The Chinese take face very seriously, and even if they encounter shameful things, they have to "make a name for it" and find a very gorgeous excuse to explain it.
According to the book "Qing Barnyard Banknotes": In the late Qing Dynasty, China was repeatedly bullied by foreign countries, and almost every battle was defeated. But there is a phenomenon that when the official documents at that time talked about these matters, they never mentioned "indemnity", but replaced it with the word "compensation". Why do you do that? In fact, it is just for the sake of face. The act of "indemnity" is a shame, but "compensation" is different. Although it is also to give money to the other party, the pension is a kind of lofty gesture - "You are very pitiful, I will give you a little money", so that the heavenly dynasty can save face.
When the Sino-Japanese Sino-Japanese War broke out, a man named Wu Dazeng wrote an essay. In this article, Wu Dazeng talked about the Opium War and the Sino-French War. As we all know, in these two wars, China lost both of them and paid indemnities. Wu Dachong also admitted the indemnity, but he said that it was not indemnity, but that it was not easy for the heaven to take pity on these barbarians who came from afar, so he used both grace and power, and gave them a little pension... Do you understand? Wu Dachong's point of view actually represents the mentality of the Qing government. Obviously, the indemnity is a shameful thing, but it must be said that it is to comfort the other party.
In AD 1127, the Jin soldiers who went south took the two emperors of the Song Dynasty, Song Huizong and Song Qinzong, into the icy northern country. ". But such a thing that everyone in the world knows, when it is written in the book, it is hidden. In the Southern Song Dynasty, there was a man named Wang Mingqing who wrote a book titled "After the Squatting", in which Volume 4 wrote about the change of Jingkang, and used this text to introduce the two emperors being taken away: "Catch the Second Sage (Song Huizong, Song Qinzong) Beishou, Peng Yi has no name, so he has to stay in the inner court." You see, "being caught in the North Country" has become "Northern Hunting" here. What is Beishou? Literally means "Going to hunt in the north". It was obvious that he was taken away by others, but he had to say he went hunting. How similar is this to stealing a bell!
The same thing happened in the Qing Dynasty. In the "Gengzi National Incident" in 1900, the Eight-Power Allied Forces besieged Beijing, and the Empress Dowager Cixi fled with Emperor Guangxu. "--to the west to hunt. The "Premier's Office" was a central agency established by the Qing government to handle foreign affairs and foreign affairs. It was established with the approval of Emperor Xianfeng on January 20, 1861. Its responsibilities were equivalent to the current Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but the "Premier's Office" was actually its Its abbreviation, its full name is "the Prime Minister's National Affairs Yamen", why is it called such a name? In fact, it is still for the sake of maintaining face. It is to fool the common people, to lie to the common people and say: Look, the "premier's yamen for the affairs of various countries" is to manage the affairs of various countries. The prime minister's yamen has existed for 40 years, and in the 27th year of Guangxu (1901), it was estimated that it would not be able to deceive any more, so it was changed to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and no longer "manages the affairs of various countries".
This "elegantly called" mentality is, to put it bluntly, a kind of Ah Q mentality, a general mentality that has been accumulated and hard to return due to thousands of years of accumulated malpractices.
