Text/Lingshi
The so-called Burning of the Yuanmingyuan by the British and French forces was actually completed in several steps.
On October 7, 1860, the leaders of the Anglo-French invasion of China broke into the Yuanmingyuan and agreed to distribute the treasures in the garden.
On October 8, officers and soldiers rushed forward in groups to loot the gold, silver and cultural treasures in the garden, and the situation was out of control. In order to rob the treasure, they beat each other up, and even engaged in armed combat.
On October 9, French troops were temporarily evacuated from the Old Summer Palace.
On 11 October, the British sent more than 1,200 cavalry and an infantry regiment to loot the Yuanmingyuan again.
On October 18, 3,500 British troops stormed the Yuanmingyuan and set fire to it, and the fire lasted for three days and three nights.
Why would a robbery be completed in several steps? Since it had already been looted, why did it burn the Yuanmingyuan in ten days?
It all starts with a diplomacy. On August 21, 1860, the British raided Taku Fort. The British diplomat Pasha Li negotiated to persuade him to surrender.
On August 24, after arriving in Tianjin, Pasha Li dispatched the coalition forces to talk with the Minister of Chincha. Pasha Li found that the so-called Chincha minister could not make full decisions on behalf of the Qing government, so the Allies continued to march to Tongzhou.
After PashaLi arrived in Tongzhou, he twice used the Tongzhou government and was allowed to advance his army to 5 miles from the city.
In the face of the current situation, the Qing government accepted the conditions of opening ports and huge indemnities. However, according to the Chinese ritual system, the emperor must perform the ritual of kneeling.
Pasha Li and others refused to bow down on the grounds that they were not Chinese subjects. The two sides argued for a long time and could not stand each other.
After receiving the notice of negotiations, the Qing government instructed: "We must bow down and worship according to Chinese etiquette before we can give permission." Pasha refused to accept it and went away.
On September 18, Pasha Li and his party left Tongzhou, and the Qing government instructed the monk Gelinqin to detain 39 of Pasha Li and his party for treason, and in order to increase the bargaining chips, they were taken to Beijing as hostages.
British diplomats were detained by the Qing court, which gave the British and French allies a name for themselves. The British and French allies took this as an excuse to lead their troops all the way into the Yuanmingyuan, and the Xianfeng Emperor and his concubines fled in a hurry.
Three days later, the emperor's younger brother Yi Xin was forced by force to return the hostages to the British and French forces, but of the 39 hostages, only 18 survived, and the rest were all corpses.
Enraged, the British minister Erkin sent more than 1,200 cavalry and an infantry regiment to loot the Yuanmingyuan again. He also posted a notice in the city of Beijing, saying that the Yuanmingyuan would be burned on the eighteenth as a punishment for the emperor's renegation of his word and as revenge for violating the truce agreement.
The Yuanmingyuan was thus methodically burned by the British army, and the fire lasted for three days and three nights, and the smoke cloud covered the city of Beijing for a long time.
In the concept of the unification of the world in the Qing Dynasty, not prostrating oneself is not recognizing the rule of the Manchu Qing government. The Qing Dynasty, which has always regarded itself as a great power, regarded all the Western countries as its own vassal states, and even when people hit the doorstep, they still regarded each other as their subordinates.
It was the ignorant arrogance of the Manchu rulers that prompted the Yuanmingyuan to be resacked by the British army and set on fire.
The unification of the world and the equality of all countries, these two incompatible civilizations, are extremely ridiculous in the eyes of both sides. Because of the problem of prostrating, it actually led to the tragedy of burning the Yuanmingyuan. This is not only a tragedy of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, but also a shame.
After the Yuanmingyuan was burned down, Prince Gong Yixuan, who was ordered to remain in Beijing, promised all the conditions of the invaders. Soon after, the texts of the Tianjin Treaty were exchanged with Britain, France, and Russia, and the Treaty of Beijing was signed.
References: "History of the Qing Dynasty", "Draft History of the Qing Dynasty"