information warfare is an extremely important method of warfare in the past and in the future. In order to obtain information about the war, people also set up a special intelligence department. For spy warfare, it can also be attributed to information warfare. If one day there are aliens attacking the earth, it is just that they will get information from each other earlier than us.
In the encyclopedia entry, this is how information warfare is explained:
Information warfare is a struggle to seize and maintain the right to control information. It also refers to the struggle for the right to obtain, control and use information on the battlefield. Right, a series of combat activities carried out through the use and destruction of the enemy’s information system and protection of one’s own side.
Back to the subject of this article, the author believes that in the 19th century, European powers dared to attack the Qing empire, and it was precisely because of the photography technique that they obtained more detailed information about the Qing empire, and they dared to follow the time when they knew themselves and the enemy. Big Brother Britain launched a war in the East.
Qing dynasty officers and soldiers through the lens of John Thomson, around 1868
You should know that before the middle of the 19th century, people have always respected the ancient East. In the eyes of the European powers, the "Oriental" Ottoman The empire is very exotic, and the " Far East" regions, such as the Qing Empire, Southeast Asia, Japan and even India, are not only exotic, but also very mysterious and powerful. According to popular statements on the Internet, China's economy in 1840 was very strong, and its economic strength might not lose to that of Britain.
Thanks to some adventurers in the 19th century, European talents have some preliminary understanding of the Middle East and the Far East. But in the writings of these adventurers, whether it is local paintings or written records, they are extremely unreliable. In addition, due to different customs and habits, the missionaries in eastern Asia were weak in describing the local customs.
Before the invention of photography, the Europeans who were active in East Asia never caused a sensation in Europe. Marco Polo was an exception, but this person wrote extremely unreliable content.Fortunately, the Europeans believed it, starting with Marco Polo. Europeans always thought that China is full of gold, and all kinds of silk satin do not need money, it is simply heaven.
In 1839, Frenchman Daguerre invented silver plate photography. When this technology was first introduced, it was meant to record portraits of big people. No one knows what Beethoven who died in 1827 looked like, but we all know the famous portrait of Chopin before his death in 1849. Lincoln , Bismarck, Alexander Humboldt, Kaiser Wilhelm I, etc. all left portrait photos.
Li Hongzhang and Bismarck
Since then, more and more travellers have traveled and explored in foreign countries with bulky cameras, and brought real information about the locality to Europeans by the way. It was from this time that photography exposed the role of an accomplice in the imperialist war .
We know that the Opium War was the British forcibly attacking the Qing Dynasty for commercial interests. At that time, it was only the British country that was interested in invading the Qing empire. Moreover, its ambitions were not so arrogant as to directly approach the imperial capital. There are many reasons for this. One of them, in Yinchong's view, is very crucial, that is, Britain has not figured out the foundation of the Qing Dynasty.
After the Opium War, more and more British, French, and Germans came to China. Some photographers also came with cameras. They shot everywhere in cities and villages, recording the real Chinese society at that time , Including the suffering of the bottom of society, and the most critical opium museum. Europeans discovered for the first time that, unlike Marco Polo and the records of various missionaries, how desolate the real China was at this time.
After these photographers returned to Europe, they made a collection of photos taken in China and publicly exhibited them. For example, the British photographer John Thomson (John Thomson) created in China in 1868 and published "Images of China and Chinese People" in the UK.It records the vast landscape of in China at that time, the royal family and ruling class of the Qing Dynasty, businessmen and economic activities, daily life, and the faces of men, women and children .
China under the lens of John Thomson, with the Opium Museum in the lower right corner, around 1868.
This type of photography brought two very different consequences. One is that those photos that show suffering, such as the Chinese Opium Museum, completely shattered Westerners’ beautiful imagination of the Eastern mythological world; the other is that these pictures can make people abandon the noble and barbaric traditional thinking, and the foreign Real details are known. In the United Kingdom, there are of course some people who think that the war against China is a barbaric act, but real photos tell them that their previous respect to the Eastern world can actually be less polite.
With the help of photos, the British also saw the fruits of their colonial rule, which may have strengthened the determination of some colonial rule.
With real photos, now, in addition to the United Kingdom, other small European countries have begun to become confident, and they no longer fear the Qing empire. Therefore, first, Britain and France launched the Second Opium War of in 1856, and attacked the imperial capital of the Qing Dynasty in 1860, and destroyed Old Summer Palace . Then, in 1900, more Western powers formed teams to carve up China. Without photography, who would believe that the vast Qing empire was so weak in reality?
Women in the lens of John Thomson, around 1868
Of course, we also know that photography has had a very serious flaw since its invention, that is, it can be edited and processed later. Therefore, to a certain extent, photography can manipulate reality. Photography-photos can be a good excuse. The person hiding behind the camera can arbitrarily explain the content of the photo and use it to do something against morality and justice. Including starting a war.
The 20th-century philosopher Susan Sontag commented on photography in his famous book "On Photography": "...the act of taking pictures still has a certain predatory meaning.Photographing people is assaulting people, seeing them as they never thought of themselves, understanding things they never knew about themselves; it turns people into objects that can be symbolically owned. Just as the camera is the sublimation of a gun, shooting someone is also a sublimation murder—a soft murder, which fits a sad and frightened era. In the end, people may learn to use more cameras and fewer guns to vent their aggressiveness, at the cost of making the world's images more widespread.
For the European powers more than a hundred years ago, photography was undoubtedly a great "information war". Through a large number of detailed photographs, we can fully understand the social organization, scientific level, and education level of China at that time. Even military mobilization capabilities, etc. Therefore, for a series of wars of aggression against China, photography was a weapon more powerful than guns in the 19th century.
(This article was originally created by Yin Chong, please do not reprint)
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