At whose hands did the Qing dynasty die?
In fact, this issue is very controversial, some people say that it is the unscrupulous Xianfeng Emperor, some say that it is Cixi who obeys the government, and some people say that it is Yuan Shikai who instigated Puyi to abdicate.
Empress
But in my personal opinion, the person who first brought the Qing Dynasty to its demise was precisely the Qianlong Emperor in his heyday.
Throughout Qianlong's sixty-three years and four months in power, especially in the previous decades, we must acknowledge that he was a great and fortunate emperor who did not live up to the expectations of Kangxi and Yongzheng.
However, as he slowly entered old age, his thinking underwent some changes, and he began to become more and more profligate and happy, and his political vision became more and more short-sighted!
But at that time, the impression of the Qing dynasty to Western countries was still ancient and mysterious, rich and strong.
It was not until the fifty-eighth year of Qianlong, when he was eighty-three years old, that the failure of a British mission to visit China completely changed the impression of the Qing dynasty in Western countries.
The head of this mission was called Ma Canil, and the reason for his visit was to congratulate Qianlong on his 80th birthday.
But this reason alone dooms the diplomatic campaign to a difficult success.
Xianfeng Emperor
Friends who are familiar with history know that Qianlong ascended the throne at the age of twenty-five, Qianlong was already eighty years old in fifty-five years, and the British came to congratulate the eighty birthday three years later, obviously with some provocative meaning.
Moreover, from the equipment they visited, as well as the gifts and credentials they submitted, it can be seen that the purpose is extremely impure!
First, Macartnier came to ride on a large warship of the British Navy, the Lion, equipped with sixty-four guns, four steel cannons, two iron cannons, and sixteen shotguns! This is obviously to show off the strength of the Navy.
Second, Ma Canier brought more than 100 people, in fact, there were war experts, military situation analysis experts, and military map makers, and these people came to the Qing Dynasty by no means as simple as wishing Qianlong's birthday.
Third, let's take a look at what birthday gifts there were, the largest model of the Monarch battleship with one hundred and ten large-caliber guns in Britain at that time, howitzers, mortars, carbines, rifles, repeating pistols and so on.
What a birthday gift! Just to scare and scare Qianlong, after sending things, Ma Canier immediately began to make demands, such as allowing the British to trade in Ningbo, Zhoushan, and Tianjin, setting up a business hall in Beijing, and ceding an island near Zhoushan to British merchants to live and store goods, and British merchant ships in Guangzhou duty-free or tax-deductible.
Of course, Qianlong Ye was not used to it, and he did not agree to any of his demands, and refused to cooperate with the British in all aspects.
But objectively speaking, the Qing government also did something wrong at that time.
On June 19, 1793, as soon as the British landed, their team was involuntarily planted with colorful flags, which said that the gift list sent by the English Consensus was changed to shopping.
This made Macartnier very dissatisfied, he felt that the Qing and Britain were two completely different sovereign states and there was no tributary relationship.
When receiving Machanier, Qianlong thought that he should bow down, because the envoys of other countries did so.
So Hejun insisted that Macaniel perform three kneeling and nine bows, but Macanil did not do it, and Qianlong was very unhappy at first, and finally both sides took a step back, and Macanil bowed down on one knee like an audience with the king.
Yuan Shikai
All in all, the visit of the Macartnier mission to China was a great failure and had an extremely far-reaching impact on future generations.
For the Qing Dynasty, it lost a good opportunity to contact modern industrial civilization, understand the world, and change the closed state, and to a certain extent, it also made the Qing Dynasty lag behind the trend of world development.
Moreover, before Maccanier's visit to China, Europeans yearned for China very much, and once set off a China fever, and with this failure as a starting point, China's image in the eyes of Europeans gradually dimmed down.