The late Qing Dynasty can be said to be the darkest period in the history of the mainland. The decay and incompetence of the Qing court brought us great losses at that time, and also formed countless tragedies, making people live in the depths of the water. When it comes to tragedy, the most serious thing in the late Qing Dynasty was the Eight-Power Alliance.
Under the weakness of the Qing government, the British-led Eight-Power Alliance carried out a brutal atrocities in the city of Beijing. They carried out unbridled looting on the ground, causing a large number of deaths and injuries, and taking away countless precious national treasures, which is an immeasurable loss. And in these eight-power alliances, only two countries later apologized to us and returned the stolen cultural relics.
At the end of the 19th century, the Western powers began to play their minds on the mainland, and the claws of aggression had reached us. At this time, the Qing government was already incompetent to the extreme, and in 1898, the reform failed, and people were already full of disappointment in the Qing Dynasty, and finally in 1899, the Boxer Rebellion appeared.
Cixi, who came to power in the Qing Dynasty, developed an irrepressible xenophobia because the great powers supported the reformists and carried out endless exploitation of the mainland. So she did not purge the Boxers according to the requirements of western countries, but with the support of the xenophobic forces of the Qing government, the Boxers developed rapidly and looked like they were about to break away from the control of the West.
On May 28, 1900, the United States, France, Germany, Russia, Japan, Italy and austria-Hungary, led by the British Empire, joined forces to send troops into Beijing to suppress the Boxers in the name of "defending the embassy". At first, Cixi continued to be patient, but as the atrocities of the coalition forces became more and more rampant, and the attitudes of various countries became more and more arrogant, she finally couldn't bear it, and on June 21, the Qing government declared war on all the allied countries.
Since then, a fierce struggle has broken out. The Eight-Power Coalition had the largest number of Japanese troops, and the least Italy sent only about 80 men. The Qing army and the Boxers fought to the death against these invaders, but unfortunately, due to the difference in equipment, they suffered heavy casualties. Just after the defeat of the Qing army, the Eight-Nation Alliance began their heart-wrenching atrocities.
The whole capital was the scope of the coalition army's looting and exploitation, and a large number of monuments were destroyed and cultural relics were looted. Every household was looted, and nearly 3 million taels of silver were looted in the home of Hubu Shangshu. During this period, the coalition forces did nothing wrong, causing countless casualties, and the whole city was almost in ruins, and the people were not happy.
This aggression has caused us great losses, an indelible scar, and the mere fact that the artifacts that have been taken away and destroyed are already sad. With the development of society, we have come out of the weak period of the Qing Dynasty and gradually become rich and strong, and those countries participating in the Eight-Nation Alliance that once took away our national treasures have also returned the national treasures and cultural relics they plundered at that time.
In 1921, Germany, which had just experienced World War I, returned the astronomical instruments, ji limit instruments, horizon instruments, jieheng fuchen instruments, and armillary instruments that had been plundered on the ancient observatory, as well as three volumes of mainland cultural masterpieces "Yongle Canon". Between 1951 and 1954, the former Soviet Union also returned a total of 64 volumes of the Yongle Canon three times, which was hailed as "the largest encyclopedia ever recorded in the world" and became fragmented.
The Soviet Union and Germany are the only countries that have returned the national treasures of the continent that they took during the Eight-Power Alliance, and the other precious relics that have been looted have now become the collections of countries that do not want to return them to us. But no matter what they do, you can escape history, but you can't deny history, and their sinful behavior is really there. The weak will eventually be bullied, and we must continue to be strong in order to defend our country.