The Opium War ended with China's defeat and the cession of land in reparations. China and Britain signed the Treaty of Nanking, the first unequal treaty in Chinese history. Since then, China began to reduce its land to foreign countries, paying reparations, and agreeing on tariffs, which seriously endangered China's sovereignty, and since then, China has begun to degenerate into a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society, losing its independent status, and promoting the disintegration of the small-scale peasant economy.
It can be said that since the outbreak of the Opium War, the Qing government has faced more and more serious crises of rule, during which not only many peasant uprisings broke out, deepening ethnic and class contradictions, but also suffered oppression from Western powers. In addition, due to the sharp decline in comprehensive national strength, the country has generally formed a political situation in which the west is strong and the east is weak.
Moreover, under such a background, the repeated reforms of the central political system have caused a series of mistakes, and in the end, the contradictions within the ruling group have been numerous, and the vicious circle of poverty and weakness of the country has also been created.
During the Second Opium War, because the ruling class disagreed on the issue of post-war compensation, the Xianfeng Emperor fled to the Chengde Mountain Resort together, and finally died outside the Forbidden City. Before his death, the Xianfeng Emperor made a will, but there was a big problem with this will. Because the Xianfeng Emperor laid a political hidden danger on the issue of who would inherit the throne.
At that time, the Xianfeng Emperor considered that the empress did not come out, and if the son of the noble concubine was allowed to inherit the throne, then the new monarch was still young, and it was very likely that the empress and the mother would seize power. Therefore, in order to prevent this problem from occurring, the Xianfeng Emperor proposed a solution: set up eight ministers to assist the government, let them share a political seal, and the two empresses (Empress Dowager Ci'an and Empress Dowager Cixi) each held a political seal, so as to achieve the purpose of involving each other and balancing the overall situation.
Such an idea was naturally excellent, but he made the first political mistake: to exclude Prince Gong Yixuan and prevent him from participating in political decision-making.
After the death of the Xianfeng Emperor, the eight ministers believed that there was a great political threat to xinjun's birth mother, so they adopted strategies to suppress the Western Palace (Empress Dowager Cixi) and carry forward the Eastern Palace (Empress Dowager Ci'an) in order to achieve political balance.
They hoped to suppress the Western Palace and divide the two empresses by using titles to distinguish concubines. Under the change and pressure of the situation, Empress Dowager Cixi naturally would not sit still. She took the initiative to find Empress Dowager Ci'an, and not only proposed the idea of joining forces, but also secretly communicated with Prince Gong Yixuan and allied with her. In this way, the three of them joined forces to eliminate the eight ministers, which not only saved each other's lives, but also made the regime begin to tilt to the side of the empress.
In the early years of tongzhi, Yi Xian controlled the government and the opposition as the king of the council, and actually manipulated the power of the chancellor. In this way, the regime has formed a three-legged situation, that is, imperial power, post-power, and phase power coexist. Although this political situation, which is composed of two queens, young and ignorant Zaichun, and the eight ministers who handle daily affairs, is relatively stable in the short term, in the long run, it is in danger of collapsing at any time.
In addition, when Empress Dowager Cixi and Yi Xun reached a consensus on the elimination of the eight ministers, the two of them were gradually pushed into opposition to power. In 1865, Empress Dowager Cixi devised a bureau to frame YiXuan, stripping him of his status as a parliamentarian on the grounds that Yixuan did not observe court etiquette and regaining power. In 1881, Empress Dowager Ci'an died suddenly, causing Empress Dowager Cixi's position in the harem to soar, and she had the opportunity to monopolize the power of the dynasty.
In order to make her political career more smooth, When the Sino-French War was at its climax in 1884, Empress Dowager Cixi expelled him from the Military Aircraft Department on the grounds that Yi Xun was not good at using people and caused a mistake in decision-making. In this way, Empress Dowager Cixi had no restraint and successfully became the supreme ruler of the Qing Dynasty. At the same time, it also further deepened the problem of corruption in domestic and foreign affairs.
In 1889, the Guangxu Emperor married, and Empress Dowager Cixi said that she would return the imperial government to him, so in the eyes of foreigners, the Guangxu Emperor was the head of China. But in fact, this was not the case, Empress Dowager Cixi still held the real power of the country, and the Guangxu Emperor was only a vain monarch. As a result, two opposing sides appeared in the political situation: the Hou Party, dominated by Empress Dowager Cixi, and the Imperial Party, dominated by the Guangxu Emperor.
Moreover, the imperialists continued to seize power in the name of reform, and the famous Restoration and Reform Law was one of them. In this regard, Empress Dowager Cixi was very angry, and even once wanted to depose the emperor and completely eliminate the restorationists. However, due to the power of the Western powers, she did not do so. But how could Empress Dowager Cixi stop there? She secretly supported the Boxer Rebellion in retaliation for Western powers' interference in China's internal affairs.
But she did not expect that the revenge would not succeed, but it attracted the great powers to join forces to clean up Beijing, humiliating the country, and making her end up being forced to flee to Xi'an.
Before her death, Empress Dowager Cixi followed the example of the Xianfeng Emperor and left Puyi's father Zaifeng as regent, who came to oversee the country and made Empress Longyu empress dowager. In order to strengthen the centralization of power, and at the same time, because of serious suspicion of Yuan Shikai, Zaifeng decided to kill the chicken and the monkey and eliminate Yuan Shikai first. However, Zhang Zhidong thought that this was inappropriate, and he was afraid that he would change, so he vigorously discouraged Zaifeng.
For a moment, Zaifeng had no idea, and he didn't know how to be good. Therefore, in order to ease the contradictions between the two sides, Empress Longyu ordered Yuan Shikai to withdraw from the imperial court and return to his hometown to recuperate. However, no one expected that Empress Longyu's practice was actually to let the tiger return to the mountain. After Yuan Shikai returned to his hometown, he not only received telegrams privately, grasped the secrets of the imperial court, but also accumulated strength. A few years later, Yuan Shikai used force to force Puyi and LongYutai to abdicate.
In fact, as early as the outbreak of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Zeng Guofan already occupied half of the country, so that the Qing Dynasty began to be hollowed out internally, but this still maintained the political balance between Manchuria and the Han people. However, when it came time for Zaifeng to supervise the state, he concentrated his power in the hands of the Manchurian nobility and excluded Han officials, which not only intensified the contradictions between Manchu and Han, but also made Han officials far from the center of power, so that the political situation began to tilt. In order to protect their rights and interests, Han officials have repeatedly launched constitutional movements.
In addition, under Zaifeng's administration, the problem of corruption in the Qing Dynasty became increasingly prominent, and Manchurian rule was gradually on the verge of a precipice.
It can be seen that in order to maintain political balance, the Xianfeng Emperor carefully designed a political system in which the eight ministers and the empress dowager jointly assisted the monarch, but in the end, it evolved into an autocratic dictatorship on one side, ending with the QiXiang coup.
Such a situation seems to strengthen the imperial power, but in fact, it deepens the problem of political corruption. At the same time, in order to maintain the position of imperial power, the Xianfeng Emperor reused Han officials, but what he did not expect was that not only did Empress Dowager Cixi kill the eight ministers, but even Feng feng rejected Han officials. As a result, the Manchurian nobility took a wrong step in centralizing power, resulting in a total loss. In the end, Yuan Shikai profited from it and became the biggest winner.
In his autobiography, Puyi described his father this way: "My father has always been grumpy about political failures, and he believes that he has failed because he has not completely eradicated Yuan Shikai. But I think it's just a matter of tactics, and Daqing lost strategically. ”
Resources:
["Bitter Destiny of Heavenly Son: Xianfeng Emperor Yixuan", "Qing History Manuscript , Biography of Later Concubines", "Rereading the Regent Zaifeng"]