Tip: Today, although people do not know whether the Qing court used to repay the 1 billion taels of silver in the "Xinu Treaty" reparations, they know that during the 12 years from 1901 to 1912, the Qing court repaid the loan according to the treaty every year, and because the price of silver continued to decrease after the signing of the treaty, the great powers forced the Qing court to change the indemnity method to gold goods debts in July 1905, and at the same time demanded compensation of 8 million taels of silver.
The War of Aggression against China by the Eight-Power Alliance refers to the armed war of aggression against the Qing Empire on May 28, 1900 (the 26th year of the Qing Dynasty), consisting of eight major countries, namely the British Empire, the United States of America, the French Third Republic, the German Empire, the Russian Empire, the Empire of Japan, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Kingdom of Italy.
This war brought unprecedented disasters to the country and people at that time. Wherever the coalition forces went, they killed people, set fires, committed adultery and looting, and stole and looted countless treasures from the Forbidden City, Zhongnanhai, and the Summer Palace, among which the famous "Yuanmingyuan", the famous Garden of Ten Thousand Gardens, was looted after the British and French coalition forces and eventually became a ruin. Even the commander-in-chief of the coalition forces, Wadesi, later admitted in the "Notes on the Boxing of Waldsi" that the details of all the damage and looting losses suffered by China this time will never be found, but the number will be extremely significant. On September 7, 1901, as a result of the signing of the Treaty of Xinugu, China was completely reduced to a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society.
During the war, Empress Dowager Cixi and the Guangxu Emperor fled in panic, and on the way in exile, li Hongzhang was appointed as a plenipotentiary to negotiate with the great powers and issue an order to completely eliminate the Boxers. After the signing of the treaty of Xinugu, empress dowager Cixi returned to Beijing from Xi'an, and what made her sad was not how much land she ceded to foreigners, but how to pay off the compensation paid to foreigners. At that time, the total amount of indemnities paid by the Qing court and local governments to foreigners amounted to more than 1 billion taels of silver, and the total principal and interest of the Qing court was 980 million taels of silver, which was repaid in 39 years; the local reparations were more than 0.2 billion taels. The annual fiscal income of the Qing court was less than 30 million taels of silver, and according to this calculation, it needed to not eat or drink for 35 years.
On about January 5, 1902, Empress Dowager Cixi and the Guangxu Emperor went to court together, and the ministers brushed and knelt together, and Empress Dowager Cixi said that the emperor had recently been worried about the money of the foreigners, and we were now worried about internal and external troubles, and we were not so sad. Is there any good way for everyone? The ministers did not speak, and Empress Dowager Cixi was very disappointed, but just when she was extremely disappointed, a person stepped forward and suggested that the land that the Qing court used to use along the Great Wall to isolate Han and Mongolia should be developed and utilized, and water conservancy should be built and leased to the Han people to pay off the debts of the imperial court.
This person's name is Cen Chunxuan. In 1898, he won the favor of the Guangxu Emperor for advocating the reform of the law and restoration, and was promoted to the position of guangdong envoy, and in 1899, he was transferred to gansu province. After the outbreak of the Eight-Power Alliance's invasion of China, he led an army to Beijing to "Qin Wang", and escorted Empress Dowager Cixi and the Guangxu Emperor to Xi'an, where he was promoted to inspector of Shaanxi for his merits. After Empress Dowager Cixi returned to Beijing, she was promoted to inspector of Shanxi. At that time, some parts of the Inner Mongolia Ulanchabu League and the Yikezhao League (present-day Ordos) came under the jurisdiction of Datong, and Cen Chunxuan was very familiar with this area. He said: "The thirteen banners of the Mongolian Thirteen Banners of the Northwest Ulanchabu and Yikezhao Second League in the Northwest of jinbian, the local expanse, and the Jia Yu Shuo. The banners of Ordos of Yikezhao, which surround the great rivers and facilitate irrigation, are counted by the banners, and the vast area is no less than three or four thousand miles, and if the reclamation of three or four of the tenths, it can be worth hundreds of thousands of acres. ”
The area that Cen Chunxuan is talking about is the "Black Boundary Land" that we mentioned in the previous text ("Anecdotes about Walking West Exit: At that time, people who did not go to Xikou were allowed to bring daughters-in-law, nor were they allowed to marry Mongolian daughters-in-law", "The Ming Dynasty had a special force, burning the grassland every autumn and winter, and some people burned themselves to death"), although in 1697, when Kangxi personally conquered Kaldan, it was tacitly approved, developed and used, and the curtain was opened, but most of the cultivators at that time stayed in the territory of The Jungar Banner.
During the Shunzhi period, in order to strengthen the control of the Ordos tribe, the Qing court designated the area 50 miles wide north of the Great Wall and about 2,000 miles long from east to west as a forbidden land, commonly known as the "Black Boundary Land". It is clearly stipulated that Han peasants are not allowed to cross the Great Wall to enter the Ordos pastoral land, and Ordos herders cannot enter this forbidden land, let alone cross the Great Wall into the Han area. After Kangxi acquiesced, the people of Guannei at that time crossed the Great Wall to cultivate in the "Black Boundary Land", and paid rent silver to the Mengqi Palace every year. By the eighth year of Yongzheng (1730), the Han people were allowed to cross the border to cultivate within 50 miles north of the Great Wall, so the farmland of The Jungar Banner gradually increased, and the pasture land began to shrink.
Through the above historical materials, it is not difficult to see that the development of the Mongolian steppe by the people who walked the west entrance in those years was definitely more than the width of the "Black Boundary Land" of 50 miles, which was increased to 100 miles during the Yongzheng period, and this was only within the scope allowed by the imperial court. During Empress Dowager Cixi's stay in Xi'an, Officials in Shaanxi also reported to her about the "Black Boundary Land", that is, they wanted to assign some places near Shaanxi to the administration of Shaanxi. And Empress Dowager Cixi herself did receive benefits from merchants who had walked to the west, for example, Zhou Ying, the richest woman in Shaanxi who was widowed by An Wu, provided her with 100,000 taels of silver, and obtained a plaque of "Lady Protector of the Country" inscribed by her hand, and she accepted her as a righteous daughter. After the signing of the Treaty of Xinugi, Zhou Ying exchanged silver with her, and she was named "Lady of a Pint of Commandments".
Hearing Cen Chunxuan's words, Empress Dowager Cixi was somewhat excited, and summoned Cen Chunxuan three times in a row to discuss how to develop and utilize the "Black Realm". Cen Chunxuan calculated an account for Empress Dowager Cixi, and if these hundreds of thousands of hectares of land could be used, the imperial court could not only collect taxes, but also solve the problem of Han people eating while allowing the Mongols to collect rent, which was a good thing to kill three birds with one stone. If the business is good, the imperial court can get 100 million taels of silver tax every year, and in less than 10 years, it can pay off the indemnity of 1 billion taels of silver in the Treaty of Xinugu.
Well, just do it. This is the "New Deal" of the Qing court against Mongolia, with the opening up of "black boundaries" and the development of reclamation in Mongolia as the core. Cen Chunxuan recommended a person to Empress Dowager Cixi, named Yigu, a Manchurian yellow flag man, who entered the army in the eighteenth year of Guangxu (1892) and served as the left attendant of the military department. In April 1902, he was appointed Minister of State for the Reclamation of the Mongolian Banner. Before leaving, Cixi told Yigu that whether or not she could pay off the reparations of the Xinugu Treaty would depend on your reclamation. Yigu felt that he had a heavy responsibility on his shoulders, and on May 1, after taking office, he formed the Mengqi Reclamation Bureau and began to work.
Suiyuan was under the jurisdiction of Shanxi Province during the Qing Dynasty. In the middle of the Kangxi Dynasty, the Qing Dynasty established its rule in the interior of the Central Plains, but the situation on the frontier was still very serious. In the seventeenth year of the Kangxi Dynasty, the Dzungars rebelled against the Gardan Khan, which triggered the Qing Dynasty's war to pacify the Dzungars. During this period, the Shanxi Right Guard and the Hebei North Left Guard were the focus of the Qing Dynasty's internal defense line. The Naturalization City of Shanxi has a very high strategic position, surrounding the heavy land of Pingqi, is a place where the army gathers, backed by Horqin, left by the Yellow River, good conditions for reclamation, can meet the supply of grain for the garrison, since the time of the Qata Khan, this is the important town where internal and external trade converges, and is the economic center of gravity in northern China. In addition, to meet the needs of war, it is necessary to choose a suitable location to build a city and garrison. Based on the above considerations, the Yongzheng Emperor decided to build a city on the outskirts of Hebei and inside. In the fourth year of Qianlong (1739), the naturalization city of Shanxi was completed. During the Qing Dynasty, Suiyuan was part of Southern Mongolia, and was named Suiyuan because of the Suiyuan garrison stationed here. Set up sui road. That is, the border area of Ordos, Bayannaoer, Hohhot, Ulanqab and Shanxi today.
At first, Yigu felt that his work would not encounter any resistance, and divided the entire Mengqi reclamation into two parts: east reclamation and western reclamation. Dongken is responsible for the reclamation of the Four Banners on the right wing of Chahar, and Xiken is responsible for the reclamation of the Ulanchabu League and the Yikezhao League. At the same time, two companies, East Road Reclamation and West Road Reclamation, were set up in Taiyuan, and the shares were operated in the form of government-business cooperation, and the general manager was appointed to cooperate in completing the overall work of the Mengqi Reclamation Bureau. But what he did not expect was that the Mongols did not eat his set, on the grounds that the grassland was limited, the land was cultivated, and the herders would have nowhere to graze. He summoned the head of the Mongolian flag to a meeting, and the other side often did not come; he asked the flags to report the land that could be reclaimed, and the other side always turned a deaf ear.
There was no way but to ask the imperial court for help, and the only thing the imperial court could give him was official titles and powers: in August 1902, he was given the title of Shangshu of the Lifanyuan, the highest authority of the Qing court to rule Mongolia, Huibu, Tibet and other ethnic minorities; in August 1903, he was also awarded the title of General of Suiyuancheng, while controlling the three provinces of Shanxi, Shaanxi, and Gansu and the neighboring departments, prefectures, and counties of the Ukrainian and Iranian Leagues. In this way, Yigu used both soft and hard, civilian and military at the same time, and carried out its work vigorously by removing the post of flag chief of the opposition league and suppressing the struggle against reclamation of various banners by force. In this regard, the "Draft History of the Qing Dynasty" said: "In the past six years, from the two wings and eight banners of Chahar, the thirteen banners of the Second League of Tuizhi (Ulanchabu and Yikezhao), as well as the Tumut, Suiyuan Right Guard, and garrison horse factories, all reclaimed more than 100,000 hectares, more than 2,000 miles from the east and west. The desert is a desert, a village, and everyone calls it. ”
Obviously, yigu spent six years to basically complete Cen Chunxuan's original idea of "hundreds of thousands of hectares of land", and at this time, Empress Dowager Cixi was also hanging, and the Great Qing was about to perish, and Yigu himself was later sent to the frontier for crimes such as "greed and cruelty, harassment of the Mongolian people, and corruption of the border situation". Today, although people do not know whether the Qing court used to repay the 1 billion taels of silver in the "Xinugu Treaty" reparations, but they know that from 1901 to 1912, the Qing court repaid the treaty in full amount every year, and because the price of silver continued to decrease after the signing of the treaty, the great powers forced the Qing court to change the indemnity method to gold goods debts in July 1905, and at the same time demanded compensation of 8 million taels of silver.
Here, it is not difficult to see that the climax of the west entrance was really pushed to the climax at the time of Cixi, so the west entrance is not only a bitter history of leaving the country, but also soaked in the tears of mourning and humiliating the country in the reparations of the white flowers and silver two miles. At the same time, because of the Republic of China in that year and beyond, a large number of people in Guannei flocked to Guanwai, causing ecological damage to the Mongolian steppe that was more than worth the loss.
The pictures in this article are from the network, thanks to the original author!