This article is a series of 319 intensive readings of Chinese history, and 26 series of "History of the Qing Dynasty", welcome to watch.
Humen sold cigarettes, dealing a heavy blow to the British tobacco dealers, and the big opium dealers who fled back to London, Chatton, the Upside Down, and the righteous law of staying in China, all vigorously encouraged the British government to launch a war of aggression against China. British Foreign Secretary Palmerston also cried out for war.
In February 1840, the British Cabinet officially decided to launch the Opium War against China. In June, the 4,000 invading army led by Yi Lu's cousin and British plenipotentiary, Yi Lu, carried 540 cannons and 39 warships, steamships, and transport ships, and violently invaded the sea near Guangzhou, but under the strict defense and courageous counterattack of the Guangdong military and people led by Lin Zexu, the invaders were unable to do anything. They drifted east and west on the surface of the sea, using cloth and sails to receive rainwater, and they could hardly quench their thirst, and when they went to the island to draw water, they were poisoned a lot.
The British army could not succeed in Guangdong, and at the end of June, most of them sailed to Zhejiang, and on the night of July 5, they captured Dinghai and then went north in an attempt to threaten the Qing court.
01, the Qing court of junxia and vassals, self-defeat!
In the imperial court, a faction of figures led by Mu Zhang'a was always opposed to smoking bans. The Daoguang Emperor was not resolute either. As early as April, when Mu Zhang'a and his gang spread rumors of slandering Lin Zexu everywhere, the Daoguang Emperor changed his attitude, saying: Confiscating tobacco soil and smoking utensils is "insurmountable", announcing that "it is not allowed to pay cigarette cream and smoking utensils" from then on, giving Lin Zexu, who was resolutely smoking smoking, a blow to the head. Now, when he heard of the British northern prisoners, he even ordered that "coastal supervision, when a foreign ship surrenders, will accept the sails" and "there is no need to shoot and shoot", which facilitates the attack of the invaders and the surrender of the capitulators.
On August 11, the British warship invaded the Baihe estuary and barricaded the river, and the governor qi shan, who was directly subordinate to the governor, not only did not resist, but instead sent officers to feed cattle and sheep to the invaders, further attacking Lin Zexu, who insisted on counter-aggression.
Under the threat of the invaders and the slander of the capitulation faction, the Daoguang Emperor scolded Lin Zexu for counter-aggression as "greedy and provocative, killing people and destroying mouths", "misleading the country and the sick", and "paying laborers". On October 3, he ordered Lin Zexu to be removed from his post. Qi Shan, who was appointed as the minister of Chincha, arrived in Guangzhou on November 29, and on the same day, he sent Bao Peng, a big opium dealer, to meet Yilu (at this time Yi Lu had returned to China due to illness), and immediately dismissed 2/3 of the marine division, dismissed Zhuangding, demolished the fortifications, and allowed British ships to enter the inland river to explore the channel. He also wanted to kill the generals who had made meritorious contributions to resisting aggression during Lin Zexu's tenure.
Daoguang Twenty-one Years (1841) On January 7, the British army suddenly captured the Shajiao and Dajiao Forts outside the Tiger Gate, Chen Liansheng was killed without help; the British army attacked Humen, Qi Shan did not send reinforcements, and guan Tianpei, the admiral of the Marine Division, led the lone army to fight, all heroic sacrifices.
At this time, Qi Shan sent Bao Peng to wear a nose to talk to the British army. On January 20, behind the back of the imperial court, he negotiated the "Treaty of Nose-piercing Grass" with the British army, and the British demanded the cession of Hong Kong. Qi Shan only promised to pay six million yuan in compensation. When the Daoguang Emperor heard the news, he felt that it was detrimental to Tianwei, so he ordered the arrest of Qi Shan, sent his nephew Yishan as the general of Jing Rebellion, Yang Fang, the viceroy of Hunan, as counselors, and also transferred the troops of various provinces to "do all the ugly things."
Yang Fang was the great executioner who suppressed the rebellion of the White Lotus Sect and the Tianli Sect, but in front of the invaders, he became a full rice barrel and a wine bag. Yishan even spent every day drinking and slandering the people as traitors.
Lin Zexu, who was demoted to the title of "SipinQing" by the Daoguang Emperor, had no choice but to leave Guangzhou on May 3 and go to the Zhejiang military camp to "assist in coastal defense affairs". Guangdong's defense has completely collapsed!
In late May, the British attacked the Nicheng Fort northwest of Guangzhou City and the Sifang Fort northeast of the city, and the general Changchun took the lead in escaping. On the 26th, the British army shelled the gongyuan in the southeast corner of Guangzhou, Yishan was frightened, and even the guards sneezed and thought that it was shells, so they put up a white flag and sent Yu Baochun, the prefect of Guangzhou, to send silver to the British army, and the next day signed the traitorous and humiliating "Guangzhou Peace Treaty" with the invaders.
02, Sanyuanli resisted the British, the invaders were vulnerable!
The British army, which won without a fight, was even more invincible. On May 29, the British troops occupying the four-sided fort again raided the area around Sanyuanli. There is a Northern Emperor Temple in the north of Sanyuanli Village, and there is a square in front of the temple, so the villagers gathered in the square, elected the vegetable farmer Wei Shaoguang as the leader, and decided to use the three-star flag on the black background and white edge of the temple as the flag, vowing to fight the invaders to the end.
In the afternoon of the same day, Wei Shaoguang sent representatives from various townships to contact him, and gathered again at the hilly and undulating Niulan Gang and decided to prepare one large banner and several large gongs in each township, and if there was any urgency, one township sounded the gong, and all the townships came out; he also decided to ambush the troops here and send people to lure the enemy to intercept and kill them.
In the early morning of May 30, thousands of peasants, craftsmen and fishermen armed with spears, knives and shields came to challenge under the four-sided fort. The commander of the British Army, Woougu, after breakfast, led more than a thousand infantry and artillery officers and men of the 26th Regiment, the 37th Regiment, and the Scottish Rifle Regiment down the mountain.
The townspeople fought and retreated, and after more than two hours of maneuvering with the invaders, lured them into an ambush. As soon as the three-star flag was waved, the overlapping Qiufu suddenly revealed countless large banners embroidered with the word "volunteer soldiers". At the same time, the sound of gongs shook the sky, the sound of killing moved the ground, and the mountains were full of villagers with knives and axes, hoes and spears or shotguns.
Wowugu was busy ordering the launch of "rockets" to block the attack, and the villagers were still roaring forward like a tide.
The blazing midday sun exposed the British army to sweat; the swords and swords of the villagers made the invaders dizzy. Woougu fell into an unprecedented panic. At one o'clock in the afternoon, suddenly the wind was fierce and the clouds were thick, so that they could not see a few feet away; then more lightning and thunder, and heavy rain poured down, so that their ammunition was all wet, and the guns could not be fired. In addition, the fields were either flooded by rain or became muddy, and the British troops with shoes on their feet were crooked one by one, and it was difficult to move, and many people fell in the rice fields.
Taking advantage of this heavenly opportunity, the townspeople took one shot and knocked down the British 26th Regiment's suppressor, British Major Bi Xia, who was also killed by the three-pronged spear of Yan Haochang, a villager in Tangxia. Woougu then hurriedly led his troops back to flee, and it was not until four o'clock in the afternoon that he discovered that the third company of the 37th Regiment was missing.
It turned out that this third company was separated from the company at the beginning of the interception of the townspeople. Not far after retreating, a soldier in the back row was dragged out by the township people's long pole bamboo hook. The townspeople handed over his gun, he resisted with his bayonet, and the townspeople had to cut him down in the rice paddies. The 37th Regiment had a flag bearer named Berkeley, who led five or six men to rescue him, who was also killed by the townspeople. Carrying the captured foreign gun, a villager quickly turned into the bushes, lit his own rope, and shot Berkeley in the arm; the small cannons of the villagers on the mountain also hit the enemy soldiers from time to time. When dusk came, the hungry and frightened enemy had to line up in a phalanx and burrow into the bushes.
At dawn the next day, the townspeople who surrounded the invading army went into the forest to hunt and kill. At about 10:00 a.m., the townspeople of 103 townships gathered near and far, setting off a second climax of hunting down and killing the invaders. Children and women also came to cheer. Yi Lu and other leaders of the invading army always hid in the four-square fort and did not dare to come to the rescue.
The heroic struggle of the people of Sanyuanli killed more than 200 invaders, killed and wounded dozens of them, and captured more than a dozen traitors alive. The townspeople also seized two foreign cannons and more than 900 foreign guns and knives. One of the leaders of the British army, Bermai, who was "fat and strong, with a head as big as a bucket and superior arm strength", was also beheaded by the townspeople, and his "golden thorns and double-ringed hand cannons" of course became the spoils of the townspeople.
However, while these invaders were sitting and waiting to die, Liang Xingyuan of Nanhai County, Zhang Xiyu of Panyu County, and Yu Baochun, the traitorous prefect who had always been afraid of foreigners, ran to intercede for the invaders at the request of Yilu and on the orders of Yishan. They were both soft and hard, and first of all they scared away some of the gentlemen who had been involved in the struggle. The broad masses of the villagers, under their intimidation and persuasion all day, "quickly dispersed"; the remaining enemies were fortunate to survive under their protection.
The anti-British struggle of the people of Sanyuanli has won a brilliant victory. Their unwillingness to succumb to the patriotic spirit of the invaders was in stark contrast to the shaking of the Qing court and the fear of death of officials.
03. Reuse the rice bucket and kill the hero!
The British army withdrew from Guangzhou, and Yishan lied that he had carried out a "horizontal killing and painful suppression" of the British army. In the middle of July, Yishan reported again: the sea breeze was strong, blowing over "yi boats, destroying corpses to cover the sea". When the Daoguang Emperor heard the report, he called himself "inexplicably pleased", immediately issued 20 pillars of incense, told Yishan to go to the temple to thank the bodhisattva, and also approved hundreds of officials who Yishan had asked for promotion. In June, the Daoguang Emperor ordered Lin Zexu and Deng Tingzhen to be sent to Yili, and asked Yu Qian, the governor of Liangjiang, to withdraw his troops.
Did you know that the withdrawal of the British army from Guangzhou was just a delaying measure! However, when the traitor Qi Shan's privately ordered "Treaty of Wearing Nose Grass" reached London, the British cabinet was still not satisfied, and sent a high-ranking official Pu Dingcha to replace the law of righteousness, telling him to use force to further expand the invasion.
On August 25, the British army captured Xiamen, and in mid-September they attacked Dinghai. Dinghai shou general Ge Yunfei went deep into the soldiers to boost morale and heroically resist the invaders. On October 1, the British attacked XiaofengLing in the fog, and then attacked zhushan gate. Ge Yunfei personally fired the cannon and led two hundred soldiers into the enemy group and launched a hand-to-hand combat. When he saw an enemy leader holding a green flag to direct a counterattack, he slashed him down with a knife. The battle knife was broken, and he drew the two sabers in his waist to split left and right, rushed to the zhushan gate in one breath, and launched a back attack on the defending enemy of the zhushan gate. An enemy condescended and slashed half of his face with a knife, and he did not flinch. He killed this stubborn enemy and went up the mountain to pursue the other enemies. He suffered more than 40 wounds and is still fighting. It wasn't until the end, when the enemy hiding behind him opened fire through his back and chest, that he stopped breathing with his knife in both hands and standing upright on the cliff!
After the British army took a lot of effort, after the second capture of Dinghai, it attacked Zhenhai again on October 10. Admiral Yu Buyun did not listen to Yu Qian's command, greedy for life and afraid of death, first put up a white flag, did not allow the soldiers to return fire, and then fled. Yu Qian fought with all his might and committed suicide by throwing himself into the water. After the British invaded Zhenhai, they immediately captured Ningbo.
The responsibility for the defeat of Zhenhai was on Yu Buyun, but the Daoguang Emperor listened to false rumors that Yu Qian did not fight and rewarded Yu Buyun. After the fall of Ningbo, the Daoguang Emperor could not afford to use a good general, but appointed his other nephew Yijing as the general of Yangwei to lead the army to Zhejiang.
Yi Jingsu was not familiar with soldiers, and some subordinates suggested that he adopt the method of dividing troops to ambush and use the cooperation of the township bravery and the method of "fighting for oneself" to deal with the British army, but he did not listen at all, but listened to the ideas of a pedantic soldier, using satin instead of copper and iron as cannons, and built eight hundred satin cannons. He also ordered people to throw the tiger skull into the sea, in a vain attempt to "provoke the Dragon King" and achieve the purpose of overturning the ship.
What is even more ridiculous is that on the night of December 15, 1842 (January 25, 1842), Daoguang, he dreamed that "Yiren abandoned the land and went to sea", so he thought it was an auspicious omen, and the next day he entered Shaoxing and celebrated with wine. He went to the Guandi Temple of the West Lake to ask for a signature, and saw that the signature had the policy of "Tiger Head Man", but he firmly believed that the army would be auspicious when he was in the year of Yin (the twenty-eighth day of the first month of the twenty-second year of Daoguang, that is, the time of March 8, 1842).
When the Daoguang Emperor heard the news, he also happily cheered him up, saying: "Shuo leads the southeast and treats Jieyin with respect." He then ordered: At four or five o'clock in the morning of March 8, the generals were not allowed to bring firearms, only knives, bows and arrows, and spears, and attacked Ningbo, Zhenhai, and Dinghai in three ways at the same time. The result, of course, was a three-way defeat. In mid-March, Yi jing fled back to Hangzhou.
For Yi Jing, such a defeated general, the Daoguang Emperor went so far as to comfort him: "We must not defeat ourselves because of accidental defeats. While comforting Yijing, the Daoguang Emperor, on the one hand, announced that "soldiers bravely kill a black and white Yi, that is, the fa-rectification"; on the other hand, he sent the old surrender faction Qi Ying and Iribu to Zhejiang to "restrain" the invaders and prepare for surrender negotiations.
The British army will not give up! They don't want to stop at all! Under the Qing Emperor's policy of "bondage", they soon captured Cihe and Zhapu, and began to attack Wu on June 16.
Wu Weikou shou general Chen Huacheng, a native of Tong'an County, Quanzhou Prefecture, Fujian Province. He had been guarding Wu Wei for more than two years, and he had not slept peacefully. He commanded his soldiers to build two batteries in the east and west, and placed 253 cannons. He also provided his own salary, did not set up an account, and after "heavy snow pressed the tent, and even lost his sleep at night", he always patrolled the soldiers in the early morning, and sometimes took off his clothes to protect the soldiers from the cold. His patriotic enthusiasm greatly inspired the morale of the soldiers.
Before dawn on June 16, the British ships gathered outside the mouth of Wu Wei and fired cannons to explore the wind. Chen Huacheng ordered the generals to lie still and wait for the enemy. The British thought the defenses were empty and dared to approach the shore. At this time, Chen Huacheng, who had personally arrived at the West Fort, gave an order, and all the cannons fired in unison, causing them to be confused and dizzy. Chen Huacheng also personally took charge of gunpowder and filled the cannon, bombarding the enemy one after another, injuring three large and small enemy ships, and destroying the other two.
The enemy suffered a loss and fought back with death, so Chen Huacheng dismissed the admiral Yin Shuo and ordered Qianzong to send it to the county magistrate to show his determination to sacrifice his life for the country, and then commanded the artillery to fire fiercely, so that the British army had to turn around and attack the East Battery.
Niu Jian, the governor of Liangjiang who had previously advised Chen Hua to become a "slow division," saw the initial victory, and led three thousand Xuzhou soldiers, Jiang Ning soldiers, and eight hundred rattan soldiers, lined up the honor guards, sat on a palanquin himself, and swung forward from the Baoshan Mountain. When the British saw it, they fired several shots, and Niu Jian was so frightened that he abandoned the palanquin, took off his official hat, took off his boots, and fled in the army.
Niu Jian's escape caused great losses to Wu Weikou's defense. The British took advantage of the confusion of Niu Jian's escape and quickly captured the East Battery.
Chen Huacheng, who was attacked on both sides of the land and sea, was shot in the leg and wounded, but he still calmly fought with his army. The battle lasted until noon, and the enemy swarmed, his hands had already cracked and bleeding from personal firing, and his right hand was also inactive because he was shot under the ribs, but his lofty patriotism inspired him to supervise the battle with his left hand to supervise the battle, fire the cannon, and inflict great damage on the invading army. In the end, he was injured in 18 places, shot in the chest, shot in the lower abdomen, intestines and stomach, and dozens of shrapnel in the abdomen, and finally squirted blood and died, but he was not blind!
Chen Huacheng's patriotic enthusiasm and heroic dedication boosted the anti-British morale in the southeast region at that time. When the British army went up the river to attack Zhenjiang, the Manchurian Eight Banner Soldiers led by Hai Ling also put up heroic and tenacious resistance, giving the British army a great blow, killing 185 British troops, and its naval commander was almost killed! After the city was destroyed, no one in Hailing's headquarters surrendered, and all of them died heroically. It is really anti-British Fang Yin, public opinion is available!
04. The first unequal treaties
However, the Daoguang Emperor, who was shaken at the beginning of the Opium War, was surrounded by the surrender faction's ministers, and secretly told Qi Ying, Iribu and Niu Jian to contact the invaders and prepare to surrender!
On August 6, British ships invaded the Xiaguan River in Nanjing; on the 13th, the British threatened to attack the city. Qi Ying and others wrote to the invaders overnight, saying that "everything is only for life" and sent Zhang Xi, the family of Iribu, to ask for forgiveness. The British commander Pu Dingcha took advantage of the situation to ruthlessly blackmail these traitors.
At 11:00 a.m. on August 29, Qi Ying and Niu Jian climbed aboard the British ship. Subsequently, the sick Iribu also asked someone to carry him up. Shamefully, under the British flag, they signed the first unequal treaty in the history of the Qing Dynasty, the Sino-British Treaty of Nanjing (13 articles).
The treaty forced China to pay 21 million yuan in reparations, cede Hong Kong, open Guangzhou, Fuzhou, Xiamen, Ningbo and Shanghai as treaty ports, and import and export goods must be "agreed" with the British side.
Daoguang 23 (1843) On July 22 and October 8, the British forced the Qing government to sign the Sino-British Five-Port Treaty and the Sino-British Humen Renewal Treaty at Humen, further seizing consular jurisdiction and one-sided most-favored-nation treatment.
The Sino-British Treaty of Nanking and its annexes opened up the western capitalist countries to take advantage of the opportunity to invade China on a large scale. On July 3 and October 24, 1844, the United States and France forced the Qing Dynasty to sign the Sino-AMERICAN Treaty of Wangxia and the Sino-French Treaty of Huangpu, which further undermined China's judicial power, tariff autonomy, and gained the privilege of using religion for cultural aggression and warships to cruise Chinese ports. The gate of the "Heavenly Dynasty" was completely opened!
China's defeat in the Opium War and the signing of the first batch of unequal treaties destroyed China's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and China began to transform into a semi-feudal and semi-colonial society. Chinese people's heads, in addition to the feudal mountain that was originally pressed, it also pressed on the mountain of imperialism!
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The content of this article is compiled from the "History of the Qing Dynasty" of the Chinese reading book "Classic Chinese General History" jointly created by China International Broadcasting Publishing House and "Reading History".
There are 16 books in the complete set of "Classic Chinese General History", namely: "Xia Shang History", "Western Zhou History", "Spring and Autumn History", "Warring States History", "Qin and Han History (Part I)", "Qin and Han History (Part 2)", "Three Kingdoms History", "Two Jin And Northern And Southern Dynasties History", "Sui and Tang History (Part 1)", "Sui and Tang History (Part 2)", "Five Dynasties History", "Song Dynasty History", "Yuan Dynasty History", "Ming Dynasty History", "Early Qing Dynasty History", "Late Qing History".
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