The second volume is full of glory and splendor in the capital, and the spirit is full of vitality in the foggy city. Chapter 283: Atlantic Ocean (Part 2)
The subtitle of this chapter: It is the Great West, and even more so the Atlantic Ocean.
Chaim Weizmann took a few bites of the rice dumplings, drank a sip of tea, and asked, "Dr. Yuan, I've been watching a lot of your China lately..."
"Seres, I personally prefer the name Silk Country." Our Master Yuan corrected.
The chemist shrugged his shoulders and said, "Well, I've read a little bit about the history of your country of Seres. Of course, it's because of the history you talked about the other day..."
The history that Yuan Yanshu talked about is naturally "alternative history".
He glanced at the two women present and changed his tone, "I can't help but wonder, Seres was such a glorious civilization in history, why has it declined to this point?"
Weizmann said sincerely, "I really don't mean anything else. I just want to hear the opinions of an outstanding political economist like Dr. Yuan. If you mind..."
"No, I don't mind..."
“Snap!”
Master Yuan lit a cigar and said with a smile, "On the contrary, I would be happy to try to answer this question."
He took a long drag on his cigarette, pointed to the sea outside the balcony, and said, "And I think the answer Mr. Weizmann wants is in the Atlantic Ocean where we are!"
"In fact, the Mediterranean Sea is also a subsidiary sea of the Atlantic Ocean ."
"Then the European civilization that developed along the Mediterranean coast is the only maritime civilization on Earth..."
Yuan Hongjian is an economist after all, and he's no stranger to history. Naturally, he has his own historical perspective.
His views are slightly different from the "mainstream" views. He believes that the development of Western civilization is not accidental, but inevitable.
He also believed that the development of Western civilization was interrupted or distorted several times by accidental factors, which is why it appears Eastern... In fact, it is Chinese civilization that looks so unique and became a beacon of mankind in the Middle Ages.
Of course, one thing must be made clear: he is really not a foreign slave.
Western civilization, which developed along the Mediterranean coast, has a unique advantage over Chinese civilization, which originated in the Yellow River basin: the Mediterranean.
Because this is an extra-large bathtub.
The Yellow River, the mother river of the Chinese nation, has indeed brought fertile land and abundant water, but at the same time it has also caused her people to suffer a lot. Since the ancient time of Dayu, the Seres people have been constantly controlling the floods.
The middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, in particular, have historically experienced constant flooding and course changes, often referred to as "bursting every three years and changing course every hundred years." According to statistics, in the thousands of years before 1946, the Yellow River burst its banks and flooded 1,593 times, with 26 major course changes. The northern leg of the Yellow River even contributed to one man-made flood.
It is possible that this is the reason why the Seres people put their technology points into "large-scale projects".
There is no such thing in the Mediterranean. As long as you have enough courage and luck, you may be able to cross this big bathtub by making a more solid bathtub.
With such a big bathtub, material and ideological exchanges are easier to occur, and it is easier to form a unified political and economic entity.
So naturally there was a Roman Empire around the Mediterranean.
However, anyone who has read a little about the history of the Roman Empire knows that this Mediterranean empire had many problems in its institutional design since "Octavian the True", especially the inheritance system.
Because the Roman inheritance system was no system, and no system was the worst system.
The so-called "principate" of the Roman Empire was different from the naked and open monarchy in the East. It was a secretive and shy monarchy, a principality established by the Senate granting titles.
This meant that the Roman emperor could not dictate the legal terms governing the succession of the throne. Consequently, the Roman principate created ample opportunity for powerful military commanders to influence the throne. Ultimately, the Roman army even deposed and enthroned emperors at will.
In the 364 years between Augustus and Constantine, a total of 59 people were granted the title of emperor, with the throne changing hands every six years on average. Of these, only 12 emperors died of natural causes, while the rest died unnatural deaths, leaving the empire in chaos.
Were the early and middle periods of the great unified dynasties in Chinese history ever so chaotic? This clearly shows that this is a systemic problem.
Our Master Yuan thus came up with a very convincing historical deduction: if the Roman Empire hadn't been so chaotic, and the Han Dynasty had been a bit more enterprising, then it's very likely that the two great empires at the two ends of the world island might have come into conflict over a thousand years earlier...
Turning our attention to the other side of the world island, Chinese civilization is a river civilization, and river civilizations are not very concerned about things outside the river basins, nor do they have the need to care.
Especially once the vibrant early period of the dynasty has passed and the bureaucratic system has become consolidated, the ruling group will lack the motivation to explore outward.
Moreover, the Seres were not a civilization of one great river, but a civilization of two great rivers plus countless small rivers.
So Yuan Hongjian came up with two historical viewpoints that would be criticized to death by the "imperial Han" in later generations.
First , if the Manchu Qing Dynasty had not entered the Pass, whether a Han dynasty would have broken through the limitations of river civilization is a question worth exploring.
Of course, the Han dynasty's transformation into a nation-state was certainly much smoother than that of the Qing Dynasty.
Second, the rise of the West and the decline of the East were both inevitable. It was just a coincidence that the two happened at the same time.
In other words, according to the "normal course" of history, the two should have developed together and then collided with each other to create brilliant sparks.
For example, Confucius and Aristotle both lived in the "axial age" of mankind. At that point in time, the progress of Eastern and Western civilizations was consistent.
For example, the "first empires" of the East and the West - the Han Dynasty and the Roman Empire - were established at about the same time.
However, various accidental factors caused a huge time difference. The Chinese civilization, which lacked the spirit of exploration, did not explore the New World when it was developing, nor did it wait for the visit of Western civilization of the same level; but when it declined, it happened to encounter Western civilization, which was exploring the New World and thriving at the same time.
"It's like an elderly master with a glorious past encountering a young fighter who's just starting out. Even though the former has extensive combat experience, there's still a high chance he'll be defeated by the latter."
"From the perspective of all of humanity, the only regret is that these two should have met at the peak of their powers. That would have been the most exciting battle."
Our Master Yuan snuffed out his cigar, sighed, and said, "From a Seresian's perspective, I can only say that all this is God's will..."
"This is all God's will!"
