In the eyes of modern people, the First Opium War was the beginning of China's century-long history of humiliation, which ended with the fiasco of the Qing Dynasty and ended with the Treaty of Nanking and the Treaty of Humen, two unequal treaties that humiliated the country. Since then, the Western powers have rushed to China to demand the same treatment as Britain, forcing the Qing government to sign unequal treaties, and China has gradually degenerated into a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society.
For modern Chinese, the defeat in the Opium War was extremely humiliating, but for the Qing court at that time, this defeat was nothing. Their thinking is still stuck in the ancient times that are hundreds of years or even thousands of years away from that time, thinking that these "red-haired barbarians" are no different from the Hu people who harassed China's borders in ancient times, and the barbarians always like to cause some trouble from time to time, as long as the Heavenly Dynasty is gracious, takes a slight step back, agrees to their "pleading", and "rewards" them with a little benefit, they will stop.
For example, in the early Han Dynasty, Liu Bang, the ancestor of Han Gao, was unable to subdue the Xiongnu for a while, so he made peace with the Xiongnu and "rewarded" them with some grain and cloth every year. The Central Plains army could not defeat the barbarian army of "brutality and martial arts", which is not a rare event in history. In the same way, now the "Yingyi" is taking advantage of its own ship's strong artillery and plundering the coast, and the Great Qingshui Division cannot match it, but it is actually "a long ruler and a short inch", which is the same reason that the Han army initially defeated the Xiongnu who had excellent horses. According to the routine handed down by the ancients, we should first appease the "Yingyi" for the time being and consider the long term.
Therefore, even after the fiasco in the Opium War, the Qing government was still very arrogant. From the perspective of the Qing government, the signing of the treaty with Yingyi was a favor from the Heavenly Dynasty, and the reason why Yingyi wanted to plunder the coast, provoke incidents, and demand the opening of coastal ports was to gain a foothold where he could learn Chinese culture, and it was an act of admiration and indoctrination.
According to the relevant information collected by modern scholars, in the official documents between the Qing government and the British initially signed the Treaty of Nanking, the Qing Dynasty's words were very arrogant, revealing the meaning of "China is the kingdom of the gods" between the lines, portraying Britain, the winner of the war, as "pleading with the emperor for mercy" and "demanding tribute to the emperor". Among the official documents, there are many words such as "the British pleaded with the emperor" and "the British were afraid to obey the order".
Initially, the British treaty-takers not take the relevant words and phrases in these official documents seriously. Later, when the British Prime Minister Palmerston saw the official document, he was angry and corrupt, he believed that this was the humiliation of the Qing Dynasty to Britain, and he was angry and frustrated that the people who signed the treaty acquiesced to this humiliation. In the end, under his efforts, the Treaty of Nanking added another clause: "The exchange of dependents of the two countries shall be accompanied by parallel notes." At the same time, he demanded that the official documents of the Qing Dynasty should no longer contain words such as: "The British pleaded with the Qing court authorities" and "The British were afraid to accept the order".
Since the end of the 18th century, Sino-British exchanges have been increasing, and britain has been trying to seek a relatively peaceful relationship with the Qing Dynasty, and is very annoyed by the Qing Dynasty's practice of seeing itself as a barbarian and tributary state. The British had sent Magalney to visit the Qing Dynasty on the occasion of Qianlong's eightieth birthday in an attempt to establish diplomatic relations and further trade with the Qing Dynasty, but in the end because of the etiquette problem, Qianlong was very dissatisfied with the British's intention to "trespass", and the British regarded the Qing Dynasty's contempt for themselves as an insult, and both sides regarded the exchange as an insult to themselves.
Even if it was defeated so badly in the Opium War, it still did not wake up, and it was really sad that it still chose to stand still and rest on its own.