<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="8" > the Eight-Power Alliance's war of aggression against China</h1>
Forbearance does not bring peace
There is a history of humiliation in China's modern history, and at the end of the Qing government's rule, the Western powers opened the door of China with strong ships and cannons, took the initiative to provoke war, but in turn forced the Qing government to sign a treaty of humiliating rights and cut off land to the invaders.
In 1894, the Sino-Japanese Sino-Japanese War ended in the defeat of the Qing government, and Japan forced the Qing government to sign the Treaty of Maguan, forcibly occupied Taiwan and the Penghu Islands, and took the opportunity to extort 230 million yuan of silver from China.
The Eight-Power Alliance's invasion of China
Hearing that Taiwan had been betrayed to Japan by the corrupt Qing government, the people of Taiwan were indignant and desperate, and men, women, and children from all over Taiwan poured into the provincial capital to protest the Qing government's act of cutting off Taiwan and were determined to defend Taiwan to the death.
The Qing government wanted to cede Taiwan in exchange for tranquility, but the ambitions of the Western invaders would never stop, and the signing of the "Maguan Treaty" made the Taiwan compatriots indignant, and also made the international status of the Qing government plummet, and the Western powers coveted China's territory and wealth even more.
After 1894, the Western powers set off a boom in the division of China, war and reparations made the Chinese people miserable, the people finally broke out of the Boxer Rebellion, the Qing government internal and external troubles, shaky.
The Boxers were determined to enter the King of Beijing, and with the slogan of "supporting the Qing Dynasty and destroying the foreign countries", the Tuan people demolished power lines, burned churches, and destroyed railways along the way, and broke all the way into the Tianjin Concession, and the Western powers felt that the Boxers posed a threat to themselves, and demanded that the Qing government ban the Boxers, but did not get a reply from the Qing government.
Boxer Rebellion
On January 27, 1900, Britain, France, Germany, the United States, Italy and other countries united to once again ask the Qing government to suppress the Boxers; on February 1, the people of Gaomi in Shandong besieged the German Railway Company and destroyed the railway, and the German army was furious and threatened to use force to suppress it; on March 13, the imperialist powers demonstrated to the Qing government and held a naval ceremony at sea; on April 6, british, French, German, and American ministers sent a note to the Qing government that within two months they must destroy a regiment, or they would send troops to suppress it; in April, The Boxer Rebellion began to develop in the outskirts of Beijing, with Russia, Britain, the United States, France, and Germany jointly demanding that the Qing government intervene and gather a fleet at Dagukou to threaten;
By May, the Boxer Rebellion had intensified, growing rapidly in the Beijing-Tianjin area, and Qing soldiers joined the Boxers.
The ministers of various countries watched the development momentum of the Boxers gradually become fierce, and even the Qing government was unable to control them, so they planned to send troops to suppress the Boxers. On May 20, Britain, France, Germany, the United States, Japan, Russia, Italy, and Austria formally decided to send troops to Beijing at the meeting, and forced the Qing government to agree in the name of "protecting the embassy."
On May 31, Britain, France, the United States, Russia, Japan, and Italy sent 349 troops from Tianjin to Beijing by train; on June 3, Germany and Austria sent 83 troops to Beijing.
The imperialist aggression against China provoked resolute resistance from the Boxers, who united with the Qing generals Dong Fuxiang and Nie Shicheng to cut off the allied forces with Tianjin and surround them in the Langfang, Luodai, and Yangcun areas, and the two sides fought to the death.
In the face of the guns of the Eight-Nation Alliance, the Boxers bravely feared death, bravely killed the enemy, broke out extremely strong combat effectiveness, and fought the enemy with their flesh and blood, resulting in more than 300 casualties of the coalition forces, the coalition army collapsed, forced to return to Tianjin, and the plan to invade Beijing was crushed by the Boxers.
In mid-June, the Russian admiral commanded the invading Coalition army to attack the Dagukou Fort, which was desperately resisted by the defenders, but when the battle was fierce, the defending general Luo Rongguang was unfortunately killed, and the Qing army that lost its command could not resist the coalition forces, and the Dagukou Fort was lost.
After The fall of Dagukou to the enemy, thousands of reinforcements of the coalition army broke into the Tianjin Zizhulin Concession and launched a fierce attack on the city of Tianjin, and the Boxers threw themselves into the defense of Tianjin.
During the war, Dong Fuxiang was responsible for attacking the Laolongtou Railway Station, killing and wounding more than 500 Russian troops; Zhang Decheng was responsible for attacking the Zizhu Forest and rushing into the concession with fire bulls stepping on the mine array; and Nie Shicheng was responsible for holding on to the Haiguang Temple.
Tianjin Defense War
Because the allied forces were well armed and there were contradictions between the Qing army and the Boxers, the defense of Tianjin ended in failure, and Nie Shicheng was shot 7 times in the battle, and his stomach was broken, but he still persisted until the last moment until he died of blood.
After the occupation of Tianjin, the Eight-Power Coalition led 20,000 troops to Beijing in mid-August, and arrived at the city of Beijing on August 13, attacking from Dongbianmen, Chaoyangmen, and Dongzhimen, and the British army took the lead in attacking the city from Guangqumen.
Just a day later, on August 14, Beijing fell, and on August 15, Empress Dowager Cixi and the Guangxu Emperor fled the city of Beijing in a hurry, and the Boxers were forced to withdraw from Beijing and continue to fight against imperialist invaders in other places.
On the way to escape, Empress Dowager Cixi assigned Li Hongzhang to negotiate peace with the great powers and ordered the complete elimination of the Boxers. After the Eight-Power Alliance occupied Beijing, it continued to expand the war everywhere, until it invaded the area of Jingxing and Niangziguan and was stubbornly sniped by the Qing army Liu Guangcai, and only after suffering heavy casualties did it begin to retreat.
The result of the peace talks was naturally that the Qing government would continue to pay compensation until the eight powers were satisfied, and the Treaty of Xinugu stipulated that China would compensate 450 million taels of silver, and would also allow the powers to further garrison troops in China, Chinese the people could not resist.
Li Hongzhang negotiated peace with the great powers
The "Xinugu Treaty" was able to preserve the Qing government's temporary political power, but it could not save the Qing government from the fate of its demise, and when foreign countries invaded China, the Qing government was willing to use the method of land-cutting indemnity to calm the people, but it did not think about whether the ambitions of the Western powers to invade would stop.
The weaker and more incompetent the Qing government, the greater the appetite of the Western powers, after all, China has a vast land, a long history, and extremely rich culture and resources, and every aggressor wants to take a bite.
China is not a good war, but backwardness is to be beaten is a lesson summed up by our eternal blood and tears, and only when China itself is strong can we avoid the humiliation of foreign enemies, so after the founding of New China, we have worked hard to engage in development and construction, and finally asked for the backward state that was once poor and weak, and once again stood on the top of the world by virtue of our strength.
Looking back at history, we still remember the countries that invaded our country, and after so many years, how are they now?
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="92" > the decline of the four invading countries in China</h1>
The glory of the past is gone, and the future is bleak?
The eight countries that jointly invaded China were Britain, France, Italy, Japan, Tsarist Russia, Austria-Hungary, Germany, and the United States, of which 4 countries have gone into decline and have been left behind by China, and 2 have disappeared into the long river of history.
When the Eight-Power Alliance invaded China, Britain was the strongest of all the countries, and his naval strength was particularly strong, based on which he invaded and colonized many other countries, expanded territory and amassed huge wealth, and Britain was known as the "sun never sets" empire, because he once occupied a quarter of the world's land, and the sun shone on the land from morning to night.
Britain gained great benefits in the war, but it was also seriously injured by the war. The Second World War involved 60 countries and regions around the world, and Britain was no exception, and in the struggle against fascist Germany, Britain suffered heavy losses and plummeted in strength.
Not as powerful as before, The British naturally could not control the colonies under its hands, after all, who wants to be enslaved and suck blood? At the Chimelong Conference in 1955, Britain was forced to abandon many colonies, and the people of other colonies rose up to resist and declared independence.
The war of aggression against China
Without colonies, Britain's strength rapidly weakened, the glory of the "sun never sets" empire has become history, fortunately, Britain's industry and science and technology are very developed, with these, Britain is still a European economic power, but the world's first position is gone.
As the trend of world economic integration becomes more and more unstoppable, all countries are catching up, and the distance between the Uk's original lead is gradually shortening, perhaps not much old, the UK will have to worry about its own development, after all, there is no colony and its own resources are not rich, how to compete with other countries?
Another country in decline is France, France in the original joint invasion of China, but also like the United Kingdom in the Second World War, fascist Germany hit Paris, the French government directly announced the surrender, so there is a joke in the international: you can never occupy Paris before France surrenders.
Although France is still a European power, it can no longer be compared with the past, the domestic racial contradictions have gradually intensified, terrorist attacks have increased day by day, the people's trust in the government has dropped again and again, and the future development situation of France is not optimistic.
The third country to decline is Italy, Italy was the aggressor during the Eight-Power Alliance, Italy was still an aggressor in World War II, although at the end of the war Italy gave up its aggression and threw itself into the arms of the Allies, but it still could not change the fact of aggression.
After the end of World War II, Italy was exempted from the punishment of the defeated countries, but it still could not recover the heavy losses in the war, and to this day Italy is still at the tail level of cranes in European countries, and it is still mired in the quagmire of an aging population. As China's strength gradually increased, Italy had to re-understand China, and successively returned many cultural relics that were originally stolen from China.
The fourth country to decline is Japan, which is our old neighbor, is small and ambitious, and the people of the whole country are deeply brainwashed by militarist ideas, have an almost perverted enthusiasm for war, and still refuse to admit their aggression against China.
In World War II, As a fascist aggressor, Japan committed numerous atrocities on the land of China, whether it was the inhumane Nanjing Massacre or the heart-wrenching human experiments, which we cannot forget and cannot forgive. After Japan's defeat in the war, it still did not realize its mistakes, and while revising its history in an attempt to cover up its crimes, it openly visited the Yasukuni Shrine, which enshrined Class-A war criminals, causing great emotional harm to the Chinese people and the people of all countries that had suffered Japanese aggression.
After World War II, Japan with the support of the United States and its own industrial base has had a stage of economic take-off, but the United States is not a trustworthy friend, in order to pass on its own financial crisis, the United States forced Japan to sign the "Plaza Accord", after the signing of the agreement, the yen appreciated significantly, resulting in a sharp expansion of Japan's domestic bubble economy.
At that time, Japan's housing prices remained high, even to the point where Japanese land prices combined could buy 4 United States, and eventually the bursting of the real estate bubble caused the Japanese economy to enter a period of long-term stagnation.
In order to save its own economy, Japan has introduced many policies, many foreign capital have fled with funds, Japan's prosperity illusion has collapsed, and the economic system is facing collapse. In this case, Young Japanese people find that they can't afford to buy a house with hard work and no effort, so they choose to lie flat, do not consume, do not buy a house and do not want children, and japan's aging problem is becoming more and more serious.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="93" > two invading countries have disappeared</h1>
Although the country is great, it will die if it is belligerent
The four countries above have only gone into decline and have a chance to prosper again, and the two aggressors to be talked about next have disappeared into the long river of history: Tsarist Russia and Austria-Hungary.
During the reign of the Tsar, Russia's land area reached an astonishing 22 million square kilometers, spanning the Eurasian continent, but although Russia's territory was large, the natural conditions were not very good, the cold weather was not suitable for planting crops, the people were not enough to eat and wear, and the rule of the Tsar could not last long, and was overthrown by a huge peasant movement.
After the end of the Tsarist era, Soviet power was established on the territory of Russia, and after the end of The Second World War, the Soviet Union became the only country in the world that could compete with the United States, and the two countries engaged in an arms race during the Cold War, and the "Cuban Missile Crisis" almost plunged the people of the world into nuclear war.
Cuban Missile Crisis
New China and the Soviet Union were both socialist countries, and originally the two countries had close relations, but the Soviet Union gradually lost its original intention and began to meddle in China's affairs in a vain attempt to control China in its own hands, and the relations between China and the Soviet Union began to turn bad.
God wants to destroy it, he must first make it crazy, and although the Soviet Union did not perish in the end, it failed to survive the peaceful evolution of the Western world and disintegrate into Russia and other small countries.
Russia inherited most of the Soviet Union's property and switched to the capitalist system, but it still failed to restore its former national strength, and until now the domestic economy is still sluggish, but its military strength is still incomparable.
Although there is still Russia in the world, it is no longer the same Russia that the Eight-Power Alliance invaded China, but the Austro-Hungarian Empire, another aggressor country, is even more stumbling.
The Austro-Hungarian Empire was once second only to Russia in terms of land area in Europe, but under the impact of The First World War, the Austro-Hungarian Empire disintegrated into four countries: Hungary, Austria, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, and some territories were occupied by Italy, Poland, Romania and Yugoslavia.
From a historical point of view, the Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires in the coalition are no longer there, and when they first invaded China, did they think that they would have such a day?
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="94" > the United States and Germany</h1>
U.S. hegemony at stake? Why is Germany forgiven?
The history of the development of the United States is a naked history of aggression, during World War II, other countries were seriously injured, but the United States did not participate in the war in the early stage, through the arms business to make a lot of money, and later because Japan secretly attacked Pearl Harbor to declare war on Japan, but the war did not affect its own land, so after World War II, the United States became one of the two major powers in the world, and another power, the Soviet Union.
The Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union eventually ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the United States became the world's number one hegemon, proud of the crowd, and those once powerful European countries had to bow their heads in front of the United States.
In the face of China's unstoppable rise, the United States is afraid of threatening its own position, treating China as an imaginary enemy everywhere, the United States and China launched a trade war during the administration of former President Trump, and the new President Biden continued to maintain a hostile attitude toward China after taking office.
Although the United States is strong, but there are many drawbacks, the domestic epidemic is out of control, the ruling parties are attacking each other, racial contradictions have intensified, the gap between rich and poor has increased, the unemployment rate of the people has soared, and now the United States has encountered a crisis of economic downturn.
In the past, when the United States encountered an economic crisis, it would forcibly transfer its own crisis to other countries, and the younger brother Japan was a "takeover man", but with the development of multipolarization in the world, it was not so easy for the United States to use the dollar to harvest the property of other countries to fill its own holes.
Nowadays, the influence of the United States in the world is declining, and countries have put "de-dollarization" on the agenda, while the renminbi has been warmly welcomed, if the United States continues to promote unilateral development and go against the general trend, decline is inevitable.
After the defeat of Germany, the last invading country and one of the fascist countries in World War II, Germany was divided into East and West Germany by the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, and it was not until the collapse of the Soviet Union that the Berlin Wall was demolished, and East and West Germany were merged into one.
Although Germany lost in World War II, but the industrial base is still there, relying on developed industry, Germany soon became the world's second largest economy, although it has recently been surpassed by China, but still has an unshakable position in Europe.
Another point worth emphasizing in Germany is the repentant attitude of Germany today, on December 7, 1970, when the German Chancellor Brandt laid a wreath at the Jewish Monument, he suddenly knelt on the stone steps in the drizzle and deeply repented of the crimes committed by fascist Germany.
Germany was so brave in admitting its mistakes and wanting to reconcile with the people of the whole world that some people commented that Brandt fell to his knees, but Germany stood up.
The German public hated the Nazis, and anyone who sympathized with the Nazis, maliciously attacked the Jews, preached racial discrimination, and denied Hitler's crimes was punished, and those who had been oppressed by the Nazis were compensated.
Germany's careful teaching of young people about Nazi crimes and their hopes that they would take them as a warning are in stark contrast to Japan, and germany can win the forgiveness of the people of Europe and the world.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="95" > conclusion</h1>
War is a sin, peace is the eternal call, but there are always some militants who try to start a war, and we can only make ourselves strong, because only in this way can we protect ourselves and defend peace.
After the founding of New China, China invested a lot of energy in construction, and rose to catch up, and today it is the world's second largest economy, and its international status is no longer the same, and the development of the world needs China.
This issue of the story is here, thank you for the support of the officials, we will see you in the next issue of the story!