The six-dimensional pictures of emperors of all dynasties were exposed, and the ancestors panicked

Chapter 765 Treaty of Nanjing

【Zhenjiang, known as "the best scenery in the world", is located at the intersection of the Yangtze River and the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal. 】

[The strategic intention of the British army was to cut off China's north-south traffic and stop the grain transport, which was the lifeline of China at the time.]

……

Song Dynasty: Lizong Period
Zhao Yun, who was discussing with Zhen Dexiu and others about gradually deploying defenses on the south bank of the Yellow River, looked at the sky and suddenly sighed:

"Where can I see the divine land? The scenery of Beigu Tower is everywhere."

Zhenjiang Prefecture, an important town on the Southern Song Dynasty's eastern defense line against the Jin Army, has always been regarded as the eastern front headquarters.

During the reign of Emperor Ningzong, Xin Qiji, who was entrusted with the important task of the Northern Expedition, wrote these words while guarding Zhenjiang.

"Zhenjiang, in front of Beigu Tower."

"This is a place of hope where patriots take up arms to serve their country and wipe out the barbarian dust."

……

[When the British army evacuated Shanghai and regrouped at Wusongkou, the Qing court misjudged the British army's next target and thought they would attack Tianjin in the north.]

[Niu Jian also believed that the war in Jiangsu would soon end, and requested that Zhejiang not send ministers and troops to aid Jiangsu. When the British fleet sailed along the Yangtze River, Niu Jian and others realized their miscalculation and quickly dispatched troops to reinforce Zhenjiang.]

[On the sixth day of the sixth month of the twenty-second year of Daoguang’s reign (July 1842, 7), the British fleet arrived at Ebizui, Jiangyin.]

[On the seventh day of the sixth lunar month (13th), Niu Jian led more than soldiers to Zhenjiang.]

[In order to avoid war, Niu Jian ordered the prefecture to invite wealthy families to donate 120,000 gold coins to "welcome and reward the barbarian army", attempting to pay the British army "reward expenses" to stop the war. ]

[The person stationed in Zhenjiang was the deputy governor of Jingkou, Guo Luoluo Hailing, who firmly opposed Niu Jian's reward to the army and compromised, and strongly advocated defending the city and resisting. ]

[Niu Jian stayed in Zhenjiang for one night, then handed over all the defense of Zhenjiang to Hai Ling, and then led the army to retreat to Nanjing.]

[On the eighth day of the sixth lunar month (14th), the British army captured the Danxishan Fort. ]

[On the 15th day of the th month (th), two British ships arrived at the Zhenjiang River first. The Qing side immediately launched a fire attack, but it was ineffective.]

【On June 20 (th), the entire British army arrived.】

……

Ji Han.

Liu Bei and Sun Quan shook their heads subconsciously.

As of now, people from Humen, Dinghai, Zhenhai, Xiamen, and Zhapu have all arrived in Zhenjiang.

It was a fire attack, and there was really no post-war summary at all.

"In the previous battles, every fire attack failed. Also, the British always attacked from the side instead of the front."

"I don't remember these two points at all."

Cao Cao drank a glass of wine in depression.

How should I say this?

The successful fire attack reminds me of Red Cliff, which is a stain.

But what was even more frustrating was the failure of the fire attack...

It might as well be a stain!
……

[On June 21 (st), the British army attacked the city.]

[The operation was mainly undertaken by the British Army, with a total of 6,905 people in four brigades, in addition to hundreds of naval personnel.]

[The Qing army was also led by Hai Ling, with about 1,600 soldiers from Zhenjiang and Qingzhou defending the city, while the Minister of Counsellor, Sichuan Governor Qi Shen, led 2,700 reinforcements to garrison outside the city.]

……

On the canopy.

The cannons, muskets and matchlock guns on the city walls continued to fire.

Shrapnel flew among the British troops.

The flash of swords appeared on the top of the city.

A soldier was stabbed by a British bayonet, and then he grabbed the British soldier while spitting blood, picked him up and jumped off the city wall together.

Outside the city, British artillery fire was attacking fiercely.

Under the cover of artillery fire, the British troops swarmed onto the city walls.

……

[The British troops landed near Jinshan without encountering any resistance.]

[After landing, the first brigade headed straight for Yangpeng Mountain. Qi Shen and others had long been afraid of the British army, and when they saw the British army coming, "they got off their carriages, changed horses, and ran first. The soldiers were defeated, covering the mountains and valleys, and heading towards the main road to Danyang." The British army successfully cleared out the outer Qing troops, and Zhenjiang City became an isolated city. ]

[In contrast to the cowardice of Qi Shen stationed outside the city, the tenacious resistance of the 1,600 Eight Banners soldiers led by Hai Ling in Zhenjiang City]

[When the British Second Brigade landed northeast of Zhenjiang City, it was bombarded by the defenders, but the Qing army's artillery fire was quickly silenced by the British naval guns.]

[The British army then used ladders to attack the city, and the Qing troops engaged in a fierce battle with them.]

[Until a large section of the city wall in the north was destroyed by British artillery fire, the Qingzhou soldiers, armed with swords and spears, still used various favorable terrains to resist.]

[The British First Brigade, which was attacking the West Gate, was initially blocked and had to turn to attack the South Gate. The British Navy's small boats that were sailing into the canal with the army were bombarded by Qing army artillery and cannons on the city wall in the West Gate area, suffering heavy losses and retreating in embarrassment. Then they organized a fleet of 300 sailors to force their way in again and blasted open the West Gate with explosives.]

[The Qing troops defending the city then engaged the enemy in hand-to-hand combat. In the end, the entire West Gate defense force was annihilated and the West Gate was breached by the British army.]

……

Ming Dynasty Yongle Period
"Brave and tragic."

Zhu Di still hated this group of Tartars.

But this did not affect his admiration for the Eight Banners soldiers' heroic resistance to the British invasion.

Faced with the British who had absolute advantages in weapons and equipment and troop strength.

The soldiers defending the city risked their lives and fought the enemy to the death.

“They are also protecting this land…”

……

[Then, the British army began to attack the west gate fiercely, blew it open with explosives, and advanced into the city.]

[Hai Ling "personally braved the arrows and stones", "selected soldiers to go up to the city", and "ordered the residents in the city to place water jars and bricks and stones" in preparation for a decisive battle with the British army in the city.]

[In the defense of Zhenjiang, the brave and skilled Qingzhou soldiers have always been the "vanguard" of the entire army. ]

【According to records of the time: "The barbarians climbed the city walls... At that time, the Qingzhou soldiers in the city were the vanguard, bravely advancing, firing guns and cannons. Many barbarians fell off the ladders, but they did not retreat at all. More and more people climbed the battlements. The flag soldiers were frightened and fled. The Qingzhou soldiers were outnumbered and 17 or 18 of them died. The city was finally broken."】

[On the night of June 7 (July 23), the British army had entered the city from three directions: north, west, and south.]

[Inside the city, there were constant flames, gunshots, and shouts of killing. ]

[Hai Ling led his troops in a bloody battle with the British army for two days. In the end, all the defenders were destroyed. Hai Ling burned himself to death and all his family members died.]

……

{The Battle of Zhenjiang was the last battle in the First Opium War and also the most bloody one.}
{A British officer who participated in the war of aggression also had to admit in his article “The Last Chronicle of the British Army’s Campaign in China” that “the Manchu soldiers put up a most stubborn resistance. They fought for every inch of land, so every corner of the city and every gun hole was captured by hand-to-hand combat.”}
{“Both the Han and Manchu soldiers behaved very bravely, which made us admire them very much…From their actions, we can see that even if they were beaten to the last man, they still refused to surrender.”}
{Engels also highly praised the Zhenjiang defenders in an article. He said: "If the British army had encountered the same resistance (in Zhenjiang) everywhere, they would never have reached Nanjing."}
{I used to think that only the people of Guantianpei and Sanyuanli fought bravely against the British, but throughout the First Opium War, so many Mongolian, Manchu, Han and Qing troops fought against the British and all died heroically!}

{The only ones who are afraid of the British army are the emperor and his ruling group!}
{So people often ask, why didn't Britain and other powers occupy all of China?}

｛Many people often give a TikTok-style answer, saying that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the Qing Dynasty had killed so many people, and that foreigners were afraid. But that’s not true.｝
{What really frightened them was that if the Qing dynasty fell, they would face heroic resistance from all over China, and it would be even more impossible for them to occupy China.}
{The existence of the Qing Dynasty is the best guarantee for them to gain benefits in China!}

……

Datang.

"The Qing Dynasty..."

Li Shimin twisted his beard and shook his head:

“The problem is similar to that of the Ming Dynasty.”

"The Mandate of Heaven that Yongzheng restored was discarded by Qianlong."

"The British invasion made the Qing rulers even more nervous and the people hated them to the core."

"If the upper and lower are the same, now is a great time to reshape destiny, but..."

The ministers also subconsciously denied this possibility.

There is no way. The Qing emperor was really afraid of the death of millions of Han people.

The British only want money, not lives.

But the Han people...

It cannot be said or said.

……

Qing Dynasty, Kangxi Period
A chill went up from my spine to the top of my head.

Kangxi looked at the last sentence and took two steps back.

"Long live the Lord!"

The attendant beside him hurried forward and helped Kangxi sit back on the couch.

Kangxi waved his hand, then leaned on the handrail beside him and stared at the floor tiles in a daze.

He murmured:
"Nanjing……"

"Will he still fight?"

"No... He won't..."

"Negotiation..."

……

{But it is hard to say what Hai Ling is, because he believes that the British army's frequent successes are due to traitors colluding with the enemy - which is also true, but he actually allowed his soldiers to kill innocent people in the city in the name of eliminating traitors.}
{Whether they are upper class or common people, they are all treated equally.}
{In the end, many people were more afraid of the Bannermen than the British Army, and in desperation they even asked the British Army for help. Many people were forced by Hai Ling to become traitors.}
{Because Hai Ling was too cruel to the people, he almost cut himself off from the people of Zhenhai, and thus the most tragic scene in the history of the Opium War occurred.}
{When the Qing warships were sunk by the British, the people standing on the shore watching the battle burst into cheers. When the British landed and were worried about food and water, the people rushed to sell food and water to the British.}
{Even the British commander found this unbelievable. He asked the translator what was going on. The translator replied: "The country does not know that there are people, and the people do not know that there is a country."}
……

[Zhenjiang was the weakest defense point among the key points attacked by the British army during the Opium War, but it also received the most fierce resistance.]

[The British army deployed the most troops, but also suffered the greatest losses, with a total of 39 killed, 130 injured, and 3 missing.]

[This number is not surprising by today's standards, but it is equivalent to the total casualties of the British army in the battles of Humen, Xiamen, Dinghai, Zhenhai, and Wusong, where the Qing army had the strongest defenses! ]

……

The period of Emperor Xuan of the Han Dynasty
"The Qing Dynasty made preventing the Han people its top priority."

Liu Bingyi held little Liu Shi in his arms and said with mixed emotions:
"The Qing dynasty was infinitely backward, starting with the thinking of its rulers."

The imperial court has been allowing internal interest groups to grow, expand, and compete with each other, but it is unaware that once internal and external troubles arise, the interest groups will in turn bring huge damage to the regime itself.

The coercive system will inevitably cause dissatisfaction among the people of the country, so the court’s biggest task must be to suppress domestic resistance, and it has no spare energy to use military force abroad.

Under the influence of the extremely corrupt and turbulent environment, the isolated people will be confused when they see no hope.

It no longer matters whether the Qing Dynasty perishes or not, or whether foreigners come or not.

"The people are not proud of this place, this is the evil of the Qing Dynasty!"

……

[June 1842, the 8nd year of Daoguang’s reign (August 4, )]

[Led by British Minister Plenipotentiary Pottinger and Admiral Baga, more than 10,000 British expeditionary forces boarded more than 70 ships and marched into the Caoxie Gorge area outside the Yifeng Gate of Xiaguan, Nanjing, and pointed their guns at the city of Nanjing.]

[Puttingcha used his usual tactics. On the one hand, he claimed that the problem could be solved through peace talks, while on the other hand, he sent the British army to survey the hydrology and terrain, threatening to attack Taiping Gate from Zhongshan.]

[Under the threat of the British army's powerful ships and guns, Emperor Daoguang changed from "mainly suppressing" to "mainly appeasing" and quickly ordered the imperial commissioners Qiying and Yili Bu and the Liangjiang Governor Niu Jian to compromise and make peace with the British invaders.]

[However, Emperor Daoguang still made two preparations. On the one hand, he ordered Qiying and Yili Bu to go to Nanjing to negotiate peace with the British army.]

[At the same time, he issued orders to General Yangwei Yijing, the Governor-General of Huguang, and the Governors of Hubei, Jiangxi, and Anhui provinces, a total of five senior officials, to attack the British army from both upstream and downstream of the Yangtze River if the peace talks failed.]

……

{To be honest, this is a good strategy both strategically and tactically. If the Qing government could unify the deployment and command of all the troops and launch a closed-door campaign against the invading British army, history could still be rewritten.}
{However, all of this has long been a historical hypothesis that makes people sigh.}
{As the Opium War shifted from the battlefield to the negotiation table, the first unequal treaty imposed on the Chinese people by modern Western capitalist countries was about to be announced.}
……

【The Nanjing negotiations were conducted in two phases. The first phase was held at Jinghai Temple from July 1842 to July 8 in the 12nd year of Emperor Daoguang’s reign (August 19 to , ), where the intent to sign the Treaty of Nanjing was reached. Jinghai Temple became one of the negotiation sites for the Treaty of Nanjing and is also regarded as the starting point of modern Chinese history.】

[The negotiations did not go smoothly at the beginning. When the Qing representatives had a slight dispute to defend the rights of the Qing Dynasty, Pu Tingcha immediately wielded a big stick. The British army not only tore off the gun covers on the warships again, but also set up cannons from the high ground on Zhongshan Mountain, threatening to aim the shells at the government office. The Qing representatives could only give in step by step at the negotiation table, just like they were losing step by step on the battlefield.]

[During the Nanjing negotiations, the Jingjiang Defense War broke out.]

……

Qing Dynasty and Qianlong period
The people of the entire capital city saw it.

They saw that the Qing government was determined to submit to Britain.

Seeing Qiying, Ili Bu and others begging for surrender to the British authorities in Jiangning.

Seeing those foreign devils threatening to attack the city with force at any time, they also sent out groups of little devils from time to time to harass and plunder everywhere.

The little devils were seen harassing the county town of Jingjiang in Jiangbei, where they were unitedly resisted by the local military and civilians. Eight of them were killed, five were injured, and the rest retreated in embarrassment.

See how the Jingjiang army and civilians bravely fought against the powerful enemy.

Look at the ugly sight of those provincial governors kneeling down to beg for peace.

"Pooh!"

……

【But this was just an episode in the Sino-British negotiations. Some people also believe that this was the last battle of the Opium War.】

[The Chinese and British sides held talks at Jinghai Temple for a week, with about four rounds of discussions. The Qing representatives met almost all the conditions proposed by the British side.]

……

On the canopy.

The Qing ministers and the British ministers sat opposite each other.

The two sides exchanged papers.

Sign and seal.

The content of the treaty is displayed on the screen.

……

[The negotiations then entered the second phase, from July 8 to July 20 (August 29 to ). The British negotiator was its plenipotentiary minister, Pottinger, and the Qing representatives were Qiying and Ili Bu.]

[In order to speed up the negotiation process, Pu Tingcha took the initiative to invite Qiying and others to board the British flagship "Gao Huali" to let the Qing representatives see the British army's advanced equipment with their own eyes. ]

[This move really worked, and Qiying later reported to Emperor Daoguang: "The barbarians' ships are strong and their cannons are powerful. I heard about it at first, but now that I have boarded their ships and seen their cannons, I know that they cannot be subdued by military force."]

[In the second round of negotiations, Qiying and others accepted almost all of the British conditions.]

【On July 8 (August 26), the Chinese and British negotiating parties finally reached an agreement and could sign a formal agreement.】

【At that time, the Qing representatives such as Qiying were eager to sign the treaty. They even held a banquet to entertain British "distinguished guests" such as Pottinger.】

[Unexpectedly, the British side, which had been eager to sign the agreement, did not agree to sign the agreement on that day because they wanted to hold a grand signing ceremony to celebrate their victory.]

……

{A British officer present wrote: In Europe, diplomats attach great importance to the wording and grammar of the treaty, but the Chinese representatives did not examine it carefully and just glanced at it. It is easy to see that they were only anxious about one issue, that is, we should leave quickly.}
{In order to force the British troops to leave quickly, Qiying proposed to sign the agreement immediately, but the British side refused.}
{From the British point of view, this is diplomacy and a matter of interest. From the Qing court officials’ point of view, this is just an errand and it should be finished quickly.}
{What about compensation, cession of territory, trade, these losses are the emperor's, they have nothing to do with me.}
{Europe is a diplomat, we are not! For the Qing Dynasty, what is the difference between a minister and a slave? They can be dismissed, sent to the army, or have their property confiscated. The sooner the mission is completed, the more real it is.}
{This detail is very culturally distinctive. Treaties were not meant to be kept, but to solve immediate problems. Two hundred years later, this feature is still there.}
……

[On July 8 (August 31), Emperor Daoguang received Qiying's memorial dated July 26 () and issued an edict:

I am so angry after reading this report! I only hate myself and feel ashamed. Why did things turn out like this?
In the most helpless situation, we have to approve all requests. Since the lives of millions of people are at stake, and the impact is not limited to Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, we have to force the ban and handle all the items as discussed. 】

[The imperial edict arrived in Nanjing on the third day of August (September 9).]

[But before that, on July 1842, the 8nd year of Daoguang (August 29, )]

[On the British ship Gao Huali on the Nanjing River, Qiying and Yili Bu had already stamped the treaty with their official seals and signed it with their own handwriting.]

【The treaty was signed.】

【Nanjing was saved.】

【The British troops withdrew.】

【The war is over.】

[All this made the British side very satisfied. A British officer wrote a proud sentence in capital letters at the end of his memoirs.]

【CHINA HAS BEEN CONQUERED BY A WOMAN】

【China was conquered by a woman (the queen).】

(End of this chapter)