In 1900, the Eight-Power Alliance invaded China and foreign countries, which led to the signing of the Xinugu Treaty by the Qing Dynasty.
The signing of the Xinugu Treaty directly marked the Qing government's complete reduction into a tool of imperialist rule over China, and since then China has officially degenerated into a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society.
Then some people will wonder, why did the Qing Dynasty degenerate into this state at the end of the period, still a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society?
Does the fact that the Qing Dynasty did not completely become a colony of the Western powers show to a certain extent that the Qing Dynasty still had the power to fight back in the end? Or is it that the Qing Dynasty fell to such a point that it can only be a fluke of luck?
Point 1: The Qing Dynasty, even in its late period, was one of the great powers
We must understand point 1 that the Qing government actually belongs to the great powers, but its ranking status among the great powers is not so high.
What exactly does it mean to be a great power?
Generally refers to the strong or outstanding in the same rank, such as the United States, Britain, Germany, Russia and other countries that were benchmarked against during the Qing government's rule, all of which belonged to the great powers.
But the strangeness of the problem lies here, a decadent and incompetent, almost no ruling power and the emperor is extremely absurd, the Manchu Dynasty civilian generals are all under the control of Empress Dowager Cixi, and in the eyes of the Western countries, it is a great power.
The main reason for such a strange and funny scene is that the Qing Dynasty is vast, populous, economically powerful, and the Qing government is a complete government that is not affected by foreign capitalist countries.
At that time, parts of South America, Africa and even Asia were actually controlled by some countries in Europe and North America, and these governments had no rights to exercise.
The Qing government was an exception, and although the Qing government was in a semi-colonial state, there was still a unified central government.
Even if the performance of the Qing government in the later period is really not flattering, but according to the above standards, the Qing government can still be classified as a great power.
Point 2: In the late Qing dynasty, there were a series of self-help campaigns
You say that the government is corrupt, yes, it is indeed decay. When you talk about the government, it is indeed incompetent.
But the crux of the matter is that in the late Qing dynasty, a series of self-help campaigns were also launched.
In this series of self-help movements, apart from the fact that political ideas have not changed and economic problems have not changed, military power has risen again and again.
Before the Sino-Japanese Sino-Japanese Naval Battle, some capitalist countries in the West even directly bet on the Qing government to win.
Because the Qing government's victory was far more beneficial to the ruling class in Asia than to some Western countries.
If the Qing government could win this war, it would be able to contain both Japan and Tsarist Russia.
However, the result was a fierce blow to their faces, and the Qing government, instead of winning, lost worse than anyone else.
It should be noted that at the time of the foreign affairs movement, the naval strength of the Qing government was no less than that of the Combat Troops of the Japanese Army, and the foundation of the various modernizations of the Qing government, including military, industrial and agricultural aspects, developed rapidly.
It's just that these rapid developments still can't clean up this mess, but compared with other small countries or weak countries at that time, I don't know how many tens of times stronger than hundreds of times.
Point 3: The Qing government's main opponents were the great powers of the time
If nothing else, from 1840 onwards, the Qing government experienced these wars, which cannot be said to be all fiasco, but generally similar.
But let's imagine which countries the Qing government was marching against, and africa at that time? Southern Asia? South America?
Neither, but with Japan and the United States, the most powerful countries in the world at the time, these countries were among the best in the world at that time.
To name a random war, the countries involved at that time were the most important capitalist powers, such as the Netherlands, France, and Britain.
It should be noted that the Dutch state was ruled by the Qing government before World War 1, and its strength and heritage should not be underestimated.
In addition, Tsarist Russia in the north has just undergone a series of baptisms, and its combat effectiveness has simply soared, and neighboring Japan has also undergone a series of revolutions, and it can also rank in the forefront of the capitalist countries at that time.
In other words, the Qing government and these countries have been defeated and defeated many times.
Although the fighting was not very glorious, to a certain extent, it was not difficult to find that although various problems arose in the Qing government period, the overall combat strength could not be underestimated.
He cannot be completely above the great powers, but he is more than enough to be above the small or sovereign states, or over the colonial countries.
Point 4: There is absolutely no need to whitewash the Qing government
Then someone said that when I saw your article, the painting style was not quite right, how did you always stand in the footsteps of the Qing Dynasty to speak, and were you ready to whitewash the Qing Dynasty?
I do have to have concerns in this regard, but as a relatively objective interested scholar of history, I would like to reiterate here that I will not whitewash any feudal dynasty, but will only analyze this matter from a relatively objective and fair point of view.
So we might as well summarize a few points:
First of all, the comprehensive national strength of the Qing government cannot be underestimated.
Even at the end of the Qing Dynasty, or even two years before the qing dynasty was dissolved, the Qing government had enough strength to inflict heavy damage on any capitalist country.
Second, the Qing government's cowardice, incompetence and corruption, as well as many strategic errors at the top, must pay for the demise of the Qing government.
The wrong decisions made by Empress Dowager Cixi and some of the ministers of the Imperial Court and the Eight Banners had to pay for the many injustices and injustices suffered by the Qing government, especially the suffering of the people under the control of the Qing government.
No one can excuse them for this, and a cowardly and corrupt government has come to the end and finally come to an end, but it is always ordinary people who suffer in the process.
In the end, the Qing government actually had many opportunities to turn the tide.
However, the Qing government did not dare to move from the bottom up, could not move, and gave up the vast majority of opportunities in order to maintain the so-called class stability, and only tried to get the profits and capital as much as possible, which was the biggest failure.
Point 5: The terrible consequences of the Treaty of Simgou
Did you know that the Treaty of Xinugu has an alias? Just as each of us will have a nickname, the alias of the Treaty of The Ugly is called the Treaty of the Ugly Countries.
This also means that the Xinugu Treaty was not signed by the Qing government alone with a single country, but with countless countries.
These treaties included an apology, the demolition of forts and the demarcation of the embassy district.
To say here, at this time, the embassy district delimited by the Qing government to the various powers was almost equal to the embassy district of China, which was different from the embassy district at the current stage, and the Xinugu Treaty was the unequal treaty with the largest amount of indemnities and the most serious loss of sovereignty in China's modern history.
The Treaty of Xinugu was signed by the Qing Dynasty government represented by Li Hongzhang and others, as well as with the envoys of Britain, the United States, France, Germany, Russia, Japan, Italy, Austria, Spain, the Netherlands, and Belgium at that time, with a total of 12 articles and 19 annexes.
Let's talk about the characteristics after the signing of the Xinugu Treaty, we should have learned it more than once in middle school.
The main punishment object of the Xinugu Treaty was the low-level people of the Qing Dynasty, and the reparations demanded by the great powers were 450 million taels of silver, and all cities that had undergone anti-imperialist struggles were stopped from scientific research for 5 years.
It demanded that the Qing government take the initiative to maintain the ruling order, absolutely not allow the boxer rebellion and other related incidents, and demanded that China be used to control China.
At the same time, because the Qing government could not compensate most of the silver in the short term, it was forced to sign a large amount of loans, so that in the next few 10 years, the Qing government and the Republic of China fell into economic passivity.