爲什麼中國沒有像歐洲人那樣殖民全世界
Because we seriously believed we had everything. Think about the stuff the Spanish and the English people wanted when they sailed off:
Spices? Had those
香料？有了Silk? We basically invented it.
絲綢？是我們發明的。
Gold? Plenty!
黃金？太多了！Silver? Shit load of.
白銀？到處都是。Farm land? Miles and miles and miles…
農場？一望無際……Large amount of cheap labor? More than enough.
大量的廉價勞動力？供不應求。Natural resources? Which kind? Never mind… we have them all.
自然資源？哪一種？無所謂……我們都有。And on the flip side:
另一方面：Religious oppression? Nope, don’t care about religion. You believe whatever shit you want, just obey our laws and don’t rebel against government.
宗教壓迫？不，不關心宗教。你可以相信一切你想相信的，只要遵守我們的法律並且不要造反。Need land for penal colony? Nope, we execute our prisoners each fall, the rest get to serve in the army.
需要土地作爲流放地？不，我們每年秋天處死我們的囚犯，其餘的去服兵役。Land too poor, can’t support local population? Nope. OK, some lands might be poor, there’re definitely bad years, but moving around usually means cross the mountain, not sailing across the ocean.
土地太貧瘠，無法支撐本地人口？不。好吧，一些土地可能是很貧瘠，肯定有荒年，但四處走動通常意味着翻山越嶺，而不是渡海跨洋。Do you know what China did need at the time?
你想知道當時中國需要什麼？Trade. So we sent out a big fleet to discover trade routes, and we brought back shit China didn't have….
貿易。所以我們派出了一支大艦隊去探索貿易路線，然後帶回了一堆中國沒有的狗屎……Giraffes!
長頸鹿！Zheng He be like: Your Highness! Just look at it!!! Isn’t it cute? Have you ever seen such thing before?
鄭和：陛下！看吶！它不可愛嗎？您之前見過這玩意兒嗎？And the Ming emperor be like: Hell No!!! Love this shit! I’m gonna name it 長頸鹿 (long neck deer) because it looks like a deer but has long neck! Totally worth the trip! Here’s more money, go bring back more cute stuff and open some ports so we can trade with them.
大明皇帝：當然不！！朕就喜歡這口味的！朕要把它叫做長頸鹿，因爲它長得像鹿卻有個長脖子！這一趟太值了！給你更多的錢，去給朕帶回更多可愛的東西，然後開放港口，如此便可與外夷通有無了。We don’t need colonies, we don’t need labors and economic crops to support our dying economy back home.
我們不需要殖民地，我們不需要勞動力和經濟作物來支撐我們垂死的經濟回到家。So, we didn’t colonize places.
所以，我們沒有殖民地。Didn't the emperor who followed the one who commissioned those fleets end up stopping most naval trade and expeditions, essentially slowing Chinese economic growth and cutting it off from the world? He adopted a very “China first” strategy and wanted to focus on domestic issues… but as a result ended up scrapping one of the most powerful naval merchant fleets in the world and closing China off to technological innovation that was happening in other nation states.
這個皇帝不是聽從諫言，終止了船隊的海上貿易和探險活動，根本上減緩了中國的經濟發展，並使得它與世隔絕嗎？他接受了一個十分“中國優先”的戰略，希望關注國內問題……但是因此廢棄了世界上最強大的海上商船隊之一，使得中國無法進行發生在其他國家的技術創新。Full disclosure: I have a thing for giraffes. I buy my baby all things giraffe or giraffe-patterned. Does he like giraffes? I don't know—He's 2 months old!
坦誠地說：我有很多和長頸鹿有關的東西。我給我的寶寶買了很多長頸鹿的或有長頸鹿圖案的東西。他喜歡長頸鹿嗎？我不知道——他才兩個月！
