In the tenth year of Xianfeng (1860), after the British and French allied forces captured Beijing, they occupied Yuanmingyuan. China's defenders were outnumbered, and Wenfeng, the chief minister of Yuanmingyuan, committed suicide by throwing himself into Fuhai. Chang Ai, who lived in the garden, was scared to death. With the support of British Prime Minister Pa Max Don, British leader Elgin ordered the burning of Yuanmingyuan.

3,500 British and French troops rushed into Yuanmingyuan and set fire to it. The fire didn't go out for three days. Yuanmingyuan and its nearby Qingyi Garden, Jingming Garden, Jingyi Garden, Changchun Garden and Haidian Town were all burned into ruins. Nearly 300 eunuchs, ladies-in-waiting and craftsmen were buried in the fire of Anyou Palace. Turn this world-famous garden into ruins. The fire burned for three days and nights and became a rare atrocity in the history of world civilization.

2. Russia (taking advantage of the fire to rob)-occupied our territory of1500,000 square kilometers.

May 1858 Sino-Russian Ji Hui Treaty. Russia occupied more than 600,000 square kilometers of territory in China, reaching Heilongjiang in the north and Xing 'an Mountains in the south. 1860165438+10 Sino-Russian Beijing Treaty. Russian occupied about 400,000 square kilometers of China territory east of the Ussuri River. 1864, 10, China and Russia signed the Beijing Treaty and the Northwest Border Agreement.

The Second Opium War was a war of aggression against China jointly launched by Britain and France with the support of Russia and the United States. In order to further open the China market and expand the interests of aggression in China, Britain and France used the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement in China as an excuse to jointly attack the Qing government under the pretext of Yarrow Incident and Ma Fu Incident. This is a war of aggression against China launched by Britain and France to expand the rights and interests of aggression.

The American and Russian fishermen benefit. The Tianjin Treaty and the Beijing Treaty signed by the four countries forced the Qing government to lose more territory and sovereignty in China, and foreign aggression expanded to coastal provinces and the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. The degree of semi-colonization of China society has further deepened.

1860, British and French troops invaded Beijing, and the Qing emperor fled to Chengde. British and French troops invaded Yuanmingyuan, plundered jewels and burned them. After Russia sent troops to participate in the war, it claimed that "mediation was successful" and coerced the Qing government to cede more than 6.5438+0.5 million square kilometers of territory, becoming the biggest winner. The war ended with the Qing government being forced to sign the Beijing Treaty.

The Second Opium War forced the Qing government to successively sign the Tianjin Treaty, the Beijing Treaty, the Sino-Russian Aihui Treaty and other peace treaties, and the invasion of foreign powers deepened. As a result, China lost 1.5 million square kilometers in the northeast and northwest. After the war, the Qing government was able to concentrate on suppressing the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and maintaining its rule.

After the war, the Qing government was able to free its hands to suppress the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and barely maintain its rule. As soon as the Beijing Treaty was signed, ministers such as Britain, France and Russia immediately said that as long as the Qing government "fulfilled the treaty" seriously, it could get "any assistance". 186 1, 1 year, the Qing government established the Office of the Prime Minister.

1862, 1 In June, the Qing government established the policy of "using teachers to help suppress the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Incident" and invited foreign troops to help it suppress civil strife. After the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement was suppressed, the rule of the Qing government continued to maintain the Second Opium War, and the Qing government once again gave in to foreign invaders, which caused extremely serious consequences, and China fell deeper into the semi-colonial road.

However, the struggle of the broad masses of China people against foreign aggression has never stopped. Wherever the British and French allied forces went, they fought to defend the motherland, showing the heroic spirit of the people of China fighting the enemy to the end.

Baidu Encyclopedia-The Second Opium War