Just in 1840 AD, the Opium War broke out, from this time on, the history of humiliation that Chinese can never forget also began, in a casual hundred years, China is a history of blood and tears, due to the corrupt and incompetent Qing government led to the signing of 728.69 million silver huge amounts, which is equal to 177.22 billion yuan, in addition, the land cut out is also more than 1.6 million square kilometers.
Not only that, these indemnities are clearly understood by each of our countrymen, but in addition to these, there are other clauses that also endanger the interests of the country, such as allowing foreign concession land, as well as most-favored-nation treatment, and opening of treaty ports, etc. These are all step-by-step compromises of the Qing government, and in those places leased by the Western powers, there are many famous territories, such as Jiaozhou Bay occupied by Germany and other islands in this bay, as well as Lushun, Dalian and other places occupied by Tsarist Russia. In fact, during the Guangxu period, the British also forcibly rented a place, which was Weihai.
Weihai in the northern tip of the Shandong Peninsula, in the Qing Dynasty this place did not have any fame, was not valued, the economic backward population is also very small, is a closed small fishing village, but the geographical location of this place is very good, strategically very meaningful, at that time in Beijing signed the "Lease Weihaiwei Special Article", the British can garrison troops here, can also build forts, and the Qing Dynasty can continue to manage this place.
But this treaty was only a treaty, and at the beginning it was fulfilled, and in the second year, the administration had already reached the hands of the British War Department, so the British had begun to interfere in the jurisdiction of the Qing government at that time, and later formally let the British colonies take over here, and also set up a colonial government here. With their efforts, a real colonial rule system was established here, and the administrators here were personally appointed by Emperor Edward VII, so Weihai was more despotic than other British colonies.
When the British rented this place, their army carried out military exercises, artillery training and fleet exercises here, etc., and also built a lot of summer shelters around the coast, which was very comfortable, and when it was hot in the summer, Weihai was almost full of people, and business naturally improved, so under their colonization, weihai's economy developed rapidly, no longer the closed small fishing village before.
After the victory of the First World War, the "Washington Conference" was held, and China also proposed at the meeting that those countries should return all the land they had rented in China, and they negotiated with britain for eight years on this piece of land in Weihai, and then in October 1931, the British returned Weihai, which had occupied weihai for 32 years, and truly became the territory managed by China.
Now Weihai's population has developed from 120,000 to 2.8 million today, reaching 128674 yuan in per capita GDP statistics in 2018, ranking second in Shandong's economy and even more powerful than Qingdao, which is really emotional.