鹰酱眼中的兔兔 第一章：前奏
Chapter 1 : A Prelude
Somewhere more or less close to you, there is a prison. And in that prison a business transaction took place today, with the currency used being anything from Ramen to cigarettes. Prison economies are frowned upon that justice systems mostly just tried to destroy them they’re also a testament to something else. The power of one of our most basic instinct, the drive to want stuff. Wanting stuff has been part of the human experience since as far back as we can tell and when people want other people’s stuff, there are two ways of doing so. You can take their stuff or pay for their stuff. And if you pay for their stuff, that means that the money you spend would increase someone else’s wealth, which is why states throughout most of history decided to bring up strict trade barriers and criminalized trade between competing empires all except for one. Because that one was the one that everyone was buying from.
For almost 2000 years, the world revolved around China and all those empires, kingdoms and republics that banned trade amongst themselves all traded with China. In Europe, the Middle East and America, our understanding of history is dominated by the Western Hemisphere of the world with an emphasis on the last 200 years. However, you gain a lot of insight by viewing human history from a Eurasian perspective, specifically the geopolitical maneuvering around China. The Chinese market and Chinese products all dominated European, Middle East and even African economies for almost 2000 years. The Chinese had the world’s largest labour pool, the world’s most efficient state and the world’s most wanted products, silk, tea, salt, sugar, porcelain and spices were China’s main exports and the only payment they accepted was silver. European, Asian and African states fought wars over the control of these lucrative trade routes. Greeks, Romans, Persians, Byzantiums, Venetians, Indians, Mongols, Arabs, Turks, many of the wars we know from out history books were fought to gain a more favourable position by conquering trade routes or ports in the world order: The Eurasian world, in which China was the dominant economic power.
And during those squabbles, a big game-changer happened during the 1300s, the Ottomans gained control over the trade routes between Europe and China, and didn’t lose control over them for hundred of years. Europeans didn’t like trading with Muslims, let’s alone paying tariffs to them, so they tried finding ways around. The English and Dutch tried sailing around Russia, where they only found...more Russia. The Spanish sailed West, finding a place they’ve never heard (America) of before and the Portuguese sailed around Africa. All of them did this for one reason: find new trade routes to China. And only one of them succeeded (Portuguese). This new trade route meant that the Portuguese had to pay no more tariffs and taxes as they would have through other trade routes and was so profitable that they tried to keep it secret from others, which of course didn’t work and others immediately tried taking it from them. The Spaniards uncovered silver in the new world, which they used in their transactions with China. Eventually even gaining a footholds in the Philippines to be closer to that trade route but it was the New World where all the silver was mined that ultimately would lead to a change in the world order. Settlers who started to grow crops on what turned out to be some of the most fertile lands in the world started producing surplus that could sustain a large population thereby increasing the labour pool of the Western Hemisphere, which through innovation spurned on to expand trade, made products that decreased the reliance on those far eastern markets. The English and Dutch noticed that you could just occupy India and Indonesia rather than buy their products through the Chinese which further decreased China’s political dominance. Suddenly, China seemed far less important and so did the trade routes to it. Different trade routes to India, the Caribbean, Malacca, the Gold Coast, Brazil and North America became more important and by the time Europeans learned to make their own porcelain, China’s relevance in global trade and affairs was getting eroded. With Industrialization and increase in education, the geopolitical center of the world shifted away form a Eurasian world order to a more Euro-American world order. That shift completed itself in 1839 when the British Navy forced the Chinese to open its market and trade with them on their terms. The predominant global powers from that moment on are to be found in the Western Hemisphere and engaged in squabbles and conflict over which once of them was the most dominant, with one of them eventually ending up on top.
There are many names for the time period staring in the 1800s to today. Pax Britannia, Pax Americana, Modern Age, Space Age, Information Age, Atomic Age, Machine Age, Age of Ideology, Contemporary Age, Plastic Age and more. Whatever we name it, its a result of European expansion, innovations and exploration starting in the 1400s with the initial goal of finding new trade routes to China and it ended with Europeans not buying, but taking their stuff and their geopolitical influence, thereby ending an almost 2000 year long geopolitical world order in which China stood at the center. And whatever you may call the centuries of European global dominance, you shouldn’t forget one important aspect of it but we often tend to forget and many don’t even know, the Chinese also have a name for it.
“The Century of Humiliation”.
第一章：前奏
离你或近或远的地方，有个监狱。而每一天，狱中都会进行着大大小小的商业交易；使用的货币可以是拉面、香烟等一系列物品。监狱里的经济体系为人所不齿，正义体系一般会想尽办法阻挠此类交易。然而，它们的存在证明了一个事实：人类本能的力量，即，对物质的欲望。对物质的渴求是人类自古以来就有的。当你想要别人的东西，有两个途径能达到目的——掠夺或购买。若你选择了购买，就要向对方支付钱财，这一笔钱会增加对方的财富。
这就是为什么，历史上的大多数国/家，都要在拥有竞争关系的帝/国间竖立贸易壁垒并且把这种贸易定为犯罪行为......但是，有一个帝/国的货物，它们是断不会拒绝的。因为它们都需要向这个国/家买东西。2000年以来，世界围绕着中/国转(此处代清的脸突然从黑暗里露了出来，蛮带感）。那些帝/国、王/国和共/和/国不允许内部通商，但都和中/国通商。在欧/洲、中/东和美/洲，我们对历史的了解集中在近两百年的西半球。然而，若你从欧/亚大/陆的角度看待历史，就能洞悉很多宝贵的知识，尤其是针对中/国的地/缘/政/治策略。两千年来，中/国市场和产品充斥着欧/洲、中/东，和非/洲。中/国有着世上最大的劳动储备、全球最高效的政/府，以及火爆全球的产品。它们的丝绸、茶叶、盐、糖、瓷器和香料令世界各地的人们趋之若鹜，而他们唯一接受的付款就是白银。欧/洲、亚/洲、非/洲的国/家为控制这些盈利颇丰的贸易通道大打出手。希/腊人、罗/马/人、波/斯人、拜/占/庭人、威/尼/斯人、印/度人、蒙/古人、阿/拉/伯人、土/耳/其人都参与过。我们历史书上熟知的那些战争大半都是国家为了控制世界秩序顶端的欧/亚大/陆的贸易路线或港口而擦枪走火的。欧/亚大/陆上富豪榜榜首的国家？中/国。
在这些小打小闹中，一件颠覆游戏规则的事发生了。十四世纪，奥/斯/曼人控制住了欧/亚大/陆的通贸渠道，且在此后几百年里都牢牢控制着这一块。欧/洲人不喜欢与穆/斯/林做生意，还有向他们交关税？哦，甭谈了！于是，他们想方设法避开。英/国人与荷/兰人试图绕过俄/罗/斯，可是搞了半天，却只发现......更多俄/罗/斯。西/班/牙人开始了“西行记”发现了一个从未知晓的地方（新世界 ）、葡/萄/牙人跑到非/洲探路。他们的折腾（带来了大航海时代）只为一个原因：找到通往中/国的新贸易渠道。只有一个国/家成功了——葡/萄/牙。这就意味着，他们无需再缴付任何关税和税务。有了这天大的好处，该/国自然会想尽一切办法保密。但用脚趾想都知道，别的国/家不会乐见其壮大，它们立刻红了眼，与之争多控制权。西/班/牙人在“新世界”发现了大量白银，用之缴付中/国货的钱。后来，它在菲/律/宾建立了自己的据点，更接近贸易通道。然而，白银遍地的“新世界”，才是颠覆一切的主人翁。移民者在世界上最丰饶的土地上耕种，产生了大量盈余，养活了更多人口，使西半球的劳动储备有了大幅度的提升。如此一来，创新起飞，贸易增加，我们对远在东半球的市场依赖度因此降低。不久，英/国人和荷/兰人发觉，它们只需侵占印/度和印/度/尼/西/亚，根本不用老老实实通过他们这中间商来获取中/国货，这让中/国的ZZ重要性进一步消退。突然之间，中/国显得不那么重要，连带通往中/国的贸易渠道也不再炙手可热。通往印/度、加/勒/比、马/六/甲、黄/金/海/岸、巴/西、北/美的贸易路线变得更重要。在欧/洲人学会自己制陶后，中/国在国/际/贸/易和事宜中举足轻重的地位遭到侵蚀。随着工业化和教育程度的提升，世界地/缘/政/治的聚光灯从欧/亚大/陆转移到欧/美大/陆。在1839年，英/国的坚船利炮打开中/国大门，强迫他们接受英/国的贸易条款。至此，这个权/利的转移过程已经落幕。从那时起，西/半/球开始强势崛/起，它们垄断了当时的世界大国（世界大国都在西半球）。那些国家各种打来打去，为了霸/主之位冲突不断。终于，一个国/家脱颖而出（美/利/坚）。
从十九世纪到现代这数百年的时间，人们给它冠上了各种各样的名字：大/不/列/颠世纪、美/利/坚世纪、摩登时代、太空时代、信息时代、原子时代、机械时代、意/识/形/态时代、当代、塑料时代等。无论我们怎么称呼它，它其实是欧罗巴人从十五世纪开始为寻求通往中/国的路而进行的一系列扩张、创新和探索的结果。以接近中/国为起点，以颠覆中/国主导的世/界/秩/序为结束。欧/洲人对中/国的东西进行了掠夺，而不是购买，随之坠落的是天朝上国两千年来积攒的国际影/响/力和骄傲。无论你怎么称呼这段欧/洲拥有绝对霸权、傲视全球的时期，你都不该（但很多人彻底遗忘或压根不知）忽视一个重要的事实，那就是中/国人对它也有一个称呼，一个举国上下都耳熟能详的名字。
它叫：“百年国耻”。
总共有七个部分，终于搞完第一部分！有啥想法可以留言告诉我～
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