Why was the Old Summer Palace burned?

In history textbooks, the image of China is that of a pure and refined girl. The British, French, American and Japanese outside are all coquettish bitches who bully us all day long and are obsessed with destroying themselves. In 1860, the British and French forces invaded Beijing and burned the Old Summer Palace. This incident is the best example of what a coquettish bitch they are.

The Chinese people gnashed their teeth when talking about this incident. It was written into the history books as a national humiliation. However, there is one question we seem to have overlooked: why did the British and French forces burn the Old Summer Palace instead of the Forbidden City after they invaded Beijing?

Logically speaking, the Forbidden City is an imperial palace and a symbol of the power of the Qing Dynasty. Since it is going to be set on fire, it should be placed here. Moreover, the Old Summer Palace is located in Haidian today. In the Qing Dynasty, it was still a suburb of Beijing. It takes more than ten stops to get there by subway. The coalition forces had already reached the gates of the Forbidden City. Why didn't they burn the Forbidden City along the way, but instead went to the suburbs to burn an emperor's private leisure and entertainment place?

In history books, this period of history is not detailed. More than ten years ago, Zhang Tielin and Liu Xiaoqing starred in the movie "The Burning of the Old Summer Palace". The movie did not explain why the Old Summer Palace was burned down. It seemed that the Old Summer Palace was burned down inexplicably. The real reason why the Old Summer Palace was burned seems to have been deliberately hidden by us, and there are some things that are difficult to talk about. So why did the British and French forces burn the Old Summer Palace instead of the Forbidden City?

It's actually not complicated to say the matter. After the Opium War, China and Britain signed the Treaty of Nanjing. Twelve years later, the British came again to cause trouble and demanded an amendment to the treaty. What is a contract amendment? The British feel that the Treaty of Nanjing has been signed for more than ten years, so the Qing Dynasty should understand the benefits of free trade, right? Then the five treaty ports of Guangzhou, Xiamen, Fuzhou, Ningbo, and Shanghai that were opened for the first time were not enough. The British hoped that the Qing Dynasty would open up the whole country. If this was not possible, all coastal cities and cities along the Yangtze River would be opened. That's ok too.

Moreover, the "Treaty of Nanjing" stipulates that the British can only move in these five cities and cannot go to other cities in China. The British hope to be able to travel unimpeded throughout China this time. Also, it is best for the two countries to send ministers to each other. I send an ambassador to Beijing and you send an ambassador to London to facilitate the two countries' diplomacy. In addition, the British also hoped to personally deliver government documents to the Qing Emperor. The British previously wanted to hold exchange meetings with the top leaders of the Qing Dynasty, but there was no way. The Qing Emperor was not seen at all, and officials at all levels also played ball. Human reason, the British are all empty-handed because of this.

These are the main contents of the treaty. According to the summary of the modern history master Mr. Jiang Tingfu: "The ambassador is stationed in Beijing, the parade in the interior, and the Yangtze River trade are the center of the dispute between the two parties." From an international perspective, this is a normal thing , whether today or a hundred years ago, these have long become a consensus. But the problem is that the Qing Dynasty that the British faced was an arrogant and arrogant government. The Qing Dynasty has always believed that it is the common master of the world and the father of everyone in the world. Britain, France, and the United States are all overseas vassal states. He is our son, and his son should respect his father well, keep his head down and be a good person, and don't take it seriously if he causes trouble. This is why the Qing government did not learn its lesson after the Opium War.

Among these items, the one that the Qing Dynasty resisted the most was for the minister to be stationed in Beijing and deliver the credentials in person, because the British firmly refused to kowtow. If you want to hand over the credentials in person and don’t kowtow, just dream. Don't underestimate this, it can be said to be the cause of the war later. Why did the Qing government have to have foreigners kowtow? Because kowtow is more than just an action. It is a manifestation of the Qing emperor’s grace and the basis of the legitimacy of the government. Foreigners are originally overseas vassals, and they have no reason not to kneel down when they see the common master of the world. Moreover, the people of our country have been kowtowing for hundreds of years. What if you foreigners don’t kowtow and are seen by us people, and the people wake up? The Qing government required foreigners not only to kowtow, but also to kneel three times and kowtow nine times. Those who did not bend down enough would not be counted. All other terms can be negotiated, but the Qing government insisted on this one unwaveringly for two hundred years.

So it's already obvious how things are going to play out. The British came to ask for an amendment to the treaty. The Qing government said, as for foreign affairs, we are all handled by the governors of Guangdong and Guangxi. You can go to Guangdong. When we arrived in Guangdong, the senior officials in Guangdong said, "Oh, the central government has to talk about such a big matter. You go to the central government." During this time, the emperor and the officials of Guangdong were acting and correcting their lines all day long. Playing football is what the Chinese are best at. Guangdong plays to Beijing, Beijing plays to Guangdong, and the British move around in the middle. They went back and forth for several years, and they were about to suffer a cerebral hemorrhage. The British couldn't bear it anymore and decided to send troops.

In the words of Britain's top China expert, Staunton: "China does not understand the language of free trade, it can only understand the language of artillery fire."

In the words of Mr. Jiang Tingfu: "In short, there is simply no way for outsiders to enter. They know that the only way to amend the treaty is war."

So the British and French forces came with troops, attacked the Dagukou Fort in Tianjin, and occupied Dagukou with 400 casualties. Two thousand Qing troops were killed. The commander-in-chief of the Qing army was named Seng Gelinqin. He was always awesome and coaxing, and believed that the British artillery was nothing to be afraid of. Although we lost this time, Seng Gelinqin felt that it was nothing. The problem was not that the weapons and equipment were backward, but that our operations were not sharp enough, our tactics were not correct enough, and our movements were not coquettish enough.

The monk king does not believe in evil and will fight to the end. Xianfeng was anxious and said to Seng Gelinqin, old monk, stop fighting. "It's not worth it to fight the ugly barbarians with your country dependent on you."

Xianfeng also said a funny saying: "The world is not in Haikou, Tianjin, but in the capital." This meant to remind the monk king that the world is not in Haikou, Tianjin, but in the capital, because I am in the capital. Don't make a mistake, hurry up. come back.

When the monk king heard this, he made sense and withdrew. Just from this battle, we can see the attitude of the Qing monarchs and ministers towards themselves and the world.

Tianjin can't hold on any longer. Don't let the foreigners attack Beijing. The Qing Dynasty quickly sent people to Tongzhou to give in to the foreigners. OK, OK, we are willing to negotiate. So the two groups of people sat down and negotiated in Tongzhou.

What to negotiate? Haha, it’s the same as before. It’s obvious that this is another negotiation with Niu Tanqin. Xianfeng told Guiliang, the minister who was negotiating on the front line, that you can't agree to this or that. Don't be timid. The worst is, if you fight with foreigners again, you'll be scared!

How can it not be tragic if the top leader of a country has such an IQ?

The British realized that this was completely playing tricks on a cow, so they decisively stopped talking and demanded to go directly to Beijing. When Xianfeng heard this, he thought it was okay, these people were quite courageous. So he told Prince Yi in front that if the British dare to enter Beijing, you will detain them.

It was such a stupid decision that directly led to the burning of the Old Summer Palace.

September 18, 1860, was also September 18th. Negotiations were still ongoing on this day. Parkes, the leader of the British negotiating team, told Prince Yi that we will not change this rule for ministers stationed in Beijing and handing over letters of credence in person. You can do whatever you want. After finishing speaking, he jumped on his horse and flew away in a very graceful manner.

Prince Yi looked at Parkel and thought, Damn, you are so pretentious, so arrogant. So he told Seng Gelinqin that the emperor had said that if they were too arrogant and the negotiations could not be resolved, they would be detained. The monk king's posture was not very good. He followed the command and arrested all the British negotiating team, 39 people in total.

The funniest crime the Qing Dynasty convicted Pashali was rebellion.

It is no exaggeration to say that Xianfeng's decision was made by his butt. Even if we don’t talk about the world, we talk about the history of China’s dynasties. The two armies have always fought without killing each other. This has been an international law thousands of years ago. Even the barbaric ethnic minorities have abided by it. There are countless examples of this. In the 19th century, when mankind had greatly advanced to a civilized society, something like this still happened. This caused the reputation and image of the Qing government to seriously decline in Western countries. Although the image of the Qing government was already bad enough.

However, the Qing Dynasty originally ignored international rules, and the Qing Dynasty did not have any international interests in its eyes, so Xianfeng was very happy, and felt proud after catching the envoy. Senggelinqin was very happy to catch Parkes. Damn it, you have artillery and you are awesome in this war. Now let’s see what you do. Seng Gelinqin forcibly pressed Pashali's head and made him kowtow several times, fulfilling the dream of all the emperors of the Qing Dynasty: finally seeing foreigners kowtow.

Xianfeng took a look and said, "To capture the thief, capture the king first. Now that the king has been captured, let's teach the foreign soldiers a lesson." The Qing army sent troops, and the name of the troops was very interesting - to fight against rebellion.

At Bali Bridge in Tongzhou, 39,000 Qing cavalry set off and charged towards 25,000 British and French allied forces. The naive Qing Dynasty was prepared to take advantage of the leaderless British and French forces to defeat the enemy in one fell swoop. I won’t talk about the process, but the result: 5 British and French troops were killed and 46 wounded, and the Qing army was almost completely wiped out.

Later, when the British inspected the Qing army's military camp, they found that the Qing army was still using bows and arrows and shields, and said: "A country that invented gunpowder is still using bows and arrows to fight."

The coalition forces entered Beijing and immediately went to rescue the 39 people. Parkes and his secretary were imprisoned in the prison of the Ministry of Punishment, and the other 37 people were imprisoned in the Old Summer Palace. After the coalition forces rescued these people in Old Summer Palace, they found that only 19 people were left, and 20 of them had been tortured to death. Moreover, some people's corpses were cut into pieces, with arms and legs chopped off. It was too horrible to look at.

Later, a survivor recalled: Among those arrested was a Times reporter named Bowlby. He was beaten to death on the fourth day after being arrested, and his body was thrown into the wild to feed wild dogs. ate up. There was also Lieutenant Anderson, whose hands and feet were severely tied up and got maggots. The maggots spread all over his body. He screamed in a frenzy for three days and died. There was also a Frenchman who was also infected with maggots. Maggots crawled in his mouth, ears, and nose, and he died of pain. The survivor also said that he counted maggots in prison and could breed 1,000 maggots every day.

Seeing these scenes, the coalition forces were furious and could not tolerate the Qing's barbarism. Elgin, the commander-in-chief of the coalition forces, said that the Qing Dynasty must be taught a painful lesson. Because these prisoners were tortured to death in the Old Summer Palace, the garden was to be burned down.

At that time, there was a French general named Montauban who suggested burning the Forbidden City. Meng Toban said that the Old Summer Palace was not fortified and was not considered a war zone. It would not be good to burn it. If the Qing government should remember this lesson well, then burn the palace and make them suffer more so that they can remember it.

But Elgin disagreed. Elgin said: Burning the imperial city is equivalent to burning Beijing. The people in Beijing have not messed with us, so why are we having trouble with other people? The Old Summer Palace is a private garden and a place where we tortured our captives, so let’s burn this place.

So, the Old Summer Palace was burned down. Before the burning, Elgin posted a notice in Beijing saying: "Everyone, regardless of high or low, will be punished for their fraud. The Old Summer Palace will be burned on the 18th as a punishment for the emperor. No one has anything to do with this. It is not affected by this action, only the Qing government is responsible for it.”

There was a self-media person named Wang Kangnian in the Qing Dynasty. He wrote a book called "Remember the Burning and Robbery of the Old Summer Palace by the British and French Allied Forces", which recorded an interesting incident. The British and French allied forces prepared to set fire to the Old Summer Palace, but found that there was nothing to light the fire. "The troops had no firearms, only buckets and pots." Hearing that the coalition forces encountered difficulties, people from nearby Haidian rushed over with braziers and straw to help the foreigners. Wang Kangnian recorded that after the British and French forces set the fire, the Chinese followed behind and "started the fire everywhere and spread it", allowing the fire to expand. These people of the Qing Dynasty did not think that the Old Summer Palace had anything to do with them. Their biggest wish was to grab more treasures with foreigners.

This is the general situation of the burning of the Old Summer Palace. In order to avoid humiliation, the emperor provoked a war, and because of his barbarism and ignorance, he paid the price of the burning of the Old Summer Palace. It can be said that this war was the most boring war in modern Chinese history.

However, more than a hundred years later, something strange happened: the private property of the emperor's family was burned down, and his own people followed suit, smashing, looting, and burning. It didn't hurt at all, but we descendants gnashed our teeth in hatred; that year in the Qing Dynasty The emperor's personal humiliation suddenly became the humiliation of the people, the country, and the nation. This is not a very funny joke.

Our history books do not tell this history. The role of history books is to cultivate our hatred for the burning of the Old Summer Palace, rather than to teach us the lessons of the burning of the Old Summer Palace. This is something more terrifying than the burning of the Old Summer Palace.