In 1900, the Eight-Power Allied Forces launched an attack on Beijing under the name of "suppression of the Boxer Movement". Seeing that the situation was not good, Empress Dowager Cixi hurried to Xi'an with Emperor Guangxu before the Eight-Nation Alliance entered the city. Soon after, the city of Beijing was breached. The Eight-Power Allied Forces entered the city, burned, killed, looted, and committed no evil. The people in Beijing suffered a catastrophe. This incident was called the "Gengzi Incident" in history.
So, among the invading eight-nation armies, which army did the most bad things?
Let’s take a look at the cause of the "Gengzi Incident" first.
Since the Opium War, the Qing Dynasty began to develop into a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society. In the following decades, the great powers continued to squeeze the Qing government. The Qing government successively signed the "Nanjing Treaty", "Beijing Treaty", "Shiguan Treaty" and other treaties that humiliated the country.
Under the constant bullying of foreign forces, the Chinese people broke out a movement of "helping the Qing Dynasty and destroying the foreign countries", among which the Boxer Tuan had the strongest momentum. The Boxer is a secret private organization popular in Shandong and Hebei. After the first slogan of "helping the Qing Dynasty and destroying the foreign world" was put forward in 1898, the Boxers began to crack down on foreign forces in China frantically.
Actually, the activities of the Boxers have always been closely monitored by the Qing government. With the increasing arrogance of foreign forces, Cixi came up with the idea of using the Boxers to fight foreigners.
When the Boxers crazily destroyed churches and massacred foreign missionaries, Cixi only issued the order to "suppress the Boxers" perfunctorily, but did not really implement it.
Cixi's intention to kill with a knife was quickly seen through by foreign forces. The foreign forces will do their best. They simply use the name of "suppressing the Boxers" and forcefully request that coalition forces be sent into Beijing to suppress bandits. Cixi couldn't bear it, and finally angrily declared war on the eleven countries of Britain, the United States, Japan, Russia, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Belgium, and Austria-Hungary.
Once Cixi declared war, those countries that wanted to invade the Qing Dynasty were even happier. The eight countries of Britain, the United States, Japan, Russia, Germany, France, Austria-Hungary and Italy quickly formed a coalition force and marched directly to Beijing on the grounds of "protecting their citizens." The Netherlands, Spain, and Belgium did not send troops because of their overwhelming time and long distances.
At the beginning of the war, the Eight-Power Allied Forces only invested less than 20,000 troops. However, at that time, most of the Qing army and Boxer soldiers were still using cold weapons, and only a few were equipped with guns. This made the Eight-Power Allied Forces invincible and soon expanded the fruits of victory. After
invaded Beijing, the Eight-Power Allied Forces began to brutally burn, kill and looted the people in Beijing on the grounds that they could not distinguish between civilians and Boxers. Whenever people encounter people on the road, the Eight-Nation Alliance will refer to them as the Boxers, and then carry out indiscriminate killing.
After the Chinese army did not resist completely, the Eight-Power Allied Forces instead sent many more soldiers and began to scramble to plunder more benefits. According to statistics, when the Eight-Power Allied Forces withdrew from Beijing, the total number of their troops had exceeded 50,000.
So, which country’s army has done the most bad things?
Speaking of it, the Eight-Power Allied Forces adopted a divisional occupation plan in this war. Among them, the north of Beijing Dongsi was occupied by Japanese troops, the east of Dongsi South Street was occupied by Russian troops, and the west of South Street was controlled by Italian troops. The northeast and southeast directions of the Forbidden City were occupied by German and British, French and American troops respectively.
When talking about doing the most bad things and causing the most damage to Beijing, we must first mention the most brutal Russian army. Russia sent more than 13,000 people in this battle. They slaughtered Chinese civilians on a large scale. It is particularly worth mentioning that Russian soldiers seldom used guns to kill. Most of them cut their throats with swords, axes and other sharp tools, causing the people to bleed and die. On the cruelty of the means and the bad behavior, the Russians deserve the first place.
In addition to Russia, the Germans are also quite brutal.
In this battle, Germany only sent less than 1,000 soldiers. However, this group of soldiers strictly enforced the military discipline of "Chinese people are killed regardless of whether they are men, women or children." Under-represented RussiaIn the case of one-tenth of the country, the number of civilians they killed even approached Russia, which is evident in the brutal nature.
The one who invested the most in this battle was actually the Japanese army. The Japanese army sent a total of more than 20,000 soldiers, but they pursued a strategy of "looting as the main force and burning and killing as a supplement." Therefore, judging from the whole battle, the Japanese turned out to be the "most disciplined" unit of the Eight-Power Allied Forces.
As for Britain and France, it continued the style of the Old Summer Palace burned 40 years ago. Burning, killing and looting are all evil. It's just that under the cruel style of Russia and Germany, the actions of Britain and France are not even cruel.
In general, the Eight-Power Allied Forces invaded Beijing and caused heavy damage to the Chinese people, and the Qing government accelerated its demise. We should keep our national humiliation in mind and work hard to strengthen ourselves.
(Reference materials: "History of the Eight-Power Allied Forces Invading China" etc.)
