"Instead of being stubborn and trying to survive, it is a shame for eternity; if you make a big show, you will be a duel between male and female!" This is the finishing touch in the edict declaring war, which means that instead of making peace with the great powers to survive, it is better to raise the troops of the country to compete with the great powers. So why did Empress Dowager Cixi suddenly declare war on the eleven Western countries?
On June 11, 1898, the Guangxu Emperor issued an edict "Clearly Determining State Affairs", announcing the restoration and change of law. In the process of changing the law, the old official system was reformed, redundant personnel were eliminated, the Department of Communications and Administration, the Guanglu Temple, the Hongxu Temple, and other institutions should be abolished, and the ineffective military ministers were also put in charge by Yang Rui, Liu Guangdi, and Tan Si, who were arranged by the Guangxu Emperor. These moves were strongly resisted by the diehards in the DPRK, whose leader was Empress Dowager Cixi. On September 21, 1898, Cixi returned to the Forbidden City from the Summer Palace, imprisoned the Guangxu Emperor, arrested the restorationists, and restored the old system before the change of law, known in history as the Penghu Reform Law.
The Guangxu Emperor's reform and reform method was unanimously approved by the Western powers, who hoped to see a more open and foreign Qing government. Cixi imprisoned Guangxu and announced the discipline of the emperor on the grounds that he was ill and needed recuperation. The Western powers were suspicious of this and submitted a note to the Prime Minister' Office of State Affairs, asking them to hire Western medicine to treat the emperor. This move greatly caused Empress Dowager Cixi to be greatly dissatisfied, first, because she was weak in heart and was afraid that Doctor Yang would expose the lie; second, she was angry that the great powers were sticking to the ship and cannon and openly interfering in the internal affairs of other countries.
Another point is that after Cixi imprisoned the Guangxu Emperor and attempted to depose the emperor and establish another emperor, Pu Juan [jùn], the son of King Zaiyi of Duanjun, was made the eldest brother and raised in the palace, preparing to succeed Guangxu and succeed him as emperor. However, the Western countries said that they only recognized Guangxu and nothing else, and Cixi's patience with the Western powers gradually reached its limit. Zai Yi was quite complacent since his son was made the eldest brother, and secretly encouraged his brothers Zai Lan, Zai Lian, and Zai Xun, the Prince of Zhuang, who was in charge of the forbidden army, and Shang Shu Gangyi of the Military Department to establish the Military Affairs Office to replace the functions of the Military Aircraft Department. Zai Yi fantasized that his son would one day ascend to the throne of God, and he would take charge of the government as the "Emperor Taishang" and command the world, and he would not dare to disobey.
Coinciding with the rise of the Yihe Fist in various parts of Shandong, claiming to have a divine protective body and a sword and gun, they gathered to kill foreign priests and burn foreign churches. The governor of Shandong, Yuxian, not only did not send troops to recruit and suppress, but instead treated the boxers as guests, and the Boxers took the opportunity to develop and grow, spreading throughout the provinces of North China.
Zai Yi and others saw that The Fist of Righteousness and The Fist was so powerful that it could be used to seize power by taking advantage of the chaos, so they vigorously persuaded Cixi to issue an edict of praise, and the Boxer took the opportunity to play the slogan of "Helping the Qing Dynasty and Destroying the Yangs". Cixi was originally a very shrewd female Taoist family, but she could not stand the coaxing of the swarms around her, and she really hated the foreigners in her heart, so she thought of borrowing the hand of Yihe Fist to make the foreigners suffer a little, so she listened to Yuxian's report and adopted a vague and ambiguous attitude towards Yihe Fist, and The Boxer Fist was renamed the Boxer Rebellion, indicating that it was a regimental training armed force approved by the imperial court.
The Western powers protested to the Qing court and demanded that Yuxian, the governor of Shandong, who had harbored the Boxers be severely punished. In order to calm the incident, the Qing court changed Yuxian to the post of Inspector of Shanxi, and transferred Yuan Shikai, who was directly subordinate to the Inspector of Shanxi, to act as the Inspector of Shandong. Yuan Shikai used a cruel and repressive approach to the Boxers, and seeing that Shandong could not gain a foothold, the Tuan people poured into Gyeonggi, which led to a catastrophe. The Boxers dismantled the railway and pulled out the telephone poles, cutting off the capital from various places and causing chaos in the market.
After the defeat of jiawu, Gyeonggi was under the command of RongLu and the Wu Wei Army was responsible for the arch guard, which was divided into five armies, of which the Wu Wei Rear Army was reorganized from the Gan army led by dong Fuxiang, a rebel general who rebelled against Shaanxi and Gansu. Dong Fuxiang wanted to climb the Duan King, be a gonggong of the dragon, obey Zaiyi's words, and disobey the dispatches of his superior Rong Lu. The Gan army and the Boxers attacked embassies and churches in the capital, and countries sent troops to Beijing on the pretext of protecting embassy personnel. The Japanese embassy clerk Sugiyama Bin went out of Beijing to meet the coalition forces, was arrested by the Soldiers of the Gan Army, cut off his limbs, and then killed by caesarean section, which was extremely cruel. German Minister Klinder was hacked to death with a knife by Enhai, an officer of the Divine Machine Battalion, on his way to the Prime Minister's Office of State Affairs.
Even if things were bad enough, Cixi still did not make up her mind to completely turn her face with the foreigners. Zai Yi and the others saw the situation and prepared to add another fire to completely mess up the situation. Among Dong Fuxiang's aides was a Shaanxi man named Li Laizhong, who had great ambitions and wanted to emulate Li Zicheng, Hong Xiuquan, and the like, and he bought Wang Jixun, a telegraph student who took charge of the telegram code for Rong Lu, and forged an ultimatum to China from a Western power, which read as follows:
1: The empress dowager immediately returned to power, and the regime was returned to the Guangxu Emperor;
Second: the next edict to suppress the fist bandits, all countries are willing to send troops to help;
Third: Hire foreigners as instructors to unify the training of the national army:
Fourth: The customs tax revenue of each place is supervised by foreigners and controls the use.
The forged ultimatum was handed over to Rong Lu, who immediately reported it to Empress Dowager Cixi. Cixi was furious when she heard the news, especially since letting her return to politics was as uncomfortable as asking for her life. The irrational Cixi listened to the clamor of duanwang and other main war factions, and on June 21, 1900, issued the most imposing declaration of war in the history of the Qing Dynasty and the history of China, and at the same time declared war on "them", that is, the Western countries. At that time, there were eleven legations stationed in Beijing, namely Britain, the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Japan, Russia, Spain, the Netherlands, belgium, of which Spain, the Netherlands, and Belgium did not send troops to invade China.
The final result was that the Eight-Power Alliance invaded Beijing, and Cixi fled in disguise as an old Han lady. This time, it was even more disheveled than the Xianfeng Emperor who took her out of Rehe in 1860, and she could not even eat hot food for several days after leaving Beijing, until the situation improved after Huailai County ordered Wu Yong to take over. The Eight-Power Alliance spent nearly a year in the capital City, forcing the Qing court to sign the Treaty of Xinugi, paying 450 million taels of silver, punishing 173 war criminals of the Boxer Rebellion, exiled Zaiyi's father and son to Xinjiang, and Ordered to commit suicide. The foreigners had intended Cixi's life, but they were eventually spared under the efforts of Li Hongzhang and Yi Xi. When Cixi learned of this, she brazenly shouted out the "famous saying" of "measuring the material strength of China and marrying the happiness of the country."