After the eight-nation coalition invaded China, Cixi and Guangxu fled westward, leaving 4.5 million people in Beijing to face the great powers, and when the coalition troops came to the city, as Chinese people, why did the people not hate the enemy to resist the foreign enemy, but immediately compromised with the foreigners, and even were willing to do things for them?
In many documents and classics about the history of the late Qing Dynasty, you can see some black-and-white photos at the same time as the Eight-Nation Coalition Invasion of China, these photos were taken by foreigners present at that time, vividly and vividly portraying a strange scene in Beijing at that time, the coalition troops came to the city, mighty and mighty, but the people in the city did not have the slightest intention of resisting, but many people also helped the great powers to do things, men helped build offensives, dig trenches, women assisted in laundry and cooking, responsible for logistics, the whole scene was both strange and logical, Almost no ordinary people tried to resist.
Why is this happening? The reasons are roughly divided into 4 types, let's talk about them one by one!
- The first reason is related to the personnel structure inside and outside Beijing
As we all know, when the Qing troops entered the customs, there were only 3 million people in the entire Manchu and Qing Eight Banners, but in the entire territory of China, the number of Han people left after the fall of the Ming Dynasty exceeded 300 million, which is why the Qing Dynasty's adherence to the feudal class system exceeded that of any previous dynasty as never before.
There are too many Han people, all killed, it is obviously unrealistic for a huge country to have no people, but there are risks of uprising, resistance and other risks left, such as the voice of "anti-Qing and restoration" in the early Qing Dynasty, which is a potential hidden danger for the Qing Dynasty. Therefore, the Qing Dynasty established an almost harsh hierarchy, dividing ethnic groups into three, six, and nine classes, with the Baqi Manchus being the highest, the Mongols second, and the lowest being the Han.
Therefore, in the capital under the Qing Dynasty, Han people are not allowed to live in the city, and the people living in it are all Baqi aristocrats, about 80,000 households, a total of about 400,000 people, while Han people can only live in the suburbs outside the city, about 30,000 households, about 150,000 people, these Han people enjoy much lower treatment than the Manchus, and the conscription and taxation have multiplied, how can they have a good impression of the Qing government?
Under the long-term oppression of the Qing government, the Han group, which had no feelings with the Qing dynasty, would certainly not be stupid enough to take up arms to defend the Manchu regime, so it was so simple for the eight-nation coalition army to enter the city.
- The second reason: the Manchus living in the city were very self-aware
How did the invasion of China by the Eight-Power Alliance happen? At the beginning, because the Boxer Rebellion headed by the King of Duanjun developed rapidly in the area of Beijing and Tianjin, because the Boxers advocated xenophobic ideology and carried out devastating blows to commercial institutions undertaken by foreigners such as foreign companies and railways in many places, which greatly moved the cake of the great powers, so at this time many Western governments began to put pressure on the Qing court, asking the imperial court to annihilate the Boxers as soon as possible, and at the same time the coalition forces were formed and began to implement military campaigns in China.
At this time, Cixi couldn't sit still, originally after the Sino-Japanese naval battle, the Qing Dynasty lost its troops and lost face, and now your powers have come to invade our dynasty, it is unbearable, and must take some action to promote the prestige of my Qing country, so her head was hot, and she openly declared war on eleven great powers.
The words spoken are like splashed water, Cixi's mouth is cool, but it also creates a more reasonable reason for the coalition to invade, you have declared war, if I don't fight, won't it refute your face? As a result, the war of aggression against China by the Eight-Power Alliance officially broke out.
Only then did Cixi realize how stupid he was to be quick to talk for a while, and in just two months, the great powers armed with the most advanced guns and firearms had already hit the city of Beijing, while the Qing soldiers who resisted along the way were still holding useless cold weapons, hoping to solve the problem on horseback, and the result can be imagined.
So on the day the coalition army arrived in the capital, Cixi and Guangxu and the palace dependents fled west in a hurry, although this move was kept secret, but the nobles of the Eight Banners were all in the same breath, and the news soon spread to the streets and alleys of the capital, which were all inhabited by Manchus.
The people living in the city are not stupid, they are all born Manchu nobles, everyone knows the advanced guns of the coalition army, even the strongest army of the Qing can not resist, not to mention these pampered and unrestrained people in our city, plus the emperor and the empress dowager said that abandon them, so why am I still thankless, knowing that I will take a life, and try to save the irretrievable rule of the Qing Dynasty? This is the second reason why the eight-nation coalition army has been unimpeded all the way and the people have not resisted.
After the invasion of China by the Eight-Nation Alliance, the people knew that they were unable to resist, and the royal family was treacherous, so they did not make enemies of the coalition army, but even so, why should they help the invaders?
This brings us to the last two reasons:
- The third reason: the actions of the Eight-Nation Alliance are really brutal
- The fourth reason: the people have long been accustomed to the repeated oppression of the feudal rulers
First of all, what kind of ugly acts did the eight-nation coalition do in Beijing when it invaded China? A French soldier who experienced this battle personally repented in his memoirs, saying that the commander of the team would personally encourage his soldiers to participate in large-scale robbery and massacre, and those who did not want to participate in the massacre would be punished.
So the coalition forces did whatever they wanted in the capital, killing people when they saw them, taking wealth when they saw them, for three days and three nights, the city was full of corpses, blood flowed like rivers, there was not a single intact building left, and there were carrion corpses everywhere and the smell of blood coagulation, just imagine how the surviving people of the capital dare to go against the will of the foreigners and not help them work?!
Let's talk about the last reason, thousands of years in Chinese history, most of the historical periods, are in the era of feudal imperial autocracy, thousands of years, the Chinese people have long been accustomed to being oppressed by the imperial power, the days of obedience, no matter how the dynasty changes, whether the Han rule China, or the barbarians establish political power, ordinary people living at the bottom of the social class, are always under the oppression of the feudal imperial power, they are engaged in difficult physical labor, but can only obtain a meager income, They also had to pay unpaid servitude and high taxes, as they had for thousands of years.
But kneeling for a long time, people will forget how to stand up straight, at this time the coalition invasion of China, the flight of the royal family, for the people at the bottom is nothing more than another dynasty change, and a new round of oppression of the supreme imperial power, they do not care what nationality the invaders are, whether they are Chinese, because their hearts have long been paralyzed by these thousands of years of feudal history, unable to resist!