In the spring of 1900, the Eight-Power Alliance, under the pretext of suppressing the Boxers, wantonly launched a war of aggression against China in an attempt to divide and plunder the Qing Empire. On August 3 of the same year, the largest number of the Eight-Power Alliance attacking Beijing from Tianjin was the Japanese army, with 8,000 people; followed by the Russian army, with 4,800 people;
The third was the British army, 3,000 men; the fourth was the American army, 2,100 men; the fifth was the French army, with 800 men; the sixth was the Austrian army, with 58 men; the seventh was the Italian army, with 53 men; in addition, there were about 7,000 German troops at sea, before they could land.
So if you calculate it in this way, only 18,811 people actually participated in the battle at that time. As the land of Gyeonggi was the center of imperial power, how many Qing defenders were there at that time? The answer is around 160,000! In addition, there were 300,000 or 400,000 Boxers.
Therefore, in terms of strength alone, the number of Qing troops and Boxers combined was about 30 times that of the Eight-Nation Alliance. Simply put, the average of every 30 people is stuck in front of their homes.
However, despite such a disparity in strength, the Eight-Power Alliance captured the city of Beijing in just 10 days. That is to say, the Eight-Power Alliance used only 18,000 people to lay siege to the city of Beijing, which had hundreds of thousands of people stationed.
Seeing this, we can't help but ask, "Why is this so?" Why was the Qing army so incompetent, hundreds of thousands of people could not resist more than 10,000 people in this area? ”
The answer to this question is, presumably, most people can list one or two, and the most important point is the backwardness of weapons and equipment.
In the late Qing Dynasty, although the Qing army was equipped with hot weapons, its performance was poor, and the equipment area was very narrow, basically relying on cold weapons such as large knives and spears to fight. In contrast, foreign armies are basically thermal weapons, with good performance and great power!
Under the conditions of serious unequal weapons and equipment, no matter how many Qing troops and Boxers were, they were only living targets at best. So failure is inevitable.
In addition, some people attribute the reason for the failure to the "Lord's mediocrity". But in the view of some scholars,
The Qing Dynasty did not have a monarch, nor did it have traitors.
Of course, perhaps in your opinion, it is nonsense to say that the Qing Dynasty did not have a dark monarch and a traitorous courtier, such as the incompetent Xianfeng Emperor, when the bandits came in, completely disregarded the dignity of the emperor and fled all the way to Rehe for refuge. And Cao Zhenyong, an old minister of the Three Dynasties who advocated "prostrating more and talking less", was not a traitorous minister?
But in fact, when you look closely at the history of the Qing Dynasty, you will find that
The Qing Dynasty began with the Daoguang Emperor and went all the way to Guangxu later, and there was not a single emperor who did not want to exert great efforts to govern, and there was not a single emperor who did not want to protect the Qing Dynasty.
As for the ministers of the DPRK, whether they are the main war faction or the main peace faction, none of them are not from the perspective of safeguarding the interests of the imperial court, and they are even more unreasonable to foreign countries and have become puppets of foreign countries.
It is worth mentioning that in the late Qing Dynasty, there was no clear main war faction and main peace faction.
For example, before the Sino-Japanese War, Weng Tonggong was a typical main peace faction, while Li Hongzhang was the main war faction, and when Li Hongzhang proposed to strengthen the investment of naval military funds, Weng Tonggong opposed it with all his might. However, when the war began, Weng Tonggong became the main war faction, and those who advocated cutting military expenditure before the war also became the main war faction.
The main peace faction turned out to be Li Hongzhang, Ding Ruchang, and others who advocated vigorously strengthening armaments before the war.
We know that as early as 1873, Li Hongzhang reported to the imperial court that he wanted to form a powerful navy (Beiyang Naval Division) to deter Asian countries, especially Japan. But the result? In the Sino-Japanese War, the Beiyang Marine Division, which was known as "the first in Asia and the eighth in the world," was completely annihilated.
So it's like a historical writer put it:
At that time, the Chinese nation was caught in a contradiction, not that the rulers had no scruples about betraying the interests of the nation, but that they were doing their best to safeguard them.
In 1841, the Daoguang Emperor declared war on Britain; in 1860, Xianfeng declared war on Britain and France; in 1894, Guangxu declared war on Japan; in 1900, Cixi declared war on 13 countries; however, this declaration of war was worse than another, and a loss was greater than another.
Can you say that this is all caused by the incompetence and decay of the Qing dynasty rulers? Of course not so arbitrary!
The reasons for the failure of the Qing Dynasty are multiple, both the decay of the state system and the incompetence of those in power, and of course, the most important thing is the influence of historical trends.
So with that said, the answer to the question we mentioned earlier is clear!
Hundreds of thousands of Qing troops could not defeat the Eight-Nation Alliance of more than 10,000 people, in addition to the poor weapons and equipment, there were also a series of factors such as institutional differences and historical trends!
Of course, this is only the author's family's words, a few strokes, for reference only. You are also welcome to express your opinion in the comments section and we will discuss it together! Like my articles, you can also follow me!
References: "Modern Chinese History, Crisis and Change", "How Many People in the History of the Eight-Power Alliance?" "History of the Boxer Rebellion against the Division of the Great Powers", encyclopedia materials, etc.;