In 1861, the Xianfeng Emperor died, and Cixi, together with Empress Dowager Ci'an and Prince Gong Yixuan, launched a coup d'état of Xin You, commanding the eight ministers to seize power. From then on, Cixi began a 47-year feudal rule over China, which lasted until his death on November 15, 1908.
Cixi's life was full of controversy, the court struggle methods were cruel, even the control and control of his own son, the Tongzhi Emperor, and the successor Emperor Guangxu, was quite high-handed and severe.
In the nearly half century that she has been in power, China has signed many unequal treaties with Western powers that have humiliated and humiliated the country. The 1895 Sino-Japanese Treaty of Maguan and the 1901 Sino-Japanese Peace Treaty were caused by the defeat of the Sino-Japanese Sino-Japanese War when she was in power, and the catastrophe of the Gengzi Fist Rebellion in 1900. Cixi's ruling and decision-making have unshirkable responsibilities and mislead the country and the people.
Cixi lived a lavish life and never changed in her life, even during the foreign war and the huge amount of reparations after the war, she still went her own way, which aggravated the financial problems of the late Qing Dynasty and worsened the people's livelihood.
Cixi's highest goal, on the other hand, remained to maintain Manchu rule over China. She led two reforms in her lifetime, the first being the Western Affairs Movement and the second being the New Deal at the end of the Qing Dynasty.
In fact, Cixi was dissatisfied with the foreigners all his life, and had the idea of using the Boxers against the great powers, declaring war on the great powers, but did not issue an edict declaring war. This move of hers eventually led to the invasion of China by the Eight-Power Alliance, and the Chinese nation was once again devastated by the Western powers.
In 1990, the British Empire, the United States of America, the French Third Republic, the German Empire, the Russian Empire, the Empire of Japan, the Kingdom of Italy, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire formed a joint army of eight countries, with a maximum strength of more than 50,000 troops, and launched a frenzied war of aggression against China.
Although it is an eight-nation alliance, the contribution of each country is very different, and the most active participation is the Japanese state, which has dispatched 20,840 people and 20 warships with the Fifth Division as the main force.
The composition of the British army is a great shame for China. The British formed a marine corps composed mainly of Indians, a few British and Australians, and even a Chinese Battalion to participate in the war, this force composed of Chinese, numbering as many as 1,200 people, directly charged into the forefront of the Eight-Power Alliance's invasion of China.
It is difficult to defeat four hands with two fists, not to mention the weak and corrupt government of the late Qing Dynasty, and it is facing the most powerful military power in the world at that time, which is unique in the entire history of the world. Although the Chinese military and people fought a bloody battle, especially the Boxer Rebellion and the Qing army of Nie Shichengbu, although they were defeated, the Heilongjiang general Shoushan committed suicide and martyrdom in the face of the loss of the country.
On August 14, 1900, the city of Beijing completely fell, and wherever the Eight-Power Alliance went, it killed people, set fires, raped and plundered! China's treasures that have been stolen and looted are even more numerous! The 22,870-volume Yongle Canon, compiled by 2,100 scholars during the Ming Dynasty, was completely damaged.
Many of the valuable books in the Hanlin Academy's collection were looted and destroyed by the Eight-Power Alliance. The British Museum in London and the museums in Paris still have many books that were looted for people to visit and exhibit, and they cannot return to the embrace of the motherland.
The commander-in-chief of the Eight-Power Alliance, Wadhi, later admitted: "The details of all the damages and robberies suffered by the Qing Empire this time will never be found, but the number will be extremely significant." ”
Even the relatives of the emperor at that time were not spared. Empress Tongzhi's father, the wife and daughter of Hubu Shangshu Chongqi, was detained to the Temple of Heaven, where he was insulted by dozens of people of the Eight-Nation Alliance, and after his return, the whole family committed suicide, and Chongqi committed suicide by taking poison.
Emperor Cixi fled in a hurry, and on the way to escape, he ordered Ronglu to stay in Beijing and beg for peace, and then sent Yi Li, the Prince of Qing, and Li Hongzhang to jointly discuss peace matters. In the end, the "Xinugu Treaty" was signed, which completely reduced China to a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society.
The "Xinugu Treaty" is an unequal treaty with the largest amount of reparations, the most serious loss of sovereignty, and the deepest spiritual humiliation in China's modern history, which has brought unprecedented disasters to the Chinese people. At the time of signing the contract, there were three small countries that fell into the well and took the opportunity to steal private interests, they were Belgium, Spain, and the Netherlands.
The Qing government never cared about the country and the people, only for its own pleasures, and did not care at all about the lives and deaths of the people. At that time, Yuan Shikai's new army watched the fire from the other side of the whole war, and the southern provinces even jointly signed a "southeast mutual protection" treaty with the great powers, resulting in the whole war becoming a contest between the imperial forces in Beijing and the great powers, which was completely the misfortune of the Chinese nation.
These eight-nation coalition forces, which were stained with the blood of Chinese, used the countless wealth seized from China to invest in domestic development and continue to carry out colonial aggression, shameless bandits