We all know that after the invasion of China by the Eight-Nation Alliance, the "Xinchou Treaty" was signed, and the Qing government had to pay money in installments, but do you know how much money China lost? And when did it go?
The Qing government was too poor, so where did its reparations come from?
It is said that Tsinghua University was built by the Americans for China, what is the story in between?
Read on to gain knowledge!
One
The first year of the 20th century will never be forgotten for the Chinese people.
In the late spring of 1900, the Empress Dowager Cixi's heart burst with anger, and she blindfolded and issued a "Decree of War on All Nations" to the world.
If you want to declare war on all nations, you will be domineering when you listen to it.
Cixi's anger was understandable, because her henchmen told her that the yellow-haired foreigners wanted to help Guangxu return to the throne and wrest power from Cixi. Cixi regarded power as an old life all her life, and she didn't even want others to share it, how could she be willing to return it to Guangxu. In a fit of rage, Cixi did not hesitate to go to war with all nations, anyway, she didn't have to go to the battlefield herself, and it was not their family who died, and there were countless children of ordinary people who died for her.
The results of the war are all talked about in middle school history textbooks.
When the Eight-Nation Alliance troops approached the city of Beijing, Cixi saw it, and hurriedly followed the example of her husband Xianfeng, spread her legs and ran, all the way west, until Xi'an stopped. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians of the poor Beijing Division were slaughtered, and all kinds of cultural relics and antiques were lost, and Chinese civilization was once again trampled by the iron hooves of foreign powers.
A year later, the "Xinchou Treaty" was released, and Li Hongzhang, who led the signing of the treaty, carried the last black pot of his life for his master, became the target of public criticism, and died in humiliation and loneliness, and died in Xianliang Temple.
According to historical records, before Li Hongzhang died, his old subordinate Zhou Fu came in a hurry. At that time, Li Hongzhang was already dressed in a funeral robe and could not speak. Zhou Fu cried and said: "What is the old master's mind that can't be put down, if you have anything undone, my generation can do it, please rest assured!" Li Hongzhang suddenly opened his eyes and mouth, wanting to cry. Zhou Fu stroked his eyelids with his hands with tears in his eyes, and Li Hongzhang's eyes closed.
Wanqing's "backstabbing man" died in anger.
Two months after Li Hongzhang's death, Cixi returned to Beijing on a small train that Yuan Shikai had elaborately decorated.
The first thing Cixi had to face was the "Xinchou Treaty".
The treaty stipulated that the Qing government must compensate the countries with 450 million taels of silver. Pinching your fingers and counting, the total population of the Qing Dynasty at that time was 450 million. In this way, it represents one or two per person in the country, and its intention is to humiliate China. Of course, the Qing Dynasty couldn't come up with so much money at once, so they came to pay it in installments, which were paid off in 39 years, with a total of 980 million taels of principal and interest.
Because Cixi's declaration of war against various countries took place in 1900, which is also called the Year of Gengzi, this indemnity is also called Gengzi Indemnity.
In 39 years, from 450 million to 980 million, on average, the Qing Dynasty had to repay 25.46 million taels of silver every year.
Gengzi indemnity is paid to a number of countries, and there is a distribution ratio among these countries, among which the three countries that take the most money are Russia, Germany and France: Russia has the most, accounting for 28.97%; Germany came second with 20.02 per cent and France third with 15.75 per cent.
Two
25.46 million taels of silver are repaid every year, is this number much?
But it's hard to judge by looking at the numbers, and there is no feeling without comparison.
Someone has calculated that the annual financial income of the Qing Dynasty at that time could reach about 50 million taels of silver. Just looking at the book income is not bad, but don't forget that there are still expenses! It is also an astronomical amount for people up and down the Qing Empire to eat and drink Lasana, and after deducting military expenses and financial expenditures at all levels, those who can finally save up to the Qing treasury will be about 7 million taels of poor baba.
Another point must not be forgotten, a few years ago, in the First Sino-Japanese Naval War, the Qing Empire gave Japan 200 million taels of silver in accordance with the "Treaty of Shimonoseki", and the treasury was already empty.
You can save up to 7 million taels of silver a year, and you have to repay 25.46 million taels every year here.
Empress Dowager Cixi does not produce wealth, she is at most a porter of wealth, in order to repay the money, she can only work hard, rubbing oil from the common people: what taxes, military salaries, land, food donations, sugar, tobacco and alcohol...... It's almost time for a breath tax.
But to put it bluntly, even if the breath tax is levied, it may not be able to repay the loan on time, so what should I do?
The solution is a loan!
When the compensation is paid in installments, there is actually a lot of interest, and here in order to repay the principal, you have to pay a lot of interest on the loan.
Here's a small example.
In 1905, the Qing government could not repay the indemnity, and borrowed 1 million pounds from HSBC at an annual interest rate of 5%, which was repaid in 20 years, with a total of 1,525,000 pounds of principal and interest, and an extra debt of 525,000 pounds.
Interest plus interest, how much interest.
If this continues, the Qing Dynasty will become an inexhaustible source of wealth for the great powers, and all the blood and sweat of the Chinese will flow into the pockets of the great powers in the form of debts and interest, and become a strong support for them to release pigeons in the square, play elegant in the concert hall, and talk about "war and peace" in the library.
The war seems to have stopped, but there is a kind of plunder that is more terrible than war, and it is under the banner of paying off debts, so that you can never turn over.
The so-called elegance of one part of this world has always come at the expense of the humility of another part of the people. The people of the Qing Dynasty, who were overwhelmed by debts and taxes, became backward and barbaric in the eyes of others in the blink of an eye, and became the object of ridicule by others.
They ate your flesh and drank your blood, and they smiled and said, "These people are dirty."
What's even more terrifying is that some Chinese people also look up at those who eat Western food, look at their compatriots around them with disgust, and start to dislike them with a frown.
Three
Of course, the Gengzi indemnity did not go as intended.
History is changing, and many things are changing.
The insane debts made the Qing Empire moribund, and the common people were pressed into rebellion.
The elites of the evening were anxious.
Liang Cheng, the Qing Dynasty's ambassador to the United States, stepped onto the stage of history.
It's a name for us to remember.
In December 1904, Liang Cheng approached U.S. Secretary of State John Hymers and told him that the Qing Empire was already overwhelmed, and if he continued to play like this, he would be a dead fish and would not be able to spit out a penny. John Hymers seemed to have some resonance, and Liang Cheng seized the opportunity to continue to grind and harden.
It's still about data.
Liang Cheng's reason is very good, in 1900, you United States only sent about 2,000 troops, and the casualties were only about 40. However, the compensation you are asking for is as high as 32.84 million taels of silver, which is converted into US dollars and as high as 24.44 million US dollars, which is absolutely unreasonable.
Liang Cheng finally came up with the answer: the military spending and actual losses of the United States are very small, and they can only survive by $1 million! It won't reach $24.44 million at all.
After the accounts are settled, the following is the action: Beginning in 1905, Liang Cheng met with the then President of the United States Theodore Roosevelt many times, with only one purpose - to recalculate the accounts!
Of course, it looks powerful to use data to speak, but the premise is that the other party wants to recognize your data.
At this time, a wave of anti-American broke out in the Qing Empire.
The reason for the matter has to start from many years ago, to put it simply, there were many Chinese workers who went to the United States to work at that time, but their rights were not protected, and the Qing government not only did not protect these migrant workers, but signed the "Sino-US Congress Treaty Restricting Chinese Workers in the United States to Protect Chinese in the United States" in 1894.
When the treaty expired in December 1904, the U.S. government offered to renew it.
Overseas Chinese in the United States completely broke out, and by the way, the voice of anger also spread back to China.
In May 1905, the Shanghai Chamber of Commerce held a meeting and made a decision not to use American goods and not to order American goods. As a result, the movement took on a new and unprecedented form – a boycott of American goods. At the same time, provincial capitals, workers, students, and women's circles also gathered to denounce the abuse of Chinese workers in the United States and boycott American goods.
The Americans are very pragmatic, they don't want the relationship with the Qing Empire to be completely deadlocked, and Huang Shiren still needs Yang Bailao after all.
Under pressure from all sides, the United States finally told Liang Shi that in 1908, the compensation of 11.6 million US dollars would be returned.
However, the Americans have the conditions that these refunds will be used to train Chinese students, and from the first year of the refund, the Qing government should send at least 100 students to the United States each year for the first four years. If you send enough 400 people by the 4th year, you will have to send at least 50 people to the U.S. every year from the 5th year until the refund is exhausted. It was from this time that many Chinese elites went to study in the United States with Gengzi indemnity, and in the following decades, they became the brightest stars in Chinese academia, and their words and deeds deeply influenced those who came after them.
The United States returned the money, opening a hole in the great powers.
It's just that how useful this opening can be, we have to wait. In the beginning, no one followed the United States. It was not until the First World War in 1914 that the world situation changed dramatically. The Beiyang government, which succeeded the Manchus, sided with the Entente and stopped payments directly to Germany and Austria.
Interestingly, Tsarist Russia, despite the ouster of this government in 1917, with the support of Britain and the United States, its government-in-exile still shy about the Beiyang government's demand for reparations. It was not until 1924 that the Soviet Union, which had just come to power, announced the cancellation of this reparation and began to gradually return the reparations.
In 1924, the United States began a second restitution process, and not only Italy, the Netherlands, and Belgium also initiated a second restitution process.
In 1937, the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression broke out in full swing, and the two countries in a state of war, the Nationalist Government still repaid the reparations to Japan on time and in full under the condition that their finances were very tight, until January 15, 1939, the Ministry of Finance of the Nationalist Government finally issued a notice: stop paying Gengzi indemnity.
Note that when the Great Powers return the reparations, they do not want to return to you all that they have taken before, but from the moment they are announced, the subsequent reparations will not be needed. In the 37 years from 1902 to 1938, even after deducting the refunds from the United States and Britain and other countries, the actual amount of reparations paid by China to the foreign powers was still as high as 576 million taels of silver.