（下）和欧洲农民起义相比，为什么在中国就那么成功？ [美国媒体]

Why were Chinese peasant revolts so successful compared to their European counterparts?

和欧洲农民起义相比，为什么中国的农民起义那么成功？（下）




Timothy Soo, read about Chinese history since I was a kid
Answered Dec 5
Due to its geographical location of having large rivers and fertile soil, the Chinese civilization (throughout its history) is predominantly an agrarian society in which the peasant is not only the majority of the population but a supermajority. For that, the economy is largely dependent on its agriculture production by these peasants. That also means the finances of any Chinese empire is still largely depended on tax revenues from peasants.

由于地理上拥有大河和肥沃的土壤，中国文明主要是农耕社会，农民不仅占据人口的大多数，而且是绝对多数。因此，经济很大程度上依赖这些农民的农业生产。这也意味着中国任何帝国的财政很大程度依赖从农民那里获得的税收收入。



The economy of many European states is dominated by trade. Many European states are always in short supplies of certain materials and so they often trade with one another. So a poor harvest in a European state can be often made up by trading other goods for grain. So if a revolt were to occur in any European state, if often comes from a bad trading economy where people begin to feel the shortage of certain important materials such as grain. From there, you will often see many major political decisions made in Europe are heavily influenced by the need to preserve the trading economy.
All in all, it goes back to the geography of China and Europe, which determines what kind of economy each respective area will have.

所以很多欧洲国家的经济是依赖于贸易。很多欧洲国家通常都缺乏某些物资，所以他们之间互相贸易。所以一个欧洲国家如果收成不好，就会通过贸易的方式用自己的其他产品换取粮食。所以如果欧洲任何国家有发生起义的话，一般都是因为贸易经济做的不好，人们开始感觉到某些物资比如粮食不够了。因此，你会发现欧洲的很多重要的政治决策都受到贸易经济的严重影响。
总之，这是中国和欧洲的地理差异造成的，决定了各自地区所拥有的经济模式。



2
there were some elites who were small land owners or businessmen in every village and town, the ruling class knew those people would be dangerous if they became leaders or consultants of the peasant revolts, that was why imperial examination system important for maintaining stability by corrupting those elites. those elites had privilege by participating in the imperial examination system, they had no interest joining in peasant revolts since they were parts of old system . Without help of these elites, the ending of peasant revolts usually were crushed out or being tool that other clans changed dynasty.

2、在每个村庄和小镇，有一些精英，他们是小地主或者商人，统治阶级知道如果这些人成为农民起义的领袖或者顾问，那会很危险，所以科举制度很重要，可以通过腐化这些精英来维持稳定。这些精英拥有特权参与科举考试，没有兴趣加入农民起义，因为他们是旧系统的一部分。没有了这些精英的帮助，农民起义最终不是被粉碎就是成为其他集团改朝换代的工具。

Adam Johnson, UX/product consultant
Answered Dec 6
I don't think they were any more or less successful. In fact, it'd be very irresponsible of me to say it was one way or the other. Simply off the top of my head I can name far more peasant revolts succeeding long enough to result in regime change in Europe. However, when we're talking about millions dying that's the exclusive territory of China.

我不认为中国的农民起义更成功或更不成功。实际上，我能想出更多的欧洲农民起义所导致的改朝换代。然而，如果说到死亡的人数，那非中国莫属。

But, I am still here writing… that is because I know the answer anyway. The answer is all about scale. When you don't have millions to die in a rebellion in the first place then that's rather difficult for things to progress that far.

答案出在规模上。如果在一场起义中没有死个几百万人，那么你很难让事情有太大的进展。



Chinese education on the other hand, are pretty much open to everyone and the national examine system (yes, it existed even back then) ensured that are good motivation even for peasants to get an education. This means once a peasant rebellion occurs, they have no issue acquired educated talents to fill in the position of administrators and thus able to establish a function government.

而中国教育相当开放，每个人都可以接受教育，国家考试系统（是的，当时就存在了）确保了农民都有接受教育的积极性。这意味着一旦农名起义发生，他们就能找到受过教育的人才来填补政府职位空缺，从而建立一个功能性的新政府。