In 1820, the Jiaqing Emperor of the Qing Dynasty died, and the new emperor was Daoguang. Nineteen years later, in June 1839, the multiple Londons were particularly gloomy at this time, the mood of the British Empire monarchs at this time was full of extreme anger, the news from the Eastern Empire made the gentlemen's emotions explode, the foggy capital of London was shrouded in a thick layer of conspiracy and crazy clouds, and a conspiracy to provoke a war of aggression against China had matured.
Lin Zexu Sold Cigarettes and Killed Several Opium Sellers. The news reached Britain, and the British Parliament launched a fierce debate on whether to use force against the Qing Dynasty for 3 days, and Wu Naihua's "Selected Translations of British Archives on the Opium War" recorded the debate records of the British Parliament.
He who had just returned from Guangzhou was the first to speak: "There is no hope for a satisfactory solution unless we use force against the corrupt, backward, arrogant government." ”
"I also support the use of force against China, no matter what happened in the past, now the Qing Dynasty is the weakest country in the world, which can only be maintained by systematic lies, absurd holy wills, and the ignorance of the people," said Clough in the House of Commons. The courageous use of force against them can have unintended results. ”
The parliamentarians rose up and expressed their attitude on whether to go to war with China, and Byz said: "It does not take much force to deal with that poor and weak country, and a British escort ship can destroy a thousand warships of the Chinese navy." ”
Yi Lu, who used to sell opium in China, said: "No one has ever been to China, and I have been in China for five years before, and I know China best, and cowardice and arrogance are two of the two distinguishing characteristics of the Chinese government." The way to deal with the Chinese government is to beat him up first and then say it later. ”
Mai Zun, who later became british prime minister, interjected: "I agree with Sir Yilu, I strongly believe that China should be forced to make concessions by force, and we should knock down the enemy and then tell him why he was down and what he should do." ”
Mp Rabente said: "Time is precious, war is the continuation of policy, or diplomatic backing, the use of force does not necessarily mean war, as long as our fleet includes the largest warship of the British Navy, demonstrate to China, so that they know that Britain can fight China by force, then they can wake up." ”
After hearing Ratbent's speech, He immediately stood up and said: "It is impossible for China to wake up, none of you here know me about China, Chinese have never fought a war with a civilized country, and although the Chinese barbarians have courage, their tactics of war are inferior to ours, their weapons are inferior to ours, and seven-tenths of their officers and men smoke opium into pain, and they have no combat effectiveness at all!" Nowadays, although Daoguang has a full treasury of private possessions, he is reluctant to use it for national defense, and he also asks the provinces to pay silver to honor him. ”
The debate was very fierce, and after the debate, the main battle faction voted, and finally the main war faction passed the proposal to use force by a margin of 9 votes, and it was these 9 votes that changed China's fate.
At that time, Britain was known as the "Empire of the Sun Never Sets", with colonies totaling 30 million square kilometers, 150 times that of the British mainland, why did the British discuss for so long whether to go to war against the poor and weak Qing Dynasty?
The reason is simple, because although the British are strong, but there are not many soldiers, the British army has a total of 135,000 people, the mainland has 65,000 people, used to suppress the independence of the Irish, India has 30,000 people, and other colonies have a total of 40,000 people. There are not many troops that can be adjusted, so the division is so actively discussed on a large scale.
At that time, Chinese recorded the situation in his pen: the righteous law was defeated, returned to the country to see the King of England, asked for troops, the King of England had no idea for a while, summoned the group of ministers to consult, the people in the official field were more than the main battle, the people in the business field were many lords and peace, and the discussion was not determined for several days. There is a temple in England, the incense is very spiritual, the queen made 20 signatures, 10 wrote "and", 10 wrote "war", and then disrupted, she even grabbed 3, all of them were "war", so she started a war against China. It can be seen that in the eyes of the Qing Dynasty, war was like a child's play.
After adopting the proposal to use force against China, Britain began to prepare for war, initially planning to attack by land, and had three sets of plans: First, India borrowed 100,000 troops, went around Ili, crossed the Gobi, and took Beijing along the Great Wall. Second, from India, it crossed the Himalayas into Tibet and took Beijing directly through Shaanxi, Gansu. Third, through Myanmar into Yunnan, out of Sichuan, to Beijing.
But the British thought twice, thinking that these three sets of plans had no chance of winning, or send the British best navy. In February 1840, the British appointed George W. Bush, who had served as Governor-General of India and Commander-in-Chief of the Cape of Good Hope Fleet. Yi Lu was the commander of the Eastern Expeditionary Force, which formed the Eastern Expeditionary Force, which had 48 ships, including 16 warships, 4 armed steamships, 540 cannons, and 4,000 soldiers.
Thus the Opium War broke out, an unavoidable war. The prohibition without opium will also break out for other reasons, but it is only a matter of time. The outcome of the war is nothing more than three: victory, defeat, and peace talks. Victory is very difficult, even if the victory is won, it will only make the Qing rulers continue to think that they are the great powers of the Heavenly Dynasty, foreign countries are barbarian states, and China will only be more closed and backward; peace talks are impossible, as long as peace is discussed, there will be a group of literati who do not understand anything, saying that the people who negotiate peace are traitors; so the only outcome is defeat and the payment of compensation for the land. If China is not forced to open the door in the form of a knife in the neck, but takes the initiative to join the world system, then we will be much better in mentality, we will not have resistance to the world system, we will go with the trend of history and thank the change, then today's China will never be like this.