When it comes to the history of China's development from ancient times to the present, modern history is the most humiliating. A big country, bullied by the great powers, does not even have the ability to fight back. Although it is a fact that no one can change if they are backward, the faces of those shameless invaders are really too ugly, and the Qing Dynasty, which was only concerned with losing money and seeking a stable life at that time, really made people feel that they were very incompetent.
On June 28, 1840, the First Opium War broke out. Although the Qing Dynasty did not do anything wrong in this war, as a backward agricultural country, how could it fight the rapidly developing industrial country of Britain? As a result, the Qing Dynasty began to cut land and pay compensation. This Opium War seemed to have pulled the Qing Dynasty apart, and the other invaders swarmed like jackals that smelled of blood.
The incompetent Qing Dynasty, in addition to exerting force in suppressing the common people, at other times, it all put on a weak appearance of renjun cai, constantly seeking peace, cutting land, and paying compensation. When the war is lost, lose more points, and when you win, you lose less. But anyway, it's right to keep spending money on peace. To say that the loss of this silver is only indignant, the loss and destruction of this cultural relics is particularly devastating.
Since the beginning of the Opium War, millions of precious cultural relics in our country have been lost around the world. Among them, the most destructive is the invasion of China by the Eight-Power Alliance. In the spring of 1900, an aggressive group composed of eight major countries, led by the Then United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the United States of America, the French Third Republic, the German Empire, the Russian Empire, the Empire of Japan, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Kingdom of Italy, launched an all-out aggression against the Qing Dynasty under the pretext of "suppressing the Boxers and preserving the overseas Chinese".
After the Eight-Power Alliance occupied the city of Beijing, it began to burn and loot on a large scale. Many precious cultural relics have been damaged to varying degrees, including the Yongle Canon, which is known as the "largest encyclopedia in the history of the world". In addition to this book, countless gilded bronze Buddhas, splendid embroidered products, and bronze artifacts were snatched away by the coalition forces. Moreover, the most incomprehensible and unforgivable thing is that for those cultural relics that cannot be moved or moved, the Eight-Power Alliance has adopted the means of setting fire to them. Such an act is simply an incorruptible crime!
Don't say what you stole, and what you can't take away actually didn't leave for the Qing Dynasty! What a rogue act this is? Imagine the burned Yuanmingyuan, Chinese's heart is dripping blood, this Chinese treasure built by countless top craftsmen at that time, which was destroyed in the fire, this is a heart-wrenching thing! This is also an indelible pain for the Chinese nation. However, in the face of their own atrocities, only two countries have reflected and apologized.
In 1951, Leningrad University in the Soviet Union returned 11 volumes of the Yongle Canon to China. Later, in 1954, the State Lenin Library of the USSR returned 52 volumes. In 1959, the Soviet government also sent a mission to Visit China, and then apologized for the atrocities committed by Russia at that time, and in this event also returned the golden iron fist on the flagpole of the Boxer Rebellion army that had been snatched away by the Russian invading army.
In 1955, when East German Chancellor Grotivaux visited China, he also brought back ten Boxer war flags and three volumes of the Yongle Canon that had been snatched by Germany, and then deeply reflected on his crimes and apologized to China. Although the past cannot be traced, the practice of East Germany and the Soviet Union can also be regarded as a little compensation, so that the Chinese people feel the goodwill they released. However, both East Germany and the Soviet Union had been disintegrating for many years.
It has to be said that the heaviness of history makes it impossible for people to clearly describe their current feelings, but the anger and powerlessness at that time, as well as the shame of being oppressed, are still deeply engraved in the hearts of Chinese. On the one hand, we must accept the experience brought by history, and on the other hand, we must also remember that backwardness will be beaten, so we must continue to move forward!