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第五章 NEW GOLD MOUNTAIN
从土著人说起。这时候他们和中国某时是一样的,各种充足,可以隔绝生活。但是随着人类脚步的前进,isolation与大趋势相反的。
当年名将俞大猷“准确地指出,倭寇的特长是娴习陆战,水战的技术反而低劣。俞大猷主张,以有效的战船和火炮歼灭倭寇于海上,根本不让他们有登陆的机会。在战术原则上,在他所著的书里也明白指出:‘海上之战无他术,大船胜小船,大铳胜小铳,多船胜寡船,多铳胜寡铳而已。’
但纵使俞大猷的声望和战绩都十分卓著,这些有益的建议却始终没有被采纳,因而壮志未酬,赍恨以殁。”
然则俞大猷本人也不可能理解,他的建议,所牵涉的问题和将要引起的后果已经超出军备问题而及于政治。这种为个人力量所不可抗拒的社会因素,使俞大猷的计划毫无实现的希望。除此以外,俞大猷计划中所创建的精锐部队,他们领取优厚的军饷,又不能和社会上的其他部门对流,那么这样一个浮游在社会上的军事团体非但不能解决上述的社会问题,相反还会引起新的社会问题。再往下推求,俞大猷要求建立现代化的海军以拒敌于国门之外,作战的目的,则在消灭国际贸易,也和世界历史趋势相反。”
所以确实顺应历史趋势是比某个局部的军事正确政治正确理论正确等等均是不可抗力了。
The Aboriginal people managed the land and its animal life, principally by a sophisticated use of fire and their largely nomadic lifestyle, with such skill that by the time the first British convicts and their jailers arrived eighteen years after Cook, their continent could properly be described as ‘the biggest estate on earth’.1 The living was easy, food plentiful, leisure abundant – at least among the males – and tribal boundaries sufficiently well-defined to keep armed conflict to a minimum. There was a proliferation of language groups but a shared culture that derived from a legendary ‘Dreamtime’ with creation myths no less sophisticated than those of either the Europeans or the Chinese.
Unfortunately, their isolation had denied them the advantages of multiple contact with human and domestic animal diseases that would have provided a broad autoimmunity.
隔绝的结果是原住民对invaders完全没有任何抵抗力,对their diseases亦是。Captain Cook只要兴趣大旗简单说几句话就是"claimed " 不止到此一游,而是此地属于我大英了。土著人既没有军队更甭提什么政治系统去跟这些newcomers去谈判。事实上1835年英政府发表terra nullius公告,坚称土著人没有声明这土地归属。
所以在中澳关系上,土著人一定只是边缘角色了。
By the time of the goldrush the Aborigines were a broken people; and though there were pockets of fierce resistance to British intrusions in Victoria and later Queensland, the longest continuous culture on earth had been effectively shattered. They would play only a marginal part in the Australia–China relationship for the next 125 years.
新金山旧金山的淘金热让运输业也是得到了极大的发展。因此当维州发现金矿的时候,The Chinese rush to Victoria was on, though their numbers would always be far less than those from Britain, continental Europe, and even the United States. Only some 500 made the journey in 1852 and a similar number the following year.
那个时候,我们自己的国家正在内站,太平起义横扫国家,百业萧索。
While the gold was undoubtedly a great attraction, the Chinese were also motivated by the collapse of their provinces into civil war as Hong Xiuquan’s Taiping rebellion swept the imperial forces before it. And by 1854 Chinese merchants had entered the shipping trade and were resuscitating old, poorly maintained vessels for the run south. Accommodation was spartan at best, with six to eight travellers crowded into each berth. Several ships were lost at sea while others were forced to put in at Manila and Singapore, but in the first six months they carried some 3000 eager prospectors and the following year the number rose to 11,500.
无法述说的痛!! |
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