In the 26th year of Guangxu in the Qing Dynasty, the eight imperialist countries of Britain, Russia, Japan, France, Italy, the United States, Germany, and Austria, in the name of suppressing the Boxer Rebellion of the people at home, naturally united to launch a war of aggression against China, trying to blackmail a deal at this juncture.
This war of aggression was the beginning of humiliation for China, and it also deeply affected many Chinese, and some people have since resolved to plunge into the anti-imperialist and anti-feudal war and fight for the country, but some people have become even more depressed, silently waiting for and bearing the aggression of the great powers.
Then, when the eight-nation coalition launched the war of aggression against China, we can identify the specific attitude of various forces.
01 Beginnings, civil conflicts lead to wars
At the end of the 19th century, in the east of the earth, a dynasty was already crumbling and edifices were about to fall. Within the dynasty, the supreme power silently allowed everything to happen, and over time, a huge team of "anti-Qing and extinction" was first raised in the northern region, which was the Boxer Rebellion.
The Boxer Rebellion was a spontaneous non-governmental organization, and from the day it was founded, the whole organization was unified around one purpose, that is, to "resist the Qing government and drive foreigners out of China."
The strength of civil society organizations should not be underestimated, and the Boxers achieved a lot of achievements since the beginning of their actions, and in the process of fighting against foreigners and the Qing government, they also killed many Qing bureaucrats and foreigners.
The continued corruption of the Qing government made more and more Chinese consciously join the ranks, and for a while, the Boxer Rebellion quickly swept the country with a rapid development trend.
In this way, the Boxer Rebellion's fame and power in the people was established, but at the same time, the Boxer Rebellion also made many opponents, not only the Qing government wanted to get rid of the Boxers, but foreigners also regarded the Boxers as a thorn in the eye and a thorn in the flesh.
02 Eight-nation alliance of various powers
For the Western powers, although the Boxers and the Qing government were Chinese, they were inherently antagonistic, and they more than once asked the Qing government to independently kill the Boxers.
Here in the Qing Dynasty, Empress Dowager Cixi, as the representative of the highest power, listened to the opinions of foreigners and issued various edicts on many occasions to encircle and suppress the Boxers among the people.
However, the Boxer Rebellion grew stronger and stronger, and the Qing government's troop dispatch was no longer enough to pose a threat to them, and the powers from the third perspective, seeing that the Qing government no longer had the strength to suppress the Boxer Rebellion, no longer pinned their hopes on the Qing government and began to seek opportunities to remove this threat themselves.
Until they found an "exit".
Since then, the Qing Dynasty has classified some Western religions as cults and is not allowed to spread in China, and many domestic "anti-foreign religious societies" have also carried out secret "missionary" activities in the name of the Boxer Rebellion.
Foreign priests were allowed to spread freely in the Qing Dynasty from the Treaty of Tianjin in 1858, and later were allowed to buy land and build churches in China, a policy that encouraged more foreign priests to enter China as missionaries, and also caused confrontation and conflict between religions.
Most of the Chinese people in China believe in traditional religions such as Buddhism and Taoism with a long history, and are not interested in the various religions of foreigners, and on the one hand, foreign missionaries seek more means to get more Chinese to join Protestantism, and do not hesitate to use various methods such as financial temptation and coercion and inducement.
This also aroused the anger of the Chinese people, who firmly believe in the religion of their country, and in their view, the actions of foreign clergy are shaking the foundation of the Chinese nation, and they use some material and profit attempts to domesticate the Chinese and change the soul of the Chinese culturally and ideologically.
It is obvious that the foreign priests who broke into China with the Western powers were nothing more than to carry out more rapid colonial plunder in the future, so the target of the Boxer Rebellion was a new "evil foreign missionary".
As a result, the Boxers directly threatened the interests of the Western powers in China, and there were more than one force that coveted China's "fat meat", and dozens of Western countries wanted to be the first to divide China's territory, and they could not wait to launch an attack on the Boxers in the name of the Boxers "killing" their own missionaries.
03 The Qing government continued to do nothing
In order to completely eliminate the vested interests of Western clergy in China, the Boxers removed the railroad tracks, targeted directly at the troops sent by Western countries in China, and launched a siege.
The incident happened in a hurry, the Western powers did not expect the Boxers to launch an attack without warning, under the siege, the Western army could only continue to retreat one after another, all the way from the Shandong region to the Tianjin area, where the embassies of various countries were attacked by the Boxers.
The Boxers were famous, and before they actually confronted, they had already scared off many Western powers, and the German army bore the brunt, "forced" by the fierce attack of the Boxers, they did not choose to face it head-on, but pinned their hopes on the Qing government, hoping that the Qing Dynasty would suppress the Boxers, and Germany would sit and wait for the benefits of the fishermen.
It's just that on the one hand, the Germans do not want to send troops to fight directly against the Boxers, and want the Qing government to carry all this for them, on the other hand, they do not want other countries and the Boxers to see it, because they are afraid of the Boxer forces, they quietly rushed to the Qing palace on a palanquin.
Ironically, the guards of the Qing government were also guarding against the invasion of the Boxer Rebellion, and as a result, they found Germans pretending to travel on a palanquin.
The two sides originally planned to stand together against the Boxers, but they both mistakenly thought that the other party was the pretend force of the Boxers, and went to war without making it clear.
The Germans had no ability, and they were killed by each other as soon as they came and went, which also became the reason for the Western powers to unite and send troops to China, and the eight-nation coalition's war of aggression against China began.
04 People are welcomed
There is no doubt that the Eight-Power Coalition's War of Aggression against China was a pure war of aggression, in which the Eight-Nation Alliance and the Qing government acted as the two opposing sides, while the Boxers and the Chinese people as "extra-war" forces, had strange attitudes and results in this war of aggression.
On June 10, 1900, the Western armies of the eight powers gathered in the Tianjin area and jointly attacked Beijing, the seat of the Qing government, and in just four days, Beijing fell, and the power centers of the Qing dynasty headed by Empress Dowager Cixi fled.
The reason why the colonial armies of the great powers were able to capture Beijing with such a swift attitude was that the Western powers' armies were menacing, which directly frightened the Qing government and forced them to flee without thinking of facing confrontation at all.
On the other hand, the Chinese people's "support and help" provided by the Western powers was also a big help, the invasion of the great powers, the leaderlessness of the Qing dynasty, and millions of people in the city to look at each other coldly, ignoring the occurrence of this war.
In the course of the war, some people not only did not think of uniting to drive the great powers out, but helped the Western army to carry ladders, ammunition and other military weapons, and even helped them replenish food, so that the army of the great powers could enter the very center of Beijing faster.
The reasons are roughly twofold.
First, the primary purpose of the Western powers was to give the Qing government a huge disgrace, in essence, they wanted to have a seat in the future partition of China, so this invasion of the Western powers did not attack and plunder the Chinese people, but pointed the finger at the Qing government.
As a result, it can also be imagined that with the signing of the Xinxiu Treaty, the eight imperialist countries all got the benefits they wanted, and in essence, these Western countries were also competing according to the competition, and signing the treaty to divide the interests was the "fairest and quickest" way for them.
The second is the Chinese people, for the Chinese people, if they have to choose between the Qing government and the Western powers, they will inevitably choose the Qing government.
However, the eight-nation coalition did not do substantial harm to the people, but would give ordinary Chinese people the illusion of "helping them overthrow the rule of the feudal government". Disillusioned with the corrupt rule of the Qing government, the Chinese people no longer have any expectations of the weak government.
On weekdays, they oppress the people, live in poverty, suppress strongly internally, but are weak and incompetent externally, and the disappointment of the people has accumulated too much, and they can't wait to push the Qing ruler from power.
Therefore, under the attack of the Western powers, the people hoped that the Qing government would collapse in this war, and they never wanted to live like this again.
Who will establish a new dynasty or rule in the future is no longer in their consideration, which is a limitation of the people, but it is also the most simple desire of this group in that notification environment.
For the vast majority of Chinese who chose to help the Western powers, they were too disappointed and chilled by the Qing dynasty, but did not expect that the Western powers would never stand with Chinese. At all times, they are enemies of Chinese, and their goal is simply to turn China into their colony.
The war progressed to the later stage, as expected, Empress Dowager Cixi had been paying close attention to the dynamics in the city after her escape, and as long as she did not die, the Qing government would still be her world, so under the inaction and authorization of Empress Dowager Cixi, the Western powers got their wish and signed a treaty to divide China's territory and wealth.
After this battle, the Qing dynasty was even more vulnerable, and in the eyes of the Western powers, the Qing government was no longer enough, and they even more brazenly demanded that the Qing dynasty and the Western powers unite to suppress and eliminate the biggest threat, the Boxers.
At this point, under the joint suppression of the Qing government and the Western powers, the Boxer Rebellion forces also collapsed, and a patriotic movement organization disappeared.