot of Chinese writers at that time say we just don't know enough of what's going on.

英国人虽然失去了美洲殖民地，但在几乎同一时期，他们在南印度和孟加拉取得了胜利，像克莱武这样的英国人功不可没。

The Brits had lost their colonies in America, but the Brits at almost the same time had won their victories in South India and Bengal and with the, you know, the likes of Clive of India.

因此，英国人突然拥有了一个庞大的全球帝国，就在他们一定程度上失去美洲立足点的同时，却在印度发现了惊人的新财富——这些财富由少量英军和大量印度士兵保护着，对华贸易也在此时开始蓬勃发展。

So suddenly, the Brits have an international empire, and at the very moment that they've they've lost their purchase in in The Americas to to a degree, they find this extraordinary new wealth in India, all of which is protected by small amounts of British troops and large amounts of Indian troops, and the trade with China has started to grow up.

这就像另一个三角贸易，比如奴隶三角贸易。

It's another of those triangles like the Slave Triangle.

是的。

Yeah.

到1790年代，英国经济已经开始依赖通过印度三角贸易与中国进行的贸易。

And the British economy by the seventeen nineties had started to become dependent on China, through the triangle with India.

他们向中国销售鸦片，并用它来换取纺织品。

And they're selling opium to China and and they get it bringing textiles.

是因为鸦片是中国唯一对英国感兴趣的商品吗？

Is because opium is the only thing that the Chinese are interested in buying off the British?

嗯，我认为这种贸易已经持续了很长时间。

Well, I think there was a long trade in it.

鸦片主要在印度种植，这是那些自由商人意识到的，你知道，这正是同一家东印度公司，它一直在印度努力经营，他们发现可以用它从中国获取大量利益，而马戛尔尼前往中国是为了开启官方贸易，他们真正想做的是使贸易正规化。

Opium's grown in India especially, and it was one of those things that these freelance merchants, you know, because this is the same East India company that's been doing its best in India, you know, so it's one of the things that they realize they extract a lot out of China with, and a Macarney but Macarney goes in order to open up official what they want to do is regularize the trade.

他们希望建立一个像香港那样的岛屿基地，以便全年进行贸易，而不是仅限于在澳门等地进行这些非常有限且高度受控的接触。

They want to establish an island base as Hong Kong would eventually be from which they could trade year round rather than go on these very, very limited and highly controlled contacts around Macau and stuff like that.

因此，他们希望在北京拥有完整的大使地位。

So they want full ambassador status in Beijing.

所以他们想要的是：贸易、大使、岛屿、海外基地。

So these are the things they want: the trade, the ambassador, the island, offshore.

这就是他们所追求的，正如你所说，他们还带来了英国现代制造业的所有伟大成就，比如伯明翰的天文仪器、星盘和计时器，还有伯明翰的武器制造商的产品。

That's what they're looking for, and as you say, they take with them all the great achievements of modern British manufacture, you know, Birmingham, astronomical equipment, astrolabes and horariums, along with, you know, Birmingham Arms manufacturer stuff as well.

尽管乾隆看到这些时说了那句著名的话：这些东西对一个孩子来说都不会感兴趣，你看，我们是中国，我们自给自足，不需要你们的西方玩具，但实际上他们对军事装备非常感兴趣，他们清楚地看到西方人在这一方面具有明显优势。

And although when Qin Long looks at it, he does that famous line, you know, these kind of things would not be of interest to a child, you know, we are, as you can see, we are China, we self sufficient in everything, we do not need your Western toys, but actually they were really interested in the military stuff, and they could see that the Westerners had a real edge on this.

因此，马戛尔尼因未能实现他的期望而感到沮丧，因为他认为中国是一个伟大的文明，而英国则拥有开放的思想、公平与正义以及法治精神。

So McCartney is a bit deflated by the failure to get what he'd hoped for because he sees China as a really great civilization and he sees the British with their open mindedness, their sense of fairness and justice and legality.

他认为，两国之间正常的贸易关系将给中国带来巨大好处，因为他了解这位马戛尔尼——他曾是南印度的总督，曾担任驻俄罗斯特使，也去过加勒比海，正是他创造了‘日不落帝国’这个说法。

He thinks the proper trading relationships between the two countries will be of great advantage to China, because he understands that this guy, McCartney had been, you know, he'd been governor in South India, he'd been ambassador extraordinary to Russia, he'd been in Caribbean, he's the guy who invents the phrase the empire on which the sun never sets.

这位人物在全世界的外交官中，拥有对未来的洞察力，他明白中国需要现代化，他认为英国可以成为这一变革的催化剂，因此他并不傲慢；尽管后来他在日记中写道，中国就像一个疯狂的老战神，像一艘巨大的古老三甲板帆船，几代才华横溢的船长一直设法让它保持航行，但事实上，它现在已陷入困境，未来仍将面临危机。

This guy, among all the diplomats of the world, had a sense of the future, and he understood that China needed to modernize, and he thought the Brits could be that catalyst, so they're not patronizing even though, of course, when he writes up in his diary later, he says the thing about China is it's like a crazy old man of war, like a huge ancient three decked galleon that a succession of gifted captains have managed to keep afloat for all this time, but the fact is it's in trouble now, it's going to be in trouble.

它无法在原有的龙骨上重建，而英国人正是用这些轻率的航海隐喻来描述它——如果它不改变，即使有那些才华横溢的船长掌舵，最终也会触礁。这是一个极其精彩的时刻，但中国当然拒绝了他，这直接导致了鸦片战争，因为英国人继续与中国沿海的走私贩子非法贸易，特别是在福建沿岸的偏僻港口，情况越来越糟，直到19世纪30年代，中国终于说：我们不能再这样下去了，我们要停止贸易，这时英国人采取了行动，因为正如马戛尔尼所说，如果贸易中断，将对英格兰北部的纺织业乃至整个国家经济造成巨大打击，足以使整个国家震动。

It cannot be rebuilt on the same keel, and it's these breezy nautical metaphors that the Brits use, know, and eventually if it doesn't change, it will, despite the gifted captains who have steered it, it will end up on the rocks, so it's a fantastically brilliant moment, and when the Chinese, but of course the Chinese rebuff him, and that's what leads to the opium war because the Brits carry on trading illegally with the dealers on the shores of China, the lonely ports along the coast of Fujian, and it gets worse and worse until the Chinese in the 1830s say, we can't have this anymore and we're stopping the trade, and that's when the Brits take action because as McCartney said, if the trade were to stop, a blow to the textile industries in the North Of England and indeed to our whole national economy would be so great that the nation would be rocked by.

迈克尔，中国作为一种堡垒的概念——比如长城，就是这种观念的象征，把大使、商人等统统限制在边缘地带，这才是他们该待的地方。

And, Michael, this idea of China as a kind of fortress, you know, the Great Wall Of China is the emblem of that, Keeping ambassadors, traders, whatever, absolutely on the periphery, that's the place for them.

还有一种对意识形态渗透的焦虑，不是吗？

There's also a sense of anxiety about ideological infection, isn't there?

所以耶稣会士在前往中国时，一直处于持续的协商过程中。

So the Jesuits, when they go, are kind of constant process of negotiation.

人们担心基督教传教士可能带来的影响，这引出了威廉·里奇的问题：是否可以设想，如果太平天国运动成功了，中国会实现更美好、更和平的现代化转型？

There's an anxiety about what the effect of Christian missionaries might be, which brings us to a question from William Ritchie, who asks, is it possible to think that if the Taiping rebellion had succeeded, China would have had a better and more peaceful transition to modernity?

因为基本上，我理解得对吗？太平天国运动是典型的中国社会崩溃，

Because basically, have I got this right, the Taiping rebellion is the customary Chinese breakdown,

但掺杂了基督教的千年末世幻想。

but with Christian millennial fantasies.

而且极其血腥。

And also incredibly, incredibly bloody.

所以我认为，太平天国运动导致的死亡人数更多。

So the Taiping rebellion I believe more people Yeah.

太平天国运动的死亡人数比第一次世界大战还多。

More people died in the Taiping rebellion in World War one.

是这样吗，迈克尔？

Isn't that right, Michael?

有些人这么认为。

Some people think.

是的。

Yeah.

所以，迈克尔，太平天国运动是传统中国帝国周期性分裂与这些新的基督教思想融合的结果吗？

So so, Michael, is is the Taiping rebellion the result of a fusion of traditional kind of Chinese splintering of of of an empire, which happens periodically, with these new Christian ideas?

还是说它只是突然爆发的？

Or is it something that just kind of blows up?

我们说的是1848年左右吗？

So we're talking, what, eighteen eighteen forty?

从四十年代到五十年代，一直到六十年代中期。

Through the forties fifties to the mid sixties.

是的。

Yeah.

十六年。

Sixteen years.

十六年，太平天国，这是一个令人难以置信的故事，就像中国历史中的许多故事一样。

Sixteen years, the Taiping, and it's an unbelievable story like so many in the story of China.

你知道吗，这位叛乱者曾是个落榜的书生，一生失意，却坚信自己是基督教上帝的选民，是上帝的中国儿子，他招募了南方一群失意的人，攻占了首都——伟大的明朝南京城，即南方的都城，并在某些方面建立了恐怖统治，某种程度上与共产党相似。

You know, this rebel ex student who'd been a failure in life who believes he is the chosen of the Christian God and he's God's Chinese son, and recruits an army of the disaffected in the South, takes the capital, the great Ming capital of Nanjing, the southern capital, and institutes a reign of terror in some ways, and in some ways it's similar to the communists Right.

共产党确实实施了令人恐惧的社会法规和惩罚。

The communists did, you know, terrifying social laws and punishments.

这是一个非常黑暗的时刻，但却是中国历史中至关重要的时刻。

It's really grim moment, but it's an absolutely crucial moment in the story of China.

我不认为如果太平天国获胜，中国向现代性的转型会因此受益，但这是一种推测。

I don't think China's transition to modernity would have been helped if the Taiping had won, you know, but it's one of those forecasts.

我的意思是，我其实查了一下，在鸦片战争到1911年之间，中国每年都有大规模的农民起义，一旦政府失去对中心地区的控制，不满情绪就开始蔓延。

I mean, really, I was looking it up actually, and between the '18, between the Opium War and 1911, there were major peasant uprisings every single year in China, you know, so the disaffection starts to grow once the government has lost its control over the center.

你知道，中心将无法维系。

You know, the center will not hold.

这就是正在发生的事，但鸦片战争——两次鸦片战争——正是你能够看到这种瓦解时期开始的时刻。

That's what's going on, but the opium war, the two opium wars, that's what you can see the period of dissolution, dissolution, which starts then.

鸦片战争在某种程度上触发了这一进程，太平天国紧随其后，持续了十六年，从那时起，中国的统治阶级便陷入被动，许多杰出的思想家都在争论：我们必须立即现代化，必须采纳西方技术，必须建造西方的海军船坞。

The opium war kind of triggers it, and the Taiping comes after the opium war and lasts for sixteen years, and from then on the ruling classes in China are on the back foot, and many great thinkers are arguing we have to modernize now, we have to adopt Western technology, we have to build Western naval dockyards.

他们开始谈论引进铁路。

They start to talk about introducing the railways.

但这一切的核心仍是帝制，本质上，帝制仍延续自明朝和清朝，皇帝依然在冬至日前往北京南郊的天坛，举行青铜时代般的宇宙祭祀仪式，而与此同时，越来越多受西方教育的知识分子却在呼吁：我们是否应该改革这一切？我们能否建立君主立宪制？

We have to but at the center of this was the imperial system, and essentially the imperial system was still descended from the Ming and the Qing, and the emperor is still going on the midwinter solstice to the altar of heaven in the South Of Beijing and performing effectively Bronze Age rituals to the cosmos, and while people increasingly Western educated intellectuals are saying we need to change all this, you know, can we have a constitutional monarchy?

我们应该设立地方议会。

We should have regional assemblies.

我们应该做这些事。

We should have this.

我们是否应该那样做？

Should We have that.

到了19世纪80年代，女权主义者开始涌现，与此同时，西方也出现了争取妇女解放的选举权运动宣言。

By the 1880s you got feminists starting to emerge by the same time of the suffragettes manifestos on women's liberation.

我们什么时候才了解到这些？这是一场思想的激烈动荡，而推翻帝制将是第一件事，接下来的问题是：我们如何真正实现现代化？

When did any of us know about any of this, know, it's a ferment, an absolute ferment of ideas, but the overthrow of the imperial system is going to be the first thing, and then the question is how do we truly modernize?

正是在这一点上，共产主义者和其他许多社会底层改革运动出现了，当时90%的人仍从事农业，农村问题在二十世纪变得至关重要，但这只是大致的发展轨迹。

And that's where the communists come in, and the many other movements who were after the reform of society at the lower level where 90% of the people still worked in the fields and the rural problem becomes absolutely central in the twentieth century, but that's a rough trajectory.

感觉世界从19世纪30年代开始发生变化，而鸦片战争及其后续事件进一步加剧了这种变化。

It feels as if the world starts to change in the 1830s, and then the Opium Wars and what happens afterwards intensify it.

同时，19世纪40年代有一位法国旅行者写了一本关于中国的精彩著作，他不是耶稣会士，我想他叫弗朗西斯——总之是一位天主教神父，加布神父，他会说中文，他在书中称中国仍是地球上最伟大的文明，治理得最好。

At the same time, there's a wonderful Count of China written in the 1840s by a French traveler, a Jesuit who sorry, not a Jesuit, I think it was Francis anyway, he's a Catholic priest, Pere Gabe, who spoke Chinese, and he writes an account of China saying this is still the greatest civilization on earth, it's still the best governed.

他们仍然拥有地方治理和慈善体系，他提到的这些方面，其实远超西方任何制度。

They still have systems of local governance, local charity, and he talks about all these things which would, you know, surpass anything we've got in the West.

我们西方人不应以居高临下的态度对待这一文明。

We Westerners shouldn't patronize this civilization.

尽管它可能已陷入这些陈旧的统治形式，但它的有效性依然存在。

It may have come down with these archaic forms of rule, but its effectiveness.

当你游历中国时，你会看到乡村的生活水平。

When you travel through China, you see the standard of living in the villages.

所以你知道，我怀疑关于19世纪这些斗争，还有更多值得了解的东西。

So you know, I suspect there's a lot more to be learned about these struggles in the nineteenth century.

那么，迈克尔，我们快进一下，接下来就是军阀混战、日本占领，还有各种对立势力，数百万人丧生，简直是一场噩梦。

So, Michael, to fast forward for a bit, you then have this period which is just a complete nightmare of warlords and occupation by the Japanese, obviously, and and sort of rival groups and millions of people dying.

而最终的大赢家是共产党。

And the big winners are the communists.

1949年，革命爆发，毛泽东掌权，之后的故事对我们许多听众来说可能更熟悉。

1949, the revolution, Mao, and then the rest of the story is probably more familiar to a lot of our listeners.

为什么共产党赢了？

Why is it that the communists won?

是因为他们提供的东西吗？有点像第一次世界大战后的俄国内战，共产党获胜是因为其他军阀只提供军阀统治？

Is it because they were offering is it a bit like the Russian civil war after the First World War where the communists won because the the the other warlords were just offering sort of warlordism?

显然，共产党承诺土地改革。

Obviously, communists are offering land reform.

我们收到了斯蒂芬·克拉克的一个问题：这是否更多与土地改革有关？

We had a question from Stephen Clark saying, is it more about land reform?

是他们积极的愿景解释了这一点，还是因为得到了苏联的援助，或者只是偶然因素？

Is is that is it their positive vision that explains it, or is it aid from Russia or or just contingency or what?

是的。

Yeah.

在某些方面，这确实是偶然因素。

In some ways, it's contingency.

有一个著名的故事，革命后毛泽东曾会见日本大使，日本大使为1937年至战争结束期间日本的侵略行为道歉。

There's a famous story of chairman Mao after the revolution talking to the Japanese ambassador who actually apologized for the Japanese acts during the invasion and occupation from the 3637 through to the end of the war.

毛泽东说：‘别道歉，没有你们，我今天不会在这里。’

And Mao said don't apologize, I wouldn't be here today without you.

天哪！

Oh god!

你知道，日本的入侵是一次重大的、巨大的冲击。

And you know, so the Japanese invasion was a major, major intrusion.

如果你记得之前发生的事，共产党曾在中国南方的湖南腹地遭到国民党政府的围剿，不得不逃离，成千上万的人死于国民党的围攻。

You know, if you remember what had happened, that the communists had been attacked by the nationalist government of China in their heartland in the South in Hunan, they had to escape the encirclement where thousands of people had been killed by the nationalists.

他们开始了这场长达六千英里的漫长征程，蜿蜒北上至延安，这就是著名的长征。

They embarked on this 6,000 mile great curving journey up to the up to the north to Yanan called the Long March.

是的。

Yeah.

他们在那儿建立了根据地，正好在日军入侵时扎根于此。在接下来的几年里，他们控制了延安周边地区，推行土地改革和各种变革，赢得了普通民众的广泛支持。

There they established their base and they've got their base right at the moment the Japanese invade, and so for the next few years they controlled that zone around Yanan and they instituted land reforms and all sorts of changes there, and one quite at that stage, quite a lot of credit in the eyes of the ordinary population.

最近出版了一本精彩日记，作者是一位普通人——一位小学教师、小矿主、住在离北京不远的太原市附近一个阴暗煤矿小镇的普通农民。他与山上一位佛教僧侣朋友交谈，讨论共产党人如何对抗日本人，人们普遍觉得共产党人是爱国者，即使他们的意识形态与佛教僧侣或这位仍信奉儒家传统价值观的前矿主格格不入，他们仍支持共产党的行动。因此，当时共产党获得了大量支持。我认为，在经历了日本入侵和二战的恐怖之后，我们往往忘记了中国是我们的盟友——中国是四大盟国之一，中国对日抵抗是太平洋战争胜利的关键因素。因此，在二战结束时，共产党作为爱国解放力量赢得了巨大支持，并迅速席卷全国，最终取得胜利。

There's a wonderful diary published fairly recently by an ordinary bloke, a kind of school teacher, mine manager, two bit farmer living in a dismal coal mining town not far from Beijing, Taiyuan, and he's having these conversations with his friend who's a Buddhist monk up in the hills, it's all the communist gorillas have done this to the Japanese, and there's a feeling that the communists are patriots, and essentially we support what they're doing even though their ideology is alien to either the Buddhist monk friend or the old mind manager who's still the Confucian, he still believes in the old values of imperial China, so they got a lot of support then, and I think after the horrors of the Japanese invasion and the Second World War, know, you think of the Chinese losses in the Second World War, we forget they our ally, you know, they're the fourth ally, and Chinese resistance against Japan was a massive factor in victory in the Pacific War, so I think the moment came when the communists could gather huge support at the end of the second world war as a patriotic liberation front, and they swept down the country and achieved their victory.

1949年10月，共和国宣告成立，这在某种意义上是历史的偶然。此后发生的事情至今仍充满争议，而当前中国政府对任何批评毛泽东的言论都极为敏感。

October 1949, the republics declared, and in a sense it's a historical chance, and what happened afterwards is still highly contested, and the Chinese government at the moment is being very tight arsed about any criticism of Mao.

你知道，习近平主席最近发表讲话说，过去习惯于将1976年毛泽东去世前与之后的时期划分为两个阶段，但我们认为不存在这种割裂，而是一个有机的整体。我们不再希望讨论历史错误，因为共产党在毛泽东去世后曾明确表示：毛泽东是一位伟大的领袖，但他犯下了严重的错误，他把人民当成了敌人，混淆了是非，这正是他的悲剧所在。

You know, President Xi recently made a speech saying it has been accustomed to divide the period between pre-nineteen seventy six, the death of Mao, and post, but we say there is no division, it is an organic kind of hole, know, and any discussion of historic mistakes we no longer want, you know, because the Communist Party after Mao's death had actually said that Chairman Mao was a great leader, but he made massive historical mistakes, and he mistook the people for the enemy, and right from wrong, and therein lies his tragedy.

这是共产党在1981年说过的话，而习近平主席现在却说：我们不接受这种说法。

This is the Communist Party said this in 1981, and President Xi is now saying we do not accept that.

20世纪50年代，事情逐渐恶化：打击地主阶级，随后是大跃进，再是文化大革命——所有这些，中国政府现在都极力淡化。

So what happened in the 1950s as things gradually turned, assault on the land owning, landlord classes, then the Great Leap Forward, then the Cultural Revolution, all that the Chinese government is now trying to really play down.

实际上，曾有人在习近平总统任内推动过对文化大革命的纪念活动。

There actually was an attempt pushed under President Xi to have a commemoration of the Cultural Revolution.

天哪。

Oh my word.

共产党内部的高层人物对此进行了压制，说我们不能这么做，你知道，因此有一位党内人士给出了一个绝妙的评价：如果毛主席1956年去世，他会被视为不朽的伟人。

And leading people within the Communist Party stamped on it and said we we can't be doing that, you know, and hence you get this fantastic verdict by one party insider who said if Chairman Mao had died in 1956, he would be seen as an immortal.

如果他在1966年去世，我们仍会认为他是一位有瑕疵但伟大的人物，只是做出了一些可怕的决定，但他却在1976年去世了。

If he died in 1966, we would still see him as a great man if flawed and having made some terrible decisions, but he died in 1976.

唉，还能说什么呢？

Alas, what is there to say?

哇。

Wow.

我只是觉得，我们想在一个小时内涵盖整个中国历史的雄心注定会失败，所以我认为我们应该结束了。

Just I think I think that our ambition to cover the whole sweep of Chinese history in under an hour is doomed to fail, so I think we need to to finish.

我能提一个问题吗？这个问题能帮助我把共产主义时期与之前的一切联系起来。

Can I can I just have one one question which will which will tie in with try and bundle this in the the communist period with everything that's gone before?

习近平对共产主义之前的中国、对皇帝们持什么态度？

What is Xi's attitude to the pre communist state, to the emperors?

如今在中国，共产党是否对这段历史感到自豪？

Is it in China now, the communist party, is there pride in that?

是否存在一种连续性的认同感？

Is there a sense of of of continuity?

是的。

Yeah.

确实如此。

There absolutely is.

习近平将中华文明的伟大性作为当前政权全球立场的核心支柱之一。

President Xi has made a plank, one of the planks of the current regime's stance in the world as the greatness of Chinese civilization.

他曾在一本新版《论语》的推荐语中被引用，说我们应该都读一读这部经典，它对中国历史至关重要。他是一位热衷于研读历史的人，而且我们在这方面有过一些有趣的经历。

He's actually been quoted in a wraparound for a new version of Confucius, you know, saying, you know, we should all read this text, it's absolutely essential to Chinese history, and he is a great reader of history, and I mean, we had an interesting thing on this.

你知道，我的书源于我们制作的一系列纪录片《中国故事》，这些影片在中国上线后数小时内就获得了中文翻译，尽管片尾涉及天安门广场等内容很快被删减，但我们仍获得了巨大反响，还被《中国日报》、新华社、《人民日报》等媒体采访。在一次关于媒体、电视与历史的大型会议上，习近平提到我们的影片，他说：‘我不确定这是否是我特别想宣传的内容，多米尼克，从历史的角度出发，在一个精彩的历史播客中，他提到这些英国人制作了名为《中国故事》的系列片，非常有趣，他们做得很好，但我们自己需要更好地讲述中国的故事。'

You know, my book comes out of a series of films we made called The Story of China, and these films were within hours available online in China with Chinese translations of them, even though there's stuff at the end of Tiananmen Square and all that which fairly rapidly got cut out, and we got a really big response and we were interviewed by, you know, I was interviewed by China Daily and Xinhua News, People's Daily, all this sort of stuff, and President Xi in a big conference about the media and television and history talked about our films said, I'm not sure this is something I particularly want to advertise Dominic, Dominic, in the interest of history on a great historical podcast, and he said that these Brits had done this series called The Story of China, and it was very interesting, and they did a very good job, he said, but we need to tell the story of China better.

我们需要更好地讲述

We need to tell

它更好，

it better,

所以我们必须向这些电影制作人学习，作为一名从事电影工作的人，这对我来说是一个非常有趣的维度。

so we must learn from these filmmakers, and that's been a real working as somebody who works in film, that's been a really interesting dimension to this.

他们对历史非常执着。

They're pretty obsessive about their history.

去年我拍了一部关于伟大诗人杜甫的电影。

I did a film last year about the great poet Dufu.

精彩的电影，

Fabulous film,

我的朋友。

my friend.

这位唐代诗人，我的朋友们再次发现，这部电影在中国上线后几小时内就获得了大量关注，北京的朋友周一早上给我打电话说，你不会相信的，但中共中央纪律检查委员会——这是共产党政府中最强大的委员会，他们主导着习近平推行的严厉反腐运动，你知道，他们负责调查习近平和其他所有人并将其关押——他们在其网站上发表了一篇关于杜甫的评论，提到由此引发的问题涉及儒家伦理、杜甫对国家的忠诚以及杜甫的其他方面，而我们必须问的是：为什么我们在反腐斗争中失败了？

The Tang dynasty poet, and friends in again it went online within hours in China, and friends in Beijing phoned me up on a Monday morning saying you're not going to believe this, but the Central Commission for Discipline of the Communist Party, which is the most powerful commission in in in the communist government, they they run the ruthless anti corruption campaign that president Xi is doing, you know, they're the people who do both Xi and all these people and lock them up, and they've got an editorial page on their website saying there's been this very about Dufo, and you know the questions that arise from it are about Confucian ethics and Dufu's loyalty to the state and Dufu's this and the other, and the question we have to ask is why have we failed in our anti corruption drive?

为什么？

Why?

答案是，与杜甫不同，我们的党员干部并未内化这些重要的儒家美德，比如文明、 blah blah blah，还有对国家的忠诚，北京的朋友们觉得这太好笑了，你知道，连党自己都在说，我们能从历史中学到什么？

And the answer is that unlike Dufu, our party cadres have not internalized these essential Confucian virtues of civility and blah blah blah, you know, and loyalty to the state, and our friends in Beijing thought this was hilarious, you know, that even the party themselves were saying, you know, what do we learn from history?

因为中国历史上存在巨大的危险。

Because there are great dangers in Chinese history.

当然，你会喜欢你的播客，因为你知道，历史是极具力量的。

You will be pleased on your podcast, of course, that history, as you know, is potent.

第一位皇帝活埋了史官，烧毁了历史书籍，担心过去会玷污现在。

The first emperor buried the historians alive and burned the history books for fear that the past might discredit the present.

这是

It's

一个令人恐惧的先例。

a terrifying precedent.

玷污现在，没错，这贯穿了整个中国历史，你跟任何人交谈，读任何人的著作，他们都会说，当然，当你回望太宗的 blah blah blah，你知道我说的是什么。

Discrediting the present, yeah, and of course that's the case all through Chinese history, and anybody you talk to, anybody you read, they say well of course, you know, when you look back to Taizong's blah blah blah, knows what you mean.

你讲述一个严重腐败或不公的故事，每个人都能明白你的意思。

You tell a story of gross corruption or of injustice and everybody knows what you mean.

这是大约一千年前的事，但讲的却是当下。

It's about a thousand years ago, but it's about now.

迈克尔，这真是一个完美的结束方式。

Michael, that is an absolutely perfect note on which to end.

我真的很遗憾我们没时间好好探讨共产主义时期，多米尼克。

I I I'm disappointed we haven't had time to really to cover the communist period, Dominic.

也许我们可以

Maybe we could

再做一期，当然。

do another Yeah.

重点讲讲文化大革命、邓小平和现代时期，所有这些内容。

Focus on Cultural Revolution, Deng Xiaoping, Modern Period, all of that.

但迈克尔，我真不知该如何感谢你才好。

But Michael, I can't thank you enough.