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

Chapter 793 Tianjin Incident: Diplomatic Failure
{I'm surprised that the first diplomat to die in office was an American...}
{An American, ambassador to China, was appointed by the Qing court to lead the first diplomatic mission after leaving office.}
{Burlingham was so excited about his diplomatic success in Britain that he wrote to Samuel Williams: "I have won here. The press, the government and the public all agree with the Burlingame Treaty."}
{Little-known fact: the legal basis used by the Qing government to protest against the US anti-Chinese movement was based on the Burlingame Treaty.}
{So some Americans criticized Burlingame, saying that he handed over America to a group of Asians in order to please a small group of humanitarians and politicians in California.}
……

Yanhan·Lingdi Period
"No matter what the original intention of the Qing court was, at least Burlingame was persistent in bringing the Qing dynasty into the world and integrating it into the world."

Liu Bei held the tablet in his arms, looked at the sky, and felt deeply moved.

An outsider, using his life to bring a country into the world order.

What kind of spirit is this?
"He is well qualified for this role, regardless of any selfish motives for himself or his motherland."

Not only Cao Cao, but everyone in the hall was enlightened.

The British and French allied forces in front committed all kinds of atrocities, and the ambassadors to China here did their best.

"How should I put it... Don't elevate individual mistakes to group mistakes, and don't reduce group mistakes to individuals."

When they heard this, the group immediately thought of the place where they had been discriminated against for a long time.

"Liangzhou..."

Liu Hong looked at the sky and sighed:

"They are also Han people..."

……

Ji Han.

“Morality is in the heart of man.”

Zhuge Liang looked at the blond, blue-eyed foreigner who died in a foreign land for the sake of China, and said with emotion:
"Keep your promise and fulfill your responsibility."

"It can be said that I have devoted my life to this cause until my death."

Liu Chan savored these words carefully.

I have a new understanding of devoting all my life to a cause.

'People are like this. They often fail to see what is right in front of them, but what others say and do reflects on themselves.'

"Ask yourself, do I really take my responsibilities seriously?"

"Since I have taken on this task, I should do my best."

Liu Chan quietly looked at Zhuge Liang, whose hair was graying, with mixed feelings in his heart.

'At the very least, don't let my father-in-law work so hard anymore.'

……

Ming Dynasty and Xuande period
"We can't stand still..."

Zhu Zhanji, wearing a plain white robe, sat in an armchair.

"Yu Qian, do you think we should get ahead of them?"

Yu Qian stood straight and straight, thinking:

“Yes and no.”

Zhu Zhanji smiled helplessly:
"Why is it impossible?"

Yu Qian said seriously:
"Yes, it is to prepare for a rainy day. It is better to go there yourself and be convinced than to hear it from others."

"No...I have no money..."

Zhu Zhanji's body suddenly stiffened.

Why are you hallucinating?!
"No...no money? That's impossible...haha..."

Zhu Zhanji smiled awkwardly as he looked at Yu Qian who was serious.

Then the smile disappeared.

Although there was the reign of Renxuan...

But I really don’t have any money…

"That woman's..."

Yu Qian pretended not to hear the emperor cursing, and took out a memorial from his pocket.

"Today I will be dealing with the financial affairs of the Ming Dynasty."

"Report to restart the expedition."

……

Qing Dynasty, Daoguang Period
"Their customs are nothing but promiscuity and cunning."

The Imperial Scholar Weiren did not comment on what was said on the awning, but bowed to Emperor Daoguang and said:

"What they value is nothing but evil and viciousness."

"My Celestial Empire is simple and unadorned. How can we allow cunning and viciousness to prevail?"

"This is the work of Jie and Zhou, it cannot be followed!"

Daoguang narrowed his eyes and glanced at the ministers in the hall.

For a moment, he couldn't tell whether these people wanted the Qing Dynasty to live or die...

"You all know about Lin Zexu's memorial."

The ministers fell silent.

Daoguang understood it clearly.

This palace... is as leaky as a sieve.

"You said he was evil, but do you have any way to remove the evil and poison?"

Woren shut up.

Daoguang sneered and said in a sarcastic tone:
"That's right. Whether opium is banned or not, you are not affected."

"It's time to eat, and it's time to drink."

"When a disaster strikes, I will learn from the ministers of the previous dynasty."

Upon hearing this, all the ministers knelt down in fear.

Daoguang stood up, flicked his sleeves, and strode past the ministers.

"I'm telling you."

"Opium is banned!"

"If you want to fight, fight!"

"We can't win if we know the whole story, so let's not rule the world."

A resolute voice came from behind the ministers.

"I will just drag you all to the crooked tree on Coal Hill and hang you one by one!"

……

【And 1870 was indeed an eventful year. 】

[The Franco-Prussian War broke out in Europe, and the "Paris Commune" was born. ]

[In America, Rockefeller founded Standard Oil, and African-American citizens officially gained the right to vote for the first time.]

【In the Qing Dynasty of that year, the "Tianjin Incident" that shocked China and the world also occurred. 】

[The impact of the Tianjin Incident on the political situation in the late Qing Dynasty far exceeded that of other events in terms of both breadth and depth.]

……

On the canopy.

An exotic church stands among a group of low tiled houses.

Several villagers were sitting under the shade of a tree not far away, looking at this side.

A thin old man wiped the sweat from his face with his clothes and suddenly said:
"This morning I saw the foreigners in this church carrying a small coffin and burying it in the Dongguan public cemetery."

One of the men who was fanning himself with a broken palm leaf fan suddenly sat up and exclaimed:
"Uncle Zhao, did you see it too?"

When the others heard this, they immediately started asking more questions.

The man's face turned pale and he said:
"I saw it that day and didn't think much of it. Later, when I passed by there, I saw the small coffin being dug out by a group of wild dogs."

"In there...are several dead bodies of children!"

Everyone was in an uproar!

"This this……"

"There's been an epidemic recently! These foreign devils must be killing children to take their minds and prepare medicine for the Dragon Boat Festival!"

"Otherwise, why are there so many bodies in one coffin?"

Everyone fell silent upon hearing this and all looked towards the church.

……

[In April 1870, an epidemic broke out in Tianjin. The babies adopted by the French Catholic Charity House were not spared, and as many as or died.]

[Rumors that Catholic priests and nuns "kidnapped children, dug out their eyes and cut open their hearts to make medicine" spread widely. ]

【Child trafficking often occurred in Tianjin at that time. The Catholic Charity House, built in 1869, often paid a certain amount of money to the controllers of orphans to adopt them.】

【However, few parents or people in charge were willing to give their children to charity organizations for free, let alone organizations founded by foreigners, so the Charity House had to pay to adopt orphans. 】

[Sometimes, the House of Mercy would adopt dying children with the aim of baptizing them in order to save their souls.]

[This practice not only encourages criminals to kidnap children, but also provides a basis for rumors to spread.]

……

Song Dynasty: Zhezong Period
"Raising a baby means taking someone else's newly-raised child and feeding it to the mother."

"His hall is full of grown men and women..."

Sima Guang was well aware of the evil of human nature.

Do they want to raise babies? Or do they want to use this as an opportunity to perform a live-dissection operation?
Zhao Xu looked at the old man's changing expression and felt deeply moved.

The section on raising children is about encouraging people to be good.

But the heart is separated from the belly...

It is difficult to tell what is true goodness and what is false goodness.

……

[Soon after, two human traffickers were arrested, and the authorities said in a notice that their actions might have been "commissioned by someone."]

[The civil organization "Shuihuohui" is arresting suspects everywhere. ]

[During a public trial, a kidnapper named Wu Lanzhen confessed that the drug he used to commit the crime was provided by the French Catholic Church of Mercy.]

[However, according to later investigations, the houses Wu Lanzhen pointed out did not match the original confession of the criminal, and the crime scene mentioned in Wu Lanzhen's confession could not be found in reality.]

[When Wu Lanzhen confessed, the “iron evidence” was overwhelming and the public was in a state of excitement.]

[The local gentry gathered at the Confucius Temple, and the academy also suspended classes to protest.]

[It is said that there are more than 10,000 angry people gathered outside the church, some quarreling with parishioners and some throwing bricks and stones at the church.]

[The nuns of the House of Mercy wanted to ask the public to send representatives to investigate the church to find out the truth, but they were stopped by the French Consul Feng Daye.]

[Feng Daye was unwilling to negotiate directly with the angry people. On June 6, he went to the Sankou Trade Office and the Tianjin Government Office and asked the local officials Chonghou and Zhang Guangzao to mobilize troops to suppress the people.]

[After being rejected, Feng Daye met Jinghai County Magistrate Liu Jie on the Lion Grove Floating Bridge. During the argument, Feng opened fire and threatened to kill Liu Jie's family member Liu Qi. The public anger was completely ignited.]

[The people first beat Feng Daye and his followers to death, then rushed into the French church, tore up the French flag, and beat to death French priests, nuns, foreign merchants, foreign employees and their wives and children, a total of 20 people.]

[These included 13 Frenchmen, three Russians, two Belgians, one Italian, one Britishman, and dozens of Chinese employees, who set fire to the Wanghailou Church, the Foundling House, the Consulate, and several British and American churches.]

[This is the "Tianjin Incident" that shocked China and the world]

……

{At that time, disputes between the people and churches also occurred in Jiangxi.}
{The Jiangxi Governor Shen Baozhen once submitted a report to the Zongli Yamen, which roughly explained why the lower classes of people had such deep suspicion and hostility towards the Catholic Church.}
{First, there was a conflict between the Catholic orphanage and the local orphanage. They felt that the Catholic orphanage was trying to seize the local public orphanage, and that the believers were occupying shops and fields, and that there were warships coming to hold them hostage.}
{Second, there were conflicts between Christians and non-Christians. At that time, local officials and gentry always obeyed Christians. Non-Christians were at a disadvantage in the conflicts.}
{Third, the church’s behavior pattern is very different from that of traditional Chinese charitable organizations. When the public cannot understand it, they tend to associate it with “cutting and dismembering human beings.”}
{Fourth, the Taiping Army's actions in Jiangxi left the local people with lingering fears. Catholics worship God, and the Taiping Army also called itself "God Worshipping Religion." The people could not tell the difference between the two, so they formed a vague understanding.}
{“The Taiping rebels were all Catholics” and believed that missionaries would lure the Taiping Army to invade.}
……

Ming Dynasty·Chenghua Period
"Ugh……"

Zhu Jianshen looked at the information presented on the skylight, and his heart was filled with mixed feelings.

"You call this stupidity?"

Wan Zhen'er didn't know what to say, so she just held the emperor's hand.

Zhu Jianshen shook his head and said, "Fighting for the orphanage, the shop, and the land is an economic conflict."

"People don't understand the church's charitable model, nor can they understand the difference between missionaries and the Taiping Army. This is a cultural conflict."

"The treaty stipulates the extraterritoriality of missionaries, which will put pressure on local governments. For the sake of protecting their official positions, they will prefer to do less and tend to favor Christians in governance."

“This is a conflict of systems.”

He sighed and pounded his leg.

"Besides, these officials just want to have one day of nothing to do and cheat on their salary."

"When the time came for an emergency, he left, never caring about the lives and property of the people."

"A gentleman is almost the same as an official. If he has property, he will move there. The people are the ones who suffer. What does it have to do with him?"

"The people don't trust the officials, and they don't want them to control them."

"Minding his own business, he ended up causing trouble."

“You say, is this stupidity?”

"It is not simply a criticism of ignorance."

……

[After the incident, seven countries, including France, Britain, the United States, Germany, Russia, Belgium and Spain, jointly sent a note of protest to the Qing government.]

[The French warship even sailed to Dagukou and fired 27 cannon shots in demonstration.]

【At that time, the Qing court had two opinions on how to handle this case. 】

【The reasoners were led by Empress Dowager Cixi, Emperor Tongzhi, Prince Chun Yihuan, Cabinet Secretary Li Rusong, Supervisory Censor Chang Run, and Governor-General of Shaanxi and Gansu Zuo Zongtang. 】

[Advocating seizing the opportunity to drive the foreigners out of the Qing Dynasty, in order to avenge the humiliation of the late emperor being driven out of the capital by the British and French armies and fleeing to Rehe.]

【Those who discussed the situation were led by Prince Gong Yixin, President of the Hanlin Academy Wenxiang, Governor-General of Liangjiang Zeng Guofan, and Governor-General of Huguang Li Hongzhang. 】

[Advocating to go with the flow, going to war with France now is equivalent to being enemies with all countries at the same time. The fighting power of the Qing army can resist the foreigners in one place, but cannot resist the foreigners in seven provinces. ]

[We can hold out against the foreigners for a year or two, but we cannot hold out against them for decades or even hundreds of years. The result will surely be that the foreigners will continue to seek revenge with force, and it is likely that the shame of Emperor Xianfeng fleeing to Rehe will reappear.]

……

Big man.

"What do you think?"

Liu Bang asked the two men below:
"Should we follow the trend or avenge our shame?"

Liu Ying and little Liu Heng shook their heads together.

Liu Ying spoke first:

"Whether to follow the trend or to avenge the humiliation, the initiative was not in the hands of the Qing Dynasty from the beginning."

Little Liu Heng continued:

"In accordance with the situation, we must hand over the people. This will hurt the people. Lose."

"The avenging of the humiliation, the Xianfeng incident is not far away. The saying that cavalry is like snow in a frying pan is not worth mentioning. They also lost."

"It was a dead end from the start."

"It all depends on whether you are trying to quench your thirst with poison or just give it a try."

Liu Ying finally said:

"But it depends on what the Qing government leaders think. It's better to drink poison to quench thirst."

Liu Bang stroked his beard with a smile and said to Lu Zhi:
"Why is Naigong's seed so good?"

Lu Zhi had a blank expression on her face and didn't want to pay attention to him.

……

【The conflict between "Yixin, who argued for power" and "Yixun, who argued for reason" left Zeng Guofan, then governor-general of Zhili, at a loss as to what to do in 1870. 】

【The person directly responsible for handling the Tianjin Incident was Chonghou, the then Minister of Trade in the Three Ports. The target of the attacks by the "rationalists" in the court was also Chonghou.】

【And Chonghou was Yixin's confidant, so attacking Chonghou was attacking Yixin. 】

[In order to escape from the vortex, Chonghou immediately submitted a report to the Zongli Yamen after the incident, urging the court to send Zeng Guofan, the highest official in Zhili, to take charge of the situation.]

【Zeng Guofan sent a letter to Chonghou, expressing his willingness to assist him in handling the case and to "share the same fate and slander" with him.】

【However, what Yi Xin and Chong Hou wanted was not "Zeng Guofan to come and assist", but "Zeng Guofan to come and preside over". 】

【Thus, under Yi Xin's operation, Chonghou was soon appointed as the imperial envoy to France and left Tianjin. The heavy responsibility of handling the religious case fell entirely on Zeng Guofan.】

……

Ming Dynasty - Tianqi Period
Zhu Youxiao said that my dear Prince Xin was very skilled in this technique.

"Are you passing on the blame?"

It seems that things are not peaceful in this court...

Yes, the party struggles become more serious as the court ages.

"Zeng Guofan...tsk tsk, what a big pot, you have to carry it firmly."

Zhu Youxiao had a smile on his face, but his heart was calm.

Then...

"Emperor Tianqi: The demise of the Qing Dynasty is your own fault. You are still on guard against Han officials at this time. All the meritorious officials can be used as scapegoats. If you don't die, who will die?"

……

All the emperors were stunned.

Ever since the public got excited and scolded Emperor Gaozong of Song, this thing has hardly been touched.

just now……

Looking at Tianqi's cursing words.

Some "hooligans" who are not very serious by nature started to get angry.

At this time, the fun began.

"Emperor Qianlong: Emperor Tianqi should take good care of his health."

"If the Yang Qi is insufficient, I have a method to replenish the Yang Qi, which can make the Emperor Tianqi have many offspring and make them vigorous and powerful."

The emperors' eyes lit up!
It's fighting!

……

Great Qin.

Ying Zheng frowned and looked at the chat group.

"…It's filled with smoke and foul smell…"

Liu Bang pricked up his ears and listened.

What is so smoky?
……

[At this time, Zeng Guofan was already 59 years old, blind in his right eye, suffering from worsening liver disease, and suffering from vertigo for a long time.]

[On the eve of the Tianjin Incident, Zeng Guofan seemed to have realized that his end was near.]

[He asked Li Hongzhang to help him transport the Jianchang flower boards to make a coffin in preparation for his funeral. As a result, the flower boards and the imperial edict arrived in Baoding on the same day.]

[The decree showed his earnest concern for his health and asked meaningfully whether he could handle the incident.]

[This inquiry was actually a reminder: the religious incident took place in Zhili, and Zeng Guofan had no chance of staying out of it.]

[On July 7, Zeng Guofan presented to the court a memorial titled "Clarifying the General Situation of the Tianjin Incident," which triggered public opinion both at home and abroad.]

[The compromise was to confirm that the orphanage had not abducted or harmed children, and to prepare to execute 20 people on the principle of one life for one life.]

[For a time, "voices of criticism and insults were rampant, and Guofan was labeled a traitor. His fellow Hunanese in the capital especially regarded him as a great shame for their fellow villagers."]

[The plaques inscribed with Zeng Guofan’s official title hanging in the Hunan Guild Hall in Beijing were “all destroyed”, and the guild hall also removed Zeng’s name from the register, no longer recognizing him as a Hunanese.]

[The former moral saint was instantly reduced to the target of verbal and written criticism by the nation's scholars and officials.]

[The famous general and great hero of the restoration of the country in the past suddenly became a traitor who was "slandered and ridiculed, and the whole country wanted to kill him." ]

[“The long-standing hope has almost been wiped out.”]

……

{On the same day that the “Report on the General Situation of the Tianjin Incident” was delivered to Beijing, the imperial court convened a meeting to discuss how to deal with the incident. At the meeting, Cixi stated, “We have no idea how to deal with this matter.”}
{On the same day, Cixi also issued an edict to Zeng Guofan in the name of Emperor Tongzhi. The edict did not mention any specific plan for handling the incident, but repeatedly emphasized that the court's expectation was that "peace should be preserved, and the people's hearts should not be lost." Zeng Guofan was asked to neither go to war with the foreigners nor lose the people's hearts.}
{It was also on this day that the imperial court deleted Zeng Guofan's memorial that "argued fairly" and then made it public. Afterwards, Zeng Guofan was denounced as a "traitor" by public opinion in both the court and the public.}
{Cixi, who claimed that she "can't wait to make a decision", had actually already made up her mind.}
{The slogan of "peace is best preserved" must be shouted loudly and more often, but going to war with the foreigners is absolutely unacceptable.}
{“The people’s hearts must not be lost”, so the court could not directly express its position for the sake of face, saying that it would punish the people who participated in the killing, but this matter had to be done and it might as well be handed over to Zeng Guofan.}
{Wow... That's great... Zeng Guofan is getting better too, and is now receiving intern treatment.}
……

Qing Dynasty, Guangxu Period
Cixi adjusted the banner, her tone unclear.

"Zeng Guofan wants to use it."

"But it must be a Zeng Guofan who favors foreigners."

Guangxu glanced at the chat group, and then thought of the original memorial he had read, and said lightly:

"So when the court published Zeng Guofan's memorial on the investigation of the case, it deliberately deleted the five reasons he defended the gentry and people of Tianjin."

Cixi said calmly:
"Zeng Guofan was a famous minister of Neo-Confucianism and a great contributor to the restoration of the country. His reputation was unmatched."

"Having him resolve the conflict between China and foreign countries is far more effective in silencing the gossips of the court than having people like Chonghou compromise with foreigners."

Guangxu was thinking about all the actions of this old witch.

"We must not provoke a conflict with foreigners, and we must not repeat the tragedy of the Gengshen Rebellion."

"Deleting the content in Zeng Guofan's memorial defending the people and then publishing it was equivalent to labeling him a traitor and providing room for the court's peace policy."

"Just as the good and bad of many people are judged by their peers, the public opinion of many events is often determined by the comparison with the same kind."

"As long as Zeng Guofan's egregious acts of treason are in the past, the court's reconciliation measures will naturally become acceptable and even worthy of praise."

“High… Really high…”

Cixi didn't care about the sharpness of the emperor's words.

It's just the barking of incompetent people.

"So, I want you to think about how to make Zeng Guofan the founder of a school."

"People are useful when they are alive, and they are even more useful after they die."

……

[The final outcome of the Tianjin Incident was that the Tianjin prefect Zhang Guangzao and the county magistrate Liu Jie were dismissed from their posts and exiled to Heilongjiang.]

[As for the civilians, Feng Quezi, Liu Er and 20 others were sentenced to death, Xiao Zuizi, Wang Wu and 25 others were sentenced to military exile. Later, Li Hongzhang took over the aftermath and changed the sentences of four people sentenced to death to exile.]

[And in order to avoid the recurrence of the "Tianjin Incident" and the "Gengshen Incident" once and for all. ]

[The most important task of the Qing court in 1871, and the task that the Zongli Yamen spent the most energy on, was to draft a "Missionary Charter."]

[The Qing court hoped to use treaty documents to manage the civil-religious conflicts in the late Qing Dynasty in an orderly manner.]

[Unfortunately, the Zongli Yamen failed in persuading the ministers of various countries to accept the "Missionary Charter".]

【The British government refused to sign the "Missionary Charter" with the Qing government on the grounds that it was worried about the impact on business. 】

[Without British mediation, the Zongli Yamen could only face France's tough stance alone.]

[In November 1871, the French government responded that it would never agree to the charter and threatened that if the Qing government insisted on implementing the "Missionary Charter", it might lead to the friendship between the two countries being shaken or even broken.]

[The Zongli Yamen had no national power to use as a bargaining chip and could not get the French government to sit down at the negotiation table, so it could only accept this result.]

[The Qing court's first attempt to rely on treaty diplomacy to resolve Sino-foreign conflicts was thus declared a failure.]

Even according to contemporary values.

You should be a so-called "good person" who does nothing.

It is better to be a "bastard" who may be labeled as such but does what is in his current interest or what he has to do.

It is also a dilemma.

……

Just like the textbooks only mention that Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang signed unequal treaties, and don’t mention anything else.

But as Jian Bozan, Fan Wenlan and others proposed, "it is better to be coarse than to be fine."

This also leaves room for subsequent interpretation rights.



(End of this chapter)