August 13, 1900, a day of disaster for China, on this day; the Eight-Nation Alliance led by Seymour and Wadsey began to attack the city of Beijing, and on August 14, the Eight-Power Coalition army invaded the city of Beijing, the ancient capital of the millennium for so many years, but this time it was invaded by foreigners! This has to be said to be a very sad thing! What about Cixi?
On August 14, before the Eight-Nation Alliance had even entered the Forbidden City, they were ready to flee, and the Guangxu Emperor, along with several concubines, Gege, etc., got into a carriage and fled the Forbidden City quickly! In the Yuanmingyuan, he and several princes met together, and together with more than 1,000 soldiers of the Eight Flags Divine Machine Battalion and the Tiger God Battalion (well equipped) escaped from Beijing City!
And after the Eight-Nation Alliance invaded the city of Beijing, how could it be that the treasure land would return empty-handed, and it was also a very greedy group of people of the Eight-Nation Alliance! So the whole city of Beijing, including the famous Yuanmingyuan, was looted, and a fire was also set, and this fire really burned into our hearts for more than a hundred years, until today we think that the miracle of the Yuanmingyuan was destroyed is also a painful memory for us!
But this is only the tip of the iceberg of the atrocities of the Eight-Nation Alliance, they directly regard the city of Beijing as their own pleasure-seeking field, in which they act arbitrarily, the powerful families in the capital usually do their best to be blessed, and now it is uncomfortable, the Eight-Nation Alliance even burned the Yuanmingyuan and did not rob you of a magnate's home, so for a time, the coalition army frantically burned and looted, and it was even more impossible for the female relatives of the powerful families to let go, and they were humiliated in every way.
There were also a large number of palace ladies and concubines Cixi in the harem who could not be taken away
At this time, there was a group of women who were even more worried, Empress Dowager Cixi was patronizing her own life at that time, and running away certainly could not bring these burdens! Therefore, those women in the harem, without the strength of the chicken, faced with these foreigners who are staring at the tiger, many people think that they will basically be "defiled".
But if you say that the safest place in Beijing at that time, because the commander of the coalition army at that time, Wadsi, only occupied the three major halls, not the harem. And this move is what the Eight-Nation Alliance must do, no matter how beautiful the women in the harem are, they will not go into the harem for the greater good!
Because the Qing Dynasty also had a bottom line
You invaded the city of Beijing and fled with Empress Dowager Cixi, who was equivalent to the supreme leader of the Qing Dynasty at that time, and I put up with it. But if you defiled my harem, that is, you will not give me face at all, then when you are looking for me with a treaty of land-cutting indemnity, even if Daqing agrees, the people below will not agree. And the dog will jump the wall, not to mention that the Eight-Nation Alliance is not a local battle, this time the troops brought 20,000 soldiers, it is very good to have such results, and if you really let the Great Qing open up to fight with you, the Eight-Nation Alliance army may not be able to eat even with a weapon advantage, and if it is won by the Great Qing, it will be difficult to find him to knock the bamboo!
Therefore, after the Eight-Power Alliance achieved its goal of suppressing the Boxers and gaining economic benefits, it would not act beyond the boundaries.
And the previous metaphor is actually not appropriate, because the concubines who stayed in the harem at that time were not actually the national color Tianxiang, the country fell into the city, except for some young, most of them were old and decaying, because basically they were concubines of the Xianfeng and Tongzhi periods, and this may also be a big reason!
And in fact, at that time, when Cixi sent Li Hongzhang to negotiate peace with the Eight-Nation Alliance, he issued an edict in the name of the Guangxu Emperor, which contained a very famous sentence that could fully reflect the weak nature of Empress Dowager Cixi:
"Measure the material strength of China, and tie the joy of the country!"
It is very likely that this sentence of Cixi made the Eight-Nation Alliance very happy, and since you are so "sensible", then I will leave you with a little face!
In any case, this history of one hundred and twenty years ago is very humiliating, and it is worth all our Chinese to remember this matter, to engrave it in our bones, so that we can learn to think of danger in times of peace, and really only a strong country can make us really stand up, because backwardness will be beaten!