This is the imperial edict of Cixi's declaration of war on eleven countries. This is tolerable and intolerable. The old lady Cixi has endured it for a long time. If foreigners insist on humiliating me, I will fight you to the death.
As a result, as we all know, the Eight Kingdoms came, Cixi fled to the west, and Beijing fell, and the whole Qing Dynasty was devastated and almost destroyed. Later, the "Xin Chou Treaty" was signed, and the principal and interest of Qing * * * totaled 980 million taels of silver, and the matter was settled.
0 1 Cixi declared war.
About the origin of the eight countries' invasion of China, we should start with the old lady Cixi. There was a very popular county king named Zaiyi in the imperial court. At that time, the Boxer Rebellion rose in Shandong and gradually spread to Beijing under the slogan of helping the Qing Dynasty destroy the foreign countries.
Zai Feng took this opportunity to recommend the Boxer Rebellion to Cixi. Cixi took the boxer's eldest brother into the palace with a grain of salt. Big Brother's invulnerability to Cixi is actually a magic trick in the Jianghu. After reading it, Cixi was convinced that they were just men and the pillars of the future of the Qing Dynasty! Once again, take this opportunity to make a scene in front of Cixi.
What Cixi didn't expect was that after receiving the support of Cixi, the Boxer Rebellion couldn't control it, burning and looting everywhere, and always liked to attack foreigners' churches and embassies, which made foreigners restless.
Cixi originally wanted Zai Feng's son to be the Crown Prince, but later she changed her mind and made Puyi the Crown Prince. There is a simple reason. First, Puyi is young, and Cixi can continue to listen to politics. Second, Zai Feng, Puyi's father, is an honest man. Once again, he is not easy to control.
Once again, I have always held a grudge against this matter. One day, he sent a fake diplomatic note to Cixi, saying that it was given to Cixi by foreigners. The letter said that Cixi abdicated and Emperor Guangxu regained power.
As soon as the old lady heard this, she came to my house to mind her own business. The old lady can be willing to give up anything in her life, but she can't touch the power in her hand. At this time, Cixi was no longer a female politician, but a shrew. I will fight with you and declare war on foreigners. A * * drafted 12 declarations and declared war on 1 1 countries. What about one more? Declaring war on Britain again made Britain very angry.
As a result, Eight-Nation Alliance declared war and invaded Beijing because of the help of the Boxer Rebellion. At that time, there were 200,000 Boxers, 1 100000 Qing troops guarding the city in Beijing. Before the war, the Boxer Rebellion escaped more than half, and the rest of the Qing army and the Boxer Rebellion were like instant milk powder.
The old lady waited in the palace for all the devils to be killed and the Qing Dynasty to unify the whole country. Unexpectedly, the Allies soon attacked Dongzhimen, and before the old lady could bring anything, she quickly fled disguised as a peasant woman in China.
02 Li Hongzhang decentralized Guangdong and Guangxi
When Cixi declared war on the eleven countries, Li Hongzhang, then governor of Guangdong and Guangxi. At that time, Li Hongzhang liked it very much because the seafood in Guangzhou was delicious. When the imperial court issued the gauntlet, Li Hongzhang was shocked: This old lady is simply fooling around! Unfortunately, it is powerless to change the facts.
Many people will ask, why is Li Hongzhang not in Beijing? Everyone knows Kang Youwei, right? During the Reform Movement of 1898, because the reform touched the power of Cixi, Cixi quickly launched the Reform Movement of 1898, and the reform also went to failure. When chasing Kang Youwei and his gang, someone in the imperial court beat Li Hongzhang and said that he was a gang of Kang Youwei. Of course, Cixi knows very well that Li Hongzhang is definitely a loyal minister, but there are always people following him in the court.
So Li Hongzhang found Cixi and took the initiative to appoint the Governor of Guangdong and Guangxi to Guangzhou for peace. If Li Hongzhang had given a fake diplomatic note to Cixi and asked foreigners if they had written it, things might not have come to this.
Southeast mutual insurance
However, things have happened, and Li Hongzhang is really annoyed, but he is still thinking about how to pay for the Qing Dynasty and the old lady Cixi. He patted the table and shouted out eight words: "This life is also chaotic, and Guangdong does not serve the imperial edict."
Subsequently, the southeast provinces responded to Li Hongzhang's call. Among them, Zhang Zhidong, Governor of Huguang, Liu Kunyi, Governor of Liangjiang and Deshou, Governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, and other ten provincial governors jointly signed the Secret Agreement on Southeast Protection, reaching an attitude of watching from the other side.
Among them, the southeast provinces made the worst plan, that is, the Qing Dynasty perished and Cixi was killed by the eight countries. If the Qing Dynasty really reached that stage at that time, the provincial capitals in the southeast jointly established Li Hongzhang to clean up the mess for the first president, which was called "mutual protection in the southeast" in history.
Many people may know that Li Hongzhang is a loyal minister. Why did Li Hongzhang choose to ignore the Great Qing Dynasty?
Li hongzhang himself once admitted:
I've worked all my life, trained, and the navy is a paper tiger. How can I really let go? However, almost no painting, very superficial. Can be perfunctory for a while, without showing emotion. For example, a dilapidated house is repaired by a paperhanger and becomes a clean room. Although it is clearly made of paper, it is still impossible to determine what material is inside.
He boasted that he was a plasterer and put a layer of paper on the window. Although it can keep out the sun for the sake of clarity, it can't stand the wind and rain.
The Significance of Mutual Insurance in Southeast China
After reading this, many people will ask, since Li Hongzhang is so loyal, why not gather troops from southeast provinces to fight against the Eight Powers together?
Li Hongzhang knows very well that the Beiyang Navy, which he painstakingly founded, is equipped with two top warships, Dingyuan and Zhenyuan. What was the result? Even a Japanese can't be beaten, not to mention facing the eight countries this time. Although there are some troops in the hands of the governors of ten provinces, these soldiers can maintain law and order at once and can barely pacify the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, but compared with Eight-Nation Alliance, which is well equipped with weapons, it is tantamount to throwing eggs at stones and bringing about self-destruction.
When the capital was occupied by Eight-Nation Alliance, Empress Dowager Cixi was nowhere to be found. Ten southeast provinces headed by Li Hongzhang put forward "mutual protection in the southeast". The purpose is actually very simple. First, if the Qing Dynasty can survive this chaos, Li Hongzhang's southeast provinces can leave the last straw for the Qing Dynasty. As the saying goes, there is no need to burn wood.
Second, if the Qing Dynasty perished in war, the southeast provinces would be independent, and the provinces would be dependent on each other. * * * will support Li Hongzhang, so that the people will be free from war and their lives will be destroyed.
And Li Hongzhang knows that foreigners are not coming for the mountains and rivers of Qing Dynasty. The real purpose of foreigners is to open the market of Qing dynasty, and the essence is economic aggression. The goods produced by European industries need raw material markets and commodity markets, and by the way, they need compensation, not for extinction.
Therefore, the southeast provinces implement "southeast mutual insurance" because they don't want to mess with Cixi. Foreigners come only for profit. Only by compromising with foreigners can we save half of the Qing Dynasty. Therefore, even if outsiders break into Beijing, they will only be "blind".
Order of loyal ministers
Empress Dowager Cixi ate big cakes and pickles all the way to xi 'an. When she arrived in Xi, her first imperial decree was to appoint Li Hongzhang as an imperial envoy and plenipotentiary for negotiations. Please talk to me and tell them to leave quickly. The second imperial edict was to order the Qing army to strangle the Boxer Rebellion, which soon perished.
Li Hongzhang prides himself on being a loyal minister. The president was not elected, and he continued to fight for Cixi. The 78-year-old man bumped all the way from Guangzhou to Beijing in a horse-drawn carriage, and signed the "Xin Chou Treaty" with other countries, which enabled Cixi to return to the DPRK smoothly.
At the beginning, if these eight brothers had discussed the elimination of Qing Dynasty, Qing Dynasty might have disappeared at that time, but the G8 countries were also worried. How to govern the Great Qing Dynasty? How can such people feed them? Forget it, just ask for some money and leave.
Li Hongzhang has been vomiting blood since he signed the "Xin Chou Treaty". The old man thought, I have signed all the treaties in my life. As long as Li Hongzhang catches up with the treaties that humiliated the country in modern history, he basically signed them and never wants to sign them again.
Li Hongzhang did a lot for the Qing Dynasty and left a lot of blame. In his life, he was a sad, pathetic, reprehensible and praiseworthy person. If you don't know these historical facts, you will only call Li Hongzhang a traitor, then you are cynical.