In February 1840, the British government appointed Rear Admiral George Yilu as commander-in-chief of the "Eastern Expeditionary Force". In June of the same year, Yi Lu led an expeditionary fleet to China. The British army, which had invaded the waters of Guangdong, China from India, was met with heroic resistance in Guangzhou and Xiamen, and in desperation turned north to attack Zhejiang, where coastal defense was relatively weak. Due to the extreme lack of preparation before the war, the Hastily prepared Qing naval division ships and shore positions were destroyed in a short period of time. On July 2, Dinghai fell and the British slaughtered the city.
The British warships took advantage of the victory and marched north, reaching the outside of Taku Pass in August, directly approaching the Gyeonggi Gateway. The Qing government sent Qi Shan, the governor directly under his command, as a minister of Chincha, to Guangzhou for peace talks. In order to increase the bargaining chips, the British launched the Battle of Humen. The Daoguang Emperor finally ordered a declaration of war on the British, but it was too late, and in the Battle of Humen, the Admiral of Guangdong Water Division Guan Tianpei was martyred, and Humen was lost. In July 1842, the British government sent Pu Dingcha to lead 37 ships and 2,500 troops to sail out of Hong Kong, and the second time they fought north, capturing Xiamen, Zhandinghai, Wusong, and Xiazhenjiang, cutting off the north-south transportation, and the army approached the city of Nanjing, and the Qing army was completely defeated.
During the First Opium War, the British attacked Zhenjiang
On August 29, 1842, under the threat of British gunboats, qing government representatives boarded the British ship "Han Huali" and formally signed the first unequal treaty in Modern Chinese history with the British Plenipotentiary Pu Dingcha- the Treaty of Jiangning (also known as the Treaty of Nanjing).
The treaty stipulates that China will pay 21 million silver dollars in reparations; cede Hong Kong; open five important coastal cities such as Guangzhou, Xiamen, Fujian, Ningbo and Shanghai as treaty ports, and the import and export tariff rules must be "justly agreed" with the British side. From June 1840 to August 1842, the Opium War lasted 26 months. Since then, the gates of China's coastal defense have been opened, and China has begun to degenerate into a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society.
The Qing Dynasty in the 1840s had a national army of 200,000 Eight Banner Soldiers and 600,000 Green Battalion soldiers, which was the largest standing army in the world at that time; and the total strength of the British Expeditionary Force at the beginning of the army, the combined navy and army, was only 7,000 people. The ratio of 1:10 shows the absolute numerical superiority of the Qing army. Even at the end of the war, the Strength of the British Expeditionary Force increased to about 20,000 men, a ratio of only 1:40. Such a huge gap in strength, the Qing army was defeated to the point of misery. The speed of its rout and the magnitude of its losses were unexpected by the Chinese people. The direct reason for this outcome is the extreme asymmetry of the equipment level of the two armies, and the numerical superiority of the Qing soldiers is ruthlessly offset by the inferiority of the quality of the equipment.
During the Opium War, the main force of the Shimizu Division's warships was still mostly paddleless or sloop-powered oars, with a few double-masted or three-masted warships. This old warship has a slow speed, poor maneuverability, and a small tonnage, generally no more than 250 tons, carrying no more than 100 people; each warship is generally only equipped with 2 to 4 guns, and at most more than 10 guns. The artillery was small, few and old, and its tactical performance could be imagined. At this time, the British Navy has begun to modernize and transform: large warships are equipped with more than 70 guns, and the small gun body can weigh 50,000 or 6,000 kilograms; the shells are clearly classified, and the range is as far as 10,000 meters. Of course, at this time, the Western navy was still in the transition stage from early warships to steam ships, steam engines had not yet been widely used, to warships, improved sail ships, that is, three-masted splints, were the main combat ships of the British Navy. But even this kind of warship overshadowed the old-style division ships of the Qing Dynasty. In the face of the British army's strong ships and guns, "the barriers were actually set up, and the stars soared, and there was no enough to deserve it." At this time, there was an invisible gap between the changes in the strategic and tactical thinking of western navies and the changes in the military system and the old army of the Qing government.
Qing army sailors brig ships
British warships of the First Opium War
The waste of equipment reflects the fragility of the Qing government's coastal defense system and the backwardness of coastal defense thinking, and the military defeat reflects the victory or weakness of the Qing Dynasty's political, economic, scientific and technological comprehensive national strength. In this great contrast, the reasons for the defeat of the war should be clear at a glance.
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◤ George Yilu (1784-1863), British nobleman, admiral, participated in the intervention of the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, the First Opium War, and was awarded the Order of Bath. From 1834 to 1835 he was secretary of the British Admiralty and a member of the Naval Commission. On 10 January 1837, Yi Lu was promoted to rear admiral, and in September, he was made commander-in-chief of the Cape of Good Hope fleet. In 1840, he served as the British plenipotentiary representative of the invasion of China and the commander-in-chief of the invasion of China, and later negotiated with the Qing minister Qi Shan to coerce the Qing government to negotiate peace. In November of the same year, he retired to Macau, returned to China due to illness, and immediately retired.
◤ Qishan (1790-1854), Zi Jing'an, Borjigit clan, Manchurian Zhenghuangqi people. Born into an aristocratic family of hereditary marquises of first class. Qi Shan successively served as Langzhong of the Punishment Department, deputy envoy of the Department of Communication and Political Envoys, Envoys of Henan Province, Envoys of Jiangning, Envoys of Henan Province, Inspectors of Henan, Inspectors of Henan, Governors of Shandong, Governors of Liangjiang and Viceroy of Caoyun, Governors of Sichuan, Viceroys of Liangguang and Customs Supervision, and Viceroys directly subordinate to them, and were favored and relied upon by the Daoguang Emperor, and their power was tilted inside and outside. Qi Shan's opposition to Huang Juezi's claim to cure opium addicts represented the vested interests of the Manchurian magnates and large landlords and bureaucrats. After the outbreak of the Opium War, Qi Shan was one of the main members of the capitulation faction in the Qing government, and was the initiator of the "strike and peace". In August 1840, when the British ship sneaked to The Dagu Pass in Tianjin to threaten the Qing government, Qi Shan was appointed by the Daoguang Emperor to negotiate with the British plenipotentiary George Yilu on matters such as cession and compensation.
◤ Guan Tianpei (1781-1841), zi Zhongyin, Zipu, a native of Shanyang, Jiangsu (present-day Huai'an, Jiangsu). A famous general in the late Qing Dynasty, he was born in the army and promoted to the rank of meritorious service, and served as the commander-in-chief of Su Mao Town and the viceroy of Jiangnan. In 1834, he was appointed as the admiral of the Guangdong Water Division, and later actively assisted Lin Zexu in banning opium, training sailors, strengthening coastal defense, and repeatedly thwarting the provocations of the British invading army. In February 1841, when the British attacked Humen at sea, he asked qi shan, the governor of Liangguang, for help, but he did not allow it, so he led his troops to defend the forts of Hengbao, Yong'an, and Jingyuan. On the 25th, the British army landed from the crossbar. Guan Tianpei fought hard at Jingyuan Fort and guerrilla Mai Tingzhang and more than 400 soldiers, and died heroically. He is the author of "The First Collection of Raising the Sea".
◤ Pu Ding Cha (1789-1856), also translated as Shu Xun Cha, was the leader of the British army during the British invasion of Hong Kong. In 1806 he joined the East India Company. During the First Opium War, he negotiated the terms of the Treaty of Nanking with the Qing government on behalf of the British government. From June 1843 to May 1844, he was the first Governor-General of Hong Kong. Now Ball Tin Zha Street in Central, Hong Kong is named after him. In 1844 he became a member of the British Privy Council.