What would happen if Empress Cixi did not run away when the Eight-Power Allied Forces invaded China, but instead called on the kings of the country to insist on fighting a protracted war with the great powers? I can only say that this assumption overestimates the Manchu and Qing feudal rulers headed by Cixi. People today make such assumptions based on a simple feeling of patriotism, but it is unrealistic to expect the rulers of the Qing Dynasty to look at issues on the basis of national interests and national interests. China under the rule of the Qing Dynasty was in a pre-modern feudal society and was not a nation-state in the modern sense. The sovereignty of this pre-modern state did not belong to all citizens, but to the so-called emperor who was "ordered by heaven".
For thousands of years, no matter how many people changed their surnames to Zhao Qian, Sun Li, Zhou Wu Zheng Wang , one basic fact has not changed: the people in this country are just abstract data to be managed, and do not have the status of citizens of modern nation-states. the meaning of nationality. The only way ordinary people feel the power of the state is when exorbitant taxes and levies are levied on them. The people only have the obligation to pay taxes according to regulations, but they have no right to interfere in state affairs. I would like to ask Did the Qing government follow public opinion when it ceded Hong Kong after the Opium War ? After the Sino-Japanese War , did the cession of Taiwan follow public opinion? It is a typical feature of pre-modern feudal countries that citizens have obligations but no rights.
In such a country, people lack the awareness of national recognition of . Especially after the Qing army entered the country, they launched a policy of shaving their hair and changing clothes, which seriously hurt the national sentiments of the majority of the Han people. Throughout the Qing Dynasty, the ethnic conflicts between the Manchus and the Han had been relatively acute. In fact, it was difficult for the Qing government to truly mobilize the people to fight a national war of resistance, because once the people got hold of weapons, they might in turn threaten the rule of the Qing government. Today we regret the failures of the Opium War, the Sino-Japanese War, and the Eight-Nation Allied Forces' War of Invasion against China. were from the perspective of the Chinese nation. However, at that time, the rulers may not analyze problems from the perspective of the entire nation.
The Qing government’s first priority was definitely the stability of its own country. During the Reform Movement of 1898, diehards attacked the reformists for "protecting China but not the Qing Dynasty". This sentence directly exposed the selfishness of the rulers of the Qing Dynasty: in the eyes of the Qing government, the country was their private property, and the 400 million people were slaves under their rule. That’s why they would “rather be with friends than domestic slaves”, and that’s why they would “measure China’s material resources and gain the favor of the country.” The Qing government's consideration of issues was never based on the interests of the entire nation, but first on the basis of its own interests.
In the third year after Cixi came to power behind the curtain, the Qing Dynasty ceded 440,000 square kilometers of territory in the " Sino-Russian Treaty on the Demarcation of the Northwest Boundary" signed with Tsarist Russia.. In the Treaty of Ili in 1881, the Qing government ceded more than 70,000 square kilometers of territory northeast of Tacheng, Ili, and west of Kashgar. In the "Treaty of Shimonoseki" in 1895, the Qing government ceded Taiwan to Japan and paid an indemnity of 200 million taels of silver. In the 1898 "Special Article to Expand the Boundary Site of Hong Kong", the Qing government leased the New Territories to the United Kingdom... Cixi's attitude towards foreigners was actually very simple: if they want money, they can give it, and if they want land, they can give it. As long as it doesn't threaten her power.
As early as when she suppressed the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom , Cixi did not hesitate to sell her country's sovereignty and promise benefits to foreigners in order to use the power of foreigners to achieve the goal of borrowing teachers to assist in the suppression. At that time, Prince Gong Yi Xin pointed out sharply from the standpoint of the ruling class of the Qing government: "Foreigners are a disease of mustard moss, and long hair is a problem for the intimates." This shows that the Manchu feudal rulers headed by Cixi did not possess national consciousness in the modern sense at all. In the eyes of the Qing government, the most important enemy was not the great powers, but the people very close to them. It was impossible for the Qing government to call on the people to fight to the bitter end with the foreign powers.
To call on the people of the country to rise up and serve the king, we must first arm the people. So, will the people who have received weapons be able to serve the king? Or directly rebel and kill the king? The Qing government was probably far more worried about this issue than it was about the great powers. Since the Qing government regarded the people who took up arms as its own thorn in the side, how could it possibly fully mobilize the people? Although people's war and protracted war are effective means for countries like China to resist foreign aggression, the objective environment of the late Qing Dynasty did not meet the conditions for launching a people's war without hesitation.
Under the conditions at that time, the Qing government did not say that it would let go of mobilizing the people. Even mobilizing officials and troops across the country to resist the enemy became a problem. In the process of suppressing the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the power of Han local governors such as Zeng Guofan , Zuo Zongtang , Li Hongzhang began to grow bigger and stronger. This also means that the Qing government's control over local areas has been weakened. During the Eight-Power Allied Forces' invasion of China, the Governors of Liangjiang Liu Kunyi , Governors of Huguang Zhang Zhidong , Governors of Guangdong and Guangxi Li Hongzhang, Governors of Fujian and Zhejiang Xu Yingjun and other southern provinces governors jointly signed the "Southeast Mutual Protection" treaty. When the Eight-Power Allied Forces fought fiercely with the Qing army in the north, the southern provinces did not intervene in the war.
This directly led to the fact that the Qing army could only mobilize 80,000 troops from Beijing, Tianjin and various parts of North China when facing the Eight-Power Allied Forces. As early as the process of suppressing the Taiping Rebellion, the Qing Dynasty's standing armies such as the Eight Banners and the Green Camp were already unusable. In the process of suppressing the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, a number of local regiments such as the Hunan Army and the Huai Army emerged. After that, the regiment-trained armed forces began to gradually replace the Eight Banners and the Green Camp in the various internal and external wars of the Qing Dynasty. Although the Qing Dynasty still maintained the Eight Banners and Green Camp organizations in order to maintain its rule. The nearly one million Eight Banners and Green Battalion officers and soldiers consume a lot of military pay, but they are almost unusable except for maintaining law and order.
When faced with invasion by foreign enemies, the Qing government often had to take temporary measures to recruit soldiers. Most of these temporarily recruited armies are composed of idlers. When they face an enemy armed to the teeth on the battlefield, they often collapse at the drop of a hat. At that time, although the Qing army was equipped with some new weapons, it still used the old military system. Among the soldiers in the Qing army, only the Wuweijun had learned Western training methods, but even the Wuweijun had only scratched the surface. The Wuwei Army itself was adapted from the Huai Army, Gan Army , and Yi Army, so it was deeply influenced by the traditional Yongying system.
Problems such as chaotic command systems and inadequate logistical support are common in such an army. Under the corrupt system at that time, taking empty pay was a common corruption method used by high-level military officials: some units had empty quotas but no soldiers. Through nepotism and feudal martial arts, old-style officers commanded a group of soldiers who were armed with new weapons but did not know how to use them to fight against the modern armies of the great powers. The outcome was almost doomed before the fight began. Such an army is incapable of defending against enemies, but it is good at disturbing the people. The poor military discipline of the Qing army almost never gained the support of the people.
Given that China is so big, it will be able to withstand it if it can fully mobilize the people to resist aggression. However, the fact that China can withstand it does not mean that the Qing government can withstand it. In fact, Cixi never really thought about mobilizing the people to resist to the end when facing the Eight-Nation Allied Forces. The reason why Cixi declared war on the great powers was not because of any national integrity, but because she was misled by false information that the great powers asked her to return to power Guangxu . In the final analysis, what Cixi defended was not the dignity of the country, but the power that she regarded as important as life. In fact, Cixi had no determination to devote all the strength of the country to fighting foreign enemies to the death.
Just five days after Cixi declared war on the great powers, she sent Ronglu to the embassy to discuss the armistice. When Cixi was driven out of the capital by the Eight-Power Allied Forces, she quickly pushed out the Boxers as a scapegoat: Cixi ordered all Qing troops to cooperate with the foreigners to kill the Boxers.In September 1901, the "Xin Chou Treaty" signed between the Qing government and 11 countries including Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, Germany, the United States, France, Austria-Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Spain stipulated: China used 450 million taels of silver from customs silver and other duties to compensate various countries and settled it at the currency exchange rate of each country. It was repaid in 39 years at an annual interest rate of 4%, with a total principal and interest of 982,238,150 taels.
