Since Xianfeng three years after the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom established the capital of Tianjing, it basically formed a situation of crossing the river with the Qing court. Just when the two sides are fighting fiercely, there is a force watching the fire from the other side, and it will fall to one of them at any time, and this force is the great powers of various countries.
From the perspective of the overall situation, whether the great powers fall to Tianjing or Beijing, they can play a key role. However, in the early days of the confrontation, the attitude of the great powers was still unclear, and they also actively communicated with the Tianjing regime. Unfortunately, Hong Xiuquan did not seize this heavenly opportunity, otherwise history would inevitably be rewritten.
The great powers of this period mainly referred to the three countries of Britain, France and the United States. Germany and Russia have no time to take care of China because of the civil war. Among them, Britain plays an absolute leading role.
At the beginning of the military revival, Britain declared neutrality and sent people to visit Tianjing
Britain was the eldest of the great powers, and after the First Opium War, Britain gained the privilege of trade in China, and in their view, as long as they could smoothly import opium and obtain high profits, there was no essential conflict between the two sides in terms of ideology.
In the third year of Xianfeng, the Taiping Army came from the upper reaches of the Yangtze River and soon set the capital at Tianjing. At that time, the Inspector of Jiangsu had asked the British to send troops several times, but unfortunately, at this time, the British military center of gravity was not in China, but was brewing war with Russia in the Crimea region.
The British were an old capitalist country with a lot of experience in diplomacy, and they realized that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's capital, Tianjing, had caused the Qing Dynasty to lose its dominance south of the Yangtze River, and it was unknown whether the Qing Emperor could retain the throne.
If the British sent troops to help the Qing court at this time, once the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom took over the national power, it was bound to turn its face with the British, not only would the benefits not be gained, but even the previous vested interests would be written off. Therefore, the British felt that it was very risky to send troops to help the Qing court.
As mentioned earlier, there is no ideological conflict between Britain and China, but it is impossible to achieve unity in this regard. Coincidentally, Hong Xiuquan used the slogan of "God" to save Cangsheng. Therefore, the British still have a slight good feeling for the Tianjing regime.
England is a Catholic Protestant country, and if a new country of the same faith can be born in China, it is also popular with the British.
But what the British don't understand is that the reason why Hong Xiuquan played the card of God Sect is just a new way of opposing the Qing Dynasty. In fact, Hong Xiuquan's understanding of Christianity is very limited and one-sided, completely half-hanging, as long as it is exposed through contact. For this reason, the British sent a man named Wen Han to visit Tianjing, hoping to get an ideal answer.
After Wen Han arrived in Tianjing, he found that the Heavenly King Hong Xiuquan actually regarded Britain as a vassal, and wanted to worship the Kingdom of Heaven as authentic, and he also had to pay tribute every year.
This was not the most important thing, after Wen Han arrived in Tianjing, he also contacted many high-level people, and found that these people knew little about Christianity and were open-minded. Someone even asked him: Did the Virgin Mary have a little sister? Can the little sister be promised to be the king of heaven? As a devout Christian, Wen Han held a fire in his stomach during this trip, and he also decided that Hong Xiuquan was an outlaw and blasphemous outlier, which was incompatible with the authentic Catholic style.
The attitude of France and the United States
Seeing that the British were actively communicating with Hong Xiuquan, France also sent minister Bolbronn to visit Tianjing shortly after Wenhan visited Tianjing. Although his cruiser was warned by artillery fire when it sailed to Tianjing, he successfully met Hong Xiuquan.
The meeting between Burbron and Hong Xiuquan did not seem to be very speculative, and Hong Xiuquan gave him an edict, making it clear that France, like England, was a vassal state of the Heavenly King. As long as you pay tribute honestly every year, you will not embarrass France in the future.
Burbron spent a few days in Tianjing and also took to the streets to get around, gaining a basic understanding of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. After this visit, he and Wen Han came to a similar conclusion: the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was a very unreliable regime, more backward than the Qing Dynasty.
The United States is a young country, the religious consciousness is not very strong, they value the most is the benefit. After Burbron, the United States also sent minister Malisha to visit Tianjing, and the United States also had a bad impression of Hong Xiuquan after contact. After the visit, Marisa wrote a letter to the washington hierarchy, which roughly meant:
If the United States wants to preserve its interests in China, the best way is to save China, and not to let China be in a state of anarchy, if so, China will become the spoils of war for the Europeans, and the United States may not even be able to drink soup. So now no one is helping, let's take a look at it first.
Representatives of the three countries have been to Tianjing one after another, and none of them have gained any benefits. Moreover, after that, whenever the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom came into contact with the great powers, it would receive a "superior edict" from the Heavenly King Hong Xiuquan, and the representatives of the three governments would be tossed without temper.
The great powers soon saw through Hong Xiuquan as a person, believing that he was not enough, and taking a step back ten thousand steps to say that even if the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom overthrew the Qing Dynasty and took over the national power, he would not be able to recognize the unequal treaties signed between the powers and the Qing government. Therefore, since the middle and late Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the great powers have gradually fallen to the side of the Qing government.
However, Hong Xiuquan was not useless to the great powers, and they also realized that the Taiping Army's operations had dispersed the Qing army's forces, leaving the north empty. Britain and France took advantage of the Qing forces moving south to launch the Second Opium War, forcing the Qing court to sign the Treaty of Beijing.
Hong Xiuquan and his Taiping Heavenly Kingdom regime were not an armed force led by the elite at the top, which doomed them to have limitations of one kind or another. If Hong Xiuquan, Yang Xiuqing and other high-level officials can survive and develop in the contradiction between the Qing court and the great powers, in fact, it is not impossible to overthrow the Qing Dynasty.