Eight-Nation Alliance refers to Britain, France, Germany, Russia, the United States, Japan, Italy and Austria Eight-Nation Alliance who entered China by military action from 65438 to 0900. In the early stage, it was led by British navy general Seymour. At first, the total number was around 30 thousand, but later it increased. This incident ended when China was defeated, the allied forces occupied the capital Beijing, the Qing government fled to Xi 'an, Shaanxi Province, and China paid huge reparations after the peace talks.
cause
The Boxer Rebellion was caused by the conflict between people and religion, and the struggle between the emperor and the party. , which led to the large-scale persecution of foreigners in China. The Qing government's attitude towards the Boxer Rebellion was ambiguous, so several big countries decided to send troops to suppress the Boxer Rebellion for China. However, it is generally believed that the motives of these great powers to send troops to China are not simple. Apart from safeguarding the rights and interests of their own people in China, they also aim at exploiting and plundering the rights and interests of China.
pass by
1900 June 17 Eight-Nation Alliance captured Dagubao; 14 July, Tianjin was captured; On August 2, 20,000 soldiers marched from Tianjin along the banks of the canal and were besieged by the Boxer Rebellion in Langfang. After the defeat, they increased their troops and occupied Langfang in one fell swoop. On the morning of August 14, they came outside Beijing to launch a general attack, and by the evening of June 16, they basically occupied the whole city of Beijing. Empress Dowager Cixi, Emperor Guangxu and their relatives fled to xi 'an and sent Yi Kuang and Li Hongzhang to make peace with the Allies. In September, German Marshal Alfred? Feng? Wadesi was promoted to Commander-in-Chief of Allied Forces in China. The allied forces gradually increased to100000, and the troops of Beijing and Tianjin invaded Shanhaiguan, Baoding, Zhengding and even Shanxi. During this period, Russia mobilized170,000 infantry and cavalry separately and invaded northeast China in six ways. In June+February, 5438, the Allied Forces put forward a peace program, which forced the Qing government to accept it completely, and signed the Treaty of Xin Chou on September 7, 190 1. After that, Eight-Nation Alliance withdrew his troops and returned to China, except one stationed in Beijing, Tianjin and Yushu.
Consequences and effects
Eight-Nation Alliance's military action ended with the signing of a treaty between the Qing government and eleven countries. The treaty stipulated that the Qing government should pay 450 million taels of silver (450 million taels was the total population of China at that time to show that everyone had one tael to humiliate the people of China), which was called boxer indemnity. After the allied forces occupied Beijing, they plundered the imperial city, yamen and government in Beijing, resulting in a large number of China cultural relics and heritages (including the Forbidden City, Summer Palace, Xishan Mountain and Yuanmingyuan) being stolen and destroyed.
During the war, Russia occupied the whole northeast of China, which also laid the groundwork for the future Russo-Japanese war.
Objectively speaking, the Eight-Nation Alliance incident created favorable conditions for China to get rid of feudal rule. Later, at the initiative of the United States, countries gradually returned some of them to boxer indemnity. This refund is mainly used to develop education in China, giving China the opportunity to send overseas students to the West on a large scale. Tsinghua University was founded under this background. This also indirectly promoted the process of China's learning from the West.
related data
On June 1900, 1 1, Sugiyama Bin, secretary of the Japanese Embassy in China, was killed by A Qing soldier Gan Jun who had just transferred to Beijing. /kloc-in June of 0/5, the military department once sent an edict to Li Hongzhang, governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, and Yuan Shikai, governor of Shandong Province, to enter Beijing soon. Cixi also issued an imperial edict and ordered the dissolution of the Boxer Rebellion after the command meeting was held in June 16. Unexpectedly, the next day (1June 7), I received the message that foreigners sent troops and asked her to return to Guangxu. So Cixi's attitude changed 180 degrees. On June 20, the German ambassador to China, Cleander, went to the Prime Minister's yamen to ask for protection on behalf of all countries, and was ambushed and killed by Qing soldiers on the way. The fuse of war. In June 2 1 year, the Qing government declared war on Britain, America, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands and Austria in the name of Guangxu. Boxers and imperial troops surrounded the embassy in Beijing. When countries are preparing to rescue embassies by force, the Beijing Embassy is building fortifications, and Claude Maxwell MacDonald, the British plenipotentiary, is responsible for the defense.
This incident eventually turned into an international military conflict. Before the incident subsided, there were about 450,000 Japanese, American, Austro-Hungarian Empire, British (British troops included China Corps composed of China trained by British in Ahava), French, German, Italian and Russian Eight-Nation Alliance, and China troops fighting the Boxer Rebellion. The commander of the allied forces was an Englishman, General Gasseri. Just before the Qing government declared war on the eleven countries, the allied forces captured Dagu Fort as early as June 17. 14 July, the allied forces occupied Tianjin; Yulu, governor of Zhili, committed suicide after the defeat. On August 4, the allied forces set out for Beijing, without any real stubborn resistance along the way. At that time, it was estimated that there were as many as 6.5438+0.5 million Qing soldiers and Boxers along the route, while the total number of allied troops was only over 30,000 at first (later increased). It was August, the climate was hot and humid, and the dense cornfields along the way formed a natural barrier, which added various difficulties to the March. Allied forces arrived outside Beijing in the early morning of August 14, and after two days of fierce fighting, they gradually captured the gate of Beijing in August 15, and then fought with the Qing army in various parts of Beijing. By the evening of August 16, Eight-Nation Alliance had basically occupied the whole city. After the fall of Beijing, Cixi and the royal family fled to xi.
In American historical records, this military action to alleviate the crisis of the legation was called China's rescue expedition, while China called it Eight-Nation Alliance's war of aggression against China.
Eight-Nation Alliance entered the Forbidden City.
The Germans arrived in China two months after the fall of Peking. They eagerly carried out the order issued by Kaiser Wilhelm II on July 2nd: "You know, you are facing a cunning, brave, well-equipped and cruel enemy. If you meet him, remember: don't sympathize with him and don't accept prisoners of war. You must fight bravely, so that China people will not dare to peep at the Germans after a thousand years. " William II's speech is a memory of the Huns' invasion of Europe in the 5th century. Later, this passage was also borrowed by the British in World War I to belittle their German enemies. The Germans were criticized for plundering everywhere.
In addition to attacking Peking with the allied forces, Russia also sent more than 200,000 people from the north and south roads to occupy the northeast of China. North Road Russian troops captured Qiqihar, the capital of Heilongjiang, in August and Jilin, the capital of Jilin, in September; South Road occupied Yingkou in August, Shenyang in October, and the two armies joined forces in October, occupying the whole northeast.
In mid-August, there were actually only seven countries (two of which were only symbolic standard-bearers) with an army of about10.6 million, namely, 8,000 Japanese, 4,800 Russian, 3,000 British (mainly Sikhs), 2 100 American, 800 French, 50 Austrian and Italian troops.
Allied atrocities
Eight-Nation Alliance divided Beijing into different occupied areas: the northeast was occupied by the Japanese army, the east by the Russian army, the west by the Italian army, the northeast by the German army, the east by the Japanese army, the southeast by the British army and the west by the German army. The west city was occupied by American, French, British and Italian troops, and the outer city was occupied by British, American and German troops and was under military rule. The China Captive Bureau was set up in the Japanese-occupied area, and the invading Russian army posted a notice forbidding the Russian people to resist, saying that "China people with guns will be punished immediately if they change course. If a room is on fire, it will be burned down. "
Eight-Nation Alliance was slaughtered after occupying Beijing, and the Boxer Rebellion was unyielding.
Eight-Nation Alliance often accused people of being Boxers, so he killed them. The invading army set fire to Wangmi, Zhuang Qin in Xisibei Taipingguan Hutong, killing 1700 people on the spot. The German invaders were ordered to "kill anyone in China in battle, men, women and children." Lu Yu, a group of French troops from China, drove the crowd into a dead end with machine guns and drove for 15 minutes, leaving no one behind. The Japanese captured China people, tortured them, tested how many people a bullet could penetrate, or deliberately shot at them, causing them to die painfully after being shot several times. When killing people, Eight-Nation Alliance was armed to the teeth and "supervised". People took photos from all angles in an attempt to intimidate the people of China. Now it is hard evidence of Eight-Nation Alliance's crime.
According to records, it is said: "On the day when the city was broken, no one was killed by foreigners." "But I heard gunshots, cries for help from women and children, and bodies lying in the street." British records say: "Beijing has become a real cemetery, full of dead people, no one buried them, leaving wild dogs to eat the lying bodies."
Eight-Nation Alliance insulted women and ravaged them at will. According to the records, "the Allies tried to drive away all the women they got, regardless of the good songs, old and young, just to build hutongs and let them live in houses as official prostitutes. The western end of its hutong should be blocked to prevent escape. " Only the eastern end is left as a way to get in and out, so that people can supervise, let the Coalition forces and others go in and play, and commit adultery at will. "The great scholar's wife, 90 years old, died of aggression. Many people don't want to be insulted and commit suicide. Xila Hutong 1 1, where Yi Rong, the governor of imperial academy, lived, said angrily, "Can you lose face? "The whole family threw themselves into the well. The father of Tongzhi Queen, the wife and daughter of Chongqi, a senior minister of the Ministry of Finance, was detained in the Temple of Heaven and gang-raped by dozens of people in Eight-Nation Alliance. After returning, the whole family committed suicide. Chongqi committed suicide by taking poison.
On August 28th, the G8 held a military parade in the Palace. Troops from all over the world gathered in front of the Jinshui Bridge in Tiananmen Square and marched through Tiananmen Square, Duanmen, the Forbidden City and Shenwumen. In turn, there are 3 170 troops from Russia, Japan, Britain, the United States, France, Germany, Italy and Austria, and Russian bands play national anthems and music from various countries. This is a serious insult to China and a violation of China's sovereignty. After the military parade, officers from all over the world returned to the palace and openly robbed them in the name of visiting. A British aggressor later recalled: "A large group of allied officers reached for these things and put what they wanted in their pockets."
After Beijing was occupied, soldiers chartered by Commander-in-Chief Eight-Nation Alliance and German Marshal Vadexi publicly robbed for three days, and then the armies of various countries robbed for many days. China's precious cultural relics have suffered unprecedented catastrophe. The treasures treasured for many years in the Palace and the Summer Palace were looted. General aleko Xie Ye Fu, commander-in-chief of the Russian army, and others "looted" dozens of gold and precious stones in Cixi's bedroom. After the British and French soldiers robbed all kinds of treasures, they took away the big things, put them in coats and bags, and shipped them back to the station. In Songzhu Temple alone, more than 3,000 gold-plated bronze buddhas, 1400 splendid products and 4,300 bronzes were lost. Even the gold plating on the copper cylinder in front of the Hall of Supreme Harmony was scraped off by the bayonet of the invading army, and it is still being scraped. Alphonse faville, a French Catholic bishop, snatched 654.38+2,000 taels of silver from an official's home, while Freire, commander-in-chief of the French invading army, took away 40 boxes of precious property. The French army robbed Li of 2 million taels of silver. All the shops in Dongsi area were robbed, and all the famous "Four Great Heng" gold numbers were robbed. To the east of Di 'anmen and to the north of Dong 'anmen, 78% of the houses were burned, while to the north of Qianmen and to the south of Dongsi, almost all of them were destroyed.
At that time, an eyewitness wrote: "In the name of catching the Boxer Rebels and searching for firearms, foreign soldiers from all over the world went from house to house in every street and lane, lying in the secret room, rummaging around and searching everywhere." All soft and valuable things, such as money, clocks and watches, are robbed. If you stop it a little, it will be destroyed. "An Englishman said," All the soldiers needed were obtained by sending armies of soldiers to rob the property of China people. If soldiers need anything, China people will inevitably die if they hesitate a little. "Eight-Nation Alliance robbed the Beijing Office of about 60 million taels of silver, including 29 14856 taels of silver deposited by the Japanese army in the Ministry of Public Security (now the compound of the Ministry of Public Security), and immediately set fire to the house to cover up the evidence. The drum of the Drum Tower was punctured by a Japanese bayonet.
Astronomical instruments of ancient observatories play an important role in the history of world astronomy. French invaders and German invaders competed for these musical instruments. Wadesi said, "These astronomical instruments are of great artistic value, and their shapes and dragon decorations are perfect." On February 2, 65438, the French army took a piece, while the Germans took the planetarium, gauge, horizon, weighing instruments and soldiers and transported them to Berlin, Germany. I didn't return to China until 192 1.
The Grand Ceremony of Yongle was compiled by 2/0/000 scholars in Yongle period of Ming Dynasty (1403-1408), with a volume of ***22870. 1860 During the Second Opium War, it was looted and destroyed by the British and French allied forces, and was later returned to Huangshi City on Wang Hongbin Avenue. 1900 was completely destroyed by Eight-Nation Alliance. Sikuquanshu was compiled by 360 scholars in the Qianlong period of Qing Dynasty (1772- 1782), with a collection of 346 1 kind of ancient books, with 79,309 volumes and 7 sets of complete books, on 1860. The Imperial Academy (now the compound of the Ministry of Public Security) contains a large number of precious books, which were looted and destroyed by Eight-Nation Alliance. Up to now, there are still many looted books in museums in London and Paris.
After Eight-Nation Alliance occupied Beijing, he continued to attack Baoding, Yixian, Yongqing, Zhangjiakou, Shanhaiguan and Niangniangguan. Russia dispatched 1.7 million troops to occupy the northeast, Eight-Nation Alliance burned, killed and looted all over the country, and cities and villages were reduced to ruins.