In October 1853, the Crimean War broke out, in order to curb the expansion of Tsarist Russia in southeastern Europe, in March 1854, Britain and France declared war on Russia, and the great powers fought fiercely in the Black Sea at the same time, the North Pacific was also ignited.
Fearing that the Tsarist fleet in the Pacific Ocean would move south and threaten the shipping routes of Hong Kong and Southeast Asia, Britain decided to take the initiative to seek an opportunity to annihilate the Tsarist fleet and eliminate the Russian military positions on the coast of Kamchatka and the Sea of Okhotsk. Britain and France have an absolute advantage in the Far East, the coalition has a total of 25 warships, including 6 steam warships, Tsarist Russia has only 6 warships, two are still damaged and cannot sail, and only 4 warships can fight, and they are all sail warships. The forces were also at a disadvantage, with various strongholds on the North Pacific coast, cold climate, difficult supplies, and isolated from each other. Muravyov, the governor of Eastern Siberia in Tsarist Russia, was very aware of his situation and knew that he could not defeat the British and French forces at all, so he adopted the strategy of "avoiding its edge and shrinking the defense", ordering all Russian warships to withdraw to the port, and all Russian strongholds were also ready to retreat, preparing to retreat all Russian troops to the mouth of the Heilongjiang River to avoid the battle.
Due to the lack of accurate intelligence, the British and French forces blindly wandered around the sea for several months to search for the Russian fleet, and found nothing, and finally in August 1854, they came to the Russian stronghold of Petropavlovsk in Kamchatka, ready to storm this important military town of Tsarist Russia in the Far East, the British and French fleets had a total of 6 warships, 2000 soldiers, 200 cannons, while the Russian defenders only had 800 people, 66 cannons, and the reinforcements and retreats were completely cut off (to this day, Petropavlovsk is not accessible by road and rail, only by sea and airplane). , the commander of the coalition fleet, the Englishman Price suddenly shot himself, and there are two theories about this, one is that Price accidentally misfired while wiping his revolver, and the other is that Price had mental problems, and the pressure before the battle made him collapse and commit suicide. Anyway, the commander was killed on the first day of the war, which was a big blow to the morale of the coalition forces.
After a day of artillery battles, the next day the coalition forces sent 700 people to land and fight, as a result, the coalition forces were not familiar with the terrain, the landing site road was rugged and steep, it was difficult to move forward, and there was no obstruction on both sides of the road, there was no place for concealment, the coalition forces were soon ambushed by the Russian army, the Russian army was fierce, the coalition army was overwhelmed, and the corpses were thrown down and fled in embarrassment. After another two days of fruitless attacks, the coalition fleet had to withdraw to Canada to recuperate. Tsarist Russia won a rare victory in the defense of the war.
The victory of the defense of Petropavlovsk made the Russian army ecstatic, but Muravyov kept a clear head, he judged that the British and French forces would make a comeback, so he ordered the Tsarist soldiers and civilians in Petropavlovsk to prepare to evacuate, in April 1855, the Russians helped the old and the young, and took their families and baggage to board warships and merchant ships to evacuate, a month later, in May 1855, the British and French forces again violently killed, but found that it was already an empty city.
The coalition forces continued to search for the Russian fleet in the North Pacific, and on May 20, two British warships found four Russian warships in a bay on Sakhalin, which had fled from Petropavlovsk. The British army launched a tentative attack, God once again helped the Russians, at this time suddenly the fog was filled, in the thick fog the British could not see the situation of the Russian army clearly, thinking that the Russian fleet was strong, so they left a warship to monitor the movements of the Russian army, and the other warship returned to move the rescue troops; in fact, at this time, the Russian warship was crowded with fleeing soldiers and civilians, and the deck was full of all kinds of debris, and it was impossible to fight at all, and if the British army attacked, the Russians would be completely annihilated.
Another point is that at that time, the British and the French thought that Sakhalin Island was a peninsula and the Tatar Strait was a bay, so they thought that as long as they held the southern entrance of the bay, the Russian fleet would have no way to escape, but the Russians already knew that Sakhalin Island was an island and not a peninsula, and could reach the mouth of the Heilongjiang River.
A week later, on May 27, British reinforcements arrived, murderously entering the Tatar Strait, but once again empty, the Russian fleet has disappeared, it turns out that the northern part of the strait has just thawed, and the Russian army has successfully escaped into the mouth of the Heilongjiang River.
The Crimean War was violently beaten by Britain and France in the Black Sea Tsarist Russia, and in the Far East in the North Pacific Britain and France lost their troops and gained nothing, Muravyov not only successfully avoided the blows of Britain and France, but also strengthened the power of Tsarist Russia in the Heilongjiang River Valley, and forced Qianlong's grandson Yishan to sign the "Aihui Treaty" through bluff threats, and successfully cut away a large area of territory of the Qing Dynasty.
In 1854 (Xianfeng 4), the Qing Dynasty learned the news of the war between Britain and Russia from the report of the Guangdong officials, but the two countries were in a state of doubt about the actions of the two countries around China. Regarding the actions of the British in the southeast, Xianfeng ordered the officials in the south: "The people of Shanghai are not allowed to swim arbitrarily, and they have told the banks of the river and the sea that there are now heavy troops, if they do not respect the restraints, they will be killed by our soldiers, and they should be killed by their own relatives, and they have nothing to do with me."
Xianfeng's general attitude was that the Russians should be monitored, but they should be patient and not cause further trouble, and the British should be strictly restrained and not allowed to run wild. Why is this completely different attitude, because at this time the Qing Dynasty was fighting fiercely with the Taiping army in the south, and the British had a lot of contact with the Taiping army at this time, so Xianfeng was afraid that the British would collude with the Taiping army and it would be unfavorable to him.
It was under this line of thinking, coupled with the Qing Dynasty's ignorance of the international situation, that the cranes and mussels competed, and the Qing Dynasty, a fisherman, not only did not benefit, but was bitten by the cranes and mussels, that is, the Old Summer Palace was burned by Britain and France, and a large area of territory was cut off by Tsarist Russia for nothing, and then the indirect consequence was that Tsarist Russia got a large area of fertile territory in the outer northeast, and was worried that Alaska would not be able to hold it in the next war, so he begged the United States to buy Alaska and the Aleutian Islands.