The Central Plains Dynasty has always regarded itself as the Heavenly Empire, especially after the Tang Dynasty, because Tang Taizong Li Shimin won the title of Heavenly Khan, creating a grand occasion for all nations to come to the dynasty, and the monarchs of the Central Plains Dynasty since then are all determined to maintain the image of such a heavenly kingdom.
For example, Zhu Di, the Yongle Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, once sent Zheng He to the West. There are many purposes for going to the West, the most important of which is to promote the great power of the Ming Dynasty. But whoever sends an envoy from the Gentiles to worship him will receive innumerable rewards.
There is no way, Huaxia is rich in people, and there is no problem at all in rewarding these small countries. However, in the Qing Dynasty, this identity of the Celestial Empire seems to have begun to be challenged.
In the early and middle Qing Dynasty, it lived up to the reputation of the Heavenly Empire
In the early period of the Qing Dynasty, although the Quartet was pacified, although it encountered some more powerful opponents, such as Li Zicheng, Zhang Xianzhong, Wu Sangui, Galdan and other heroes, but on the whole, they were relatively smooth.
Therefore, when the Qing Dynasty established a unified territory, it was basically surrounded by small countries. For example, the Korean Kingdom in the east, the Hou Li Dynasty and the Nguyen Dynasty in Vietnam in the south, the Gongbang Dynasty in Burma in the southwest, the Gurkha Dynasty in Nepal, and so on.
These countries, located in a circle around the Qing Dynasty, were all vassal states of the Qing Dynasty and respected the Qing Dynasty. For a time, the Qing Dynasty also experienced the feeling of the Heavenly Empire and all the countries coming to the court.
Including later, during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, after the pacification of the Dzungar Khanate, the Kazakh Khanate in the northwest also submitted to the Qing Dynasty for a time, especially its Great Yuzi part, not to mention how good the relationship with the Qing Dynasty was. During this period, the prestige of the Qing Dynasty reached its peak, and its territory also reached its peak, covering more than 13 million square kilometers, which is a serious begonia leaf.
At this time, the Qing Dynasty was worthy of the reputation of the Celestial Empire. After all, the Qing Dynasty didn't go to sea most of the time, and it was enough to play with the small countries around it, so in this circle, the Qing Dynasty was definitely the big guy.
From the Qing Dynasty's destruction of the Dzungar Khanate in 1757 to the British invasion in 1840, the Qing Dynasty has always regarded itself as the center of the world.
After all, in the first Opium War, the Qing Dynasty did not use all its strength. Emperor Daoguang was only worried that the war would reach the capital of Gyeonggi, so he hastily signed the Treaty of Nanjing with the British. After that, the Qing Dynasty still looked down on foreigners, and the idea of the Celestial Empire was still the mainstream.
Starting from Emperor Xianfeng, the Qing Dynasty had one more behemoth around him
It is obvious that although Britain opened the door of the Qing Dynasty, it did not wake up this beast at all. What really brought the Qing Dynasty to its senses came to its senses was the Second Opium War.
Beginning in 1858, the Qing Dynasty not only faced the attack of the Taiping army, but also had to fight the Second Opium War with Britain and France. The most critical problem is that the Qing Dynasty found that the Tsarist Russia in its north, which had been silent for a long time, had unknowingly become a behemoth.
Although as early as 1689, the Qing Dynasty and Tsarist Russia signed the Treaty of Nebuchu, which divided the Trans-Khingan Mountains as the eastern border between the two countries, and later signed the Treaty of Kyakhta in 1728, stipulating the central border and making trade. But in the eyes of the Qing Dynasty, there was no concept of how huge Tsarist Russia was.
After all, the north is a bitter cold land that no one wants, even if the territory is large, no crops grow, no one settles, it is useless in ancient times. For this reason, the Qing dynasty did not think very highly of their northern neighbor, and they initially even treated it in general with the surrounding vassal states.
In the eyes of the Qing rulers, the only difference between Tsarist Russia and the vassal states of Korea and Burma was that Tsarist Russia occupied a large area of rotten land that no one wanted, and because of the bad harvest, even tribute was exempted.
As a result, in 1858, Tsarist Russia actually became a behemoth that could cut off a large area of land in the Qing Dynasty, where do you go to reason? Tsarist Russia didn't have to do anything, only needed to set off artillery on the other side of the Heilongjiang River for one night, so that the Qing court realized the strength of Tsarist Russia.
Looking back at this northern neighbor, where is a vassal state, it is obviously a powerful and evil neighbor! For this reason, the Qing Dynasty ceded more than 1 million square kilometers of land in the outer northeast to Tsarist Russia.
With such a behemoth around him, the Qing Dynasty naturally had to find a way to avoid being continuously invaded. To this end, the Qing Dynasty began the Westernization Movement and began to learn advanced military science and technology from the West.
Tsarist Russia: This kind of thinking needs to be changed
After the Battle of Yaksa in 1685, Tsarist Russia knew that the Qing Dynasty was not easy to deal with. For this reason, for more than 100 years, they have focused their work on the West.
After all, the core area of Tsarist Russia was in the west, and at that time the conditions did not allow them to go to the east to do things. Therefore, Tsarist Russia and the Qing Dynasty maintained a period of peace for more than 100 years.
During this period, there was only trade between the two sides, and there was no tributary relationship. Therefore, in the eyes of Tsarist Russia, the Qing Dynasty and itself were equal relations, but in the eyes of the Qing Dynasty, Tsarist Russia was just a broken settlement with no money to pay rent. On weekdays, the trade between the Qing Dynasty and Tsarist Russia was often dominated by Tsarist Russia, because the silk, tea, porcelain, etc., purchased by Tsarist Russia from the Qing Dynasty, could go to Europe to earn a lot of difference, but the Qing Dynasty could not buy any necessities from Tsarist Russia.
In 1856, the Russians suffered a major defeat in the Crimean War, so they changed the direction of their operations and turned the East into a region of re-plunder.
Since the Qing Dynasty was in a state of being attacked from the back of the enemy at that time, Tsarist Russia only needed to use threats to get the Qing Dynasty to cede large tracts of land.
In the past, Tsarist Russia was indeed unable to send a large number of Russians to settle in the Far East, after all, there was no arable land here, and there was no basis for survival. But after acquiring the more than 1 million square kilometers of land in the outer northeast, this problem was solved. As a result, a large number of Russians began to migrate to this land.
With a demographic base, then Tsarist Russia could be considered to have gained a firm foothold in the East. Gain a firm foothold in the East, then Tsarist Russia can become a double-headed eagle in the true sense of the word, and it will become an empire with a huge territory.
Therefore, when Tsarist Russia learned that the Qing Dynasty still had the idea of the Heavenly Empire, it couldn't help but wonder that this kind of thinking was about to be changed, after all, in the north of the Qing Dynasty, a powerful neighbor was thriving and growing.
It was Britain that opened the door, and it may be Tsarist Russia that defeated its self-confidence
Through the two Opium Wars, Britain made the Qing Dynasty truly realize the power of Western technology. Since there is a generation gap in science and technology, it is better to follow others and learn well.
For this reason, the Qing Dynasty began to use the Westernization school in 1861 and began to strive to learn the advanced technology and culture of the West, which opened the prelude to the Westernization Movement.
In the following half century, although Britain remained the world's first brother, it basically did not invade the territory of the Qing Dynasty. On the contrary, it was this neighbor in the north who went against the norm and became a nightmare for the Qing Dynasty.
From 1858 to 1881, Tsarist Russia successively dug up 1.51 million square kilometers of land from the Qing Dynasty. By 1900, they still occupied the entire northeast, and in 1911, Tsarist Russia instigated more than 1.8 million square kilometers of land such as Outer Mongolia and Tangnu Wulianghai to secede from the Qing Dynasty.
In this way, the Qing Dynasty was directly beaten by Tsarist Russia from the Celestial Empire, which had more than 13 million square kilometers, to a country with an area of less than 10 million square kilometers. Although the territory was still large, it filled the Qing Dynasty and beyond with Russophobic nightmares.
Over the next hundred years, we regained all the territories they had seized from the British, the Japanese, and the Portuguese. Only he could not regain an inch of land from the hands of his neighbor in the north.