Just as the Qing government was overwhelmed by the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, foreign invaders were looking for opportunities to threaten the Qing government in various ways in an attempt to further open the door to China and expand their aggressive interests in China.
1856 (the sixth year of Xianfeng) On October 8th, Guangdong Navy arrested 12 pirates and suspects on a China ship "Yarrow". Parkes, the British acting consul in Guangzhou, used the Yarrow as an excuse to obtain a British registration certificate in Hong Kong, which interfered with Guangdong Navy's inspection of the ship. He also fabricated a conspiracy to accuse China officials of tearing up the British flag on yarrow. The British government used this incident as an excuse to provoke the Second Opium War.
After the war broke out, Ye, the confused governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, unexpectedly "refused to fight, refused to promise, and did not defend", so that Guangzhou City quickly fell into the enemy. In order to force the Qing government to submit, the British and French invaders invaded Dagukou in May 1858, forming an offensive against Tianjin. The rulers of the Qing Dynasty panicked and quickly sent people to make peace and signed the Tianjin Treaty with the representatives of Britain, France, Russia and the United States. Russia took advantage of the fish in troubled waters and forced the Qing government to sign the Sino-Russian Aihui Treaty by force, cutting off the territory of China to the north of Heilongjiang and south of Xing 'an Mountains.
After the signing of the treaty, things did not end. The British and French governments are not satisfied with the contents of the treaty, so they push their luck. They are going to use the opportunity of Beijing's contract exchange to reorganize the British and French Coalition forces and start a new war.
In August 1860, British and French allied forces occupied Dagukou and Tianjin City, and threatened to go north and attack Beijing. Emperor Xianfeng was frightened and quickly fled to Jehol with a large group of bureaucratic ministers to take refuge. A month later, the British and French allied forces entered Beijing with murderous look. These robbers burn, kill and plunder everywhere, rape and plunder, and do all kinds of evil. It was at this time that the famous Yuanmingyuan was devastated.
Yuanmingyuan is located in the northwest suburb of Beijing. It consists of Yuanmingyuan, Wanchun Garden and Changchun Garden, so it is also called Yuanmingyuan. This royal garden dates back to the Ming Dynasty. After more than 50 years of continuous expansion in Qing Dynasty, Kangxi, Yongzheng, Qianlong, Jiaqing, Daoguang and Xianfeng/KLOC-0, it has become the most magnificent royal garden in the world. There are typical Chinese wooden buildings and spectacular western stone buildings in the park, with harmonious layout and beautiful scenery. There are more than 100 famous scenic spots, more than 140 palaces and pavilions, as well as countless pavilions, bridges, water pavilions and ancient wooden lotus ponds.
Yuanmingyuan is not only magnificent in architecture and picturesque in scenery, but also contains countless gold and silver jewelry, exquisite arts and crafts, a large number of archives and countless precious cultural relics, such as bronzes of Shang and Zhou Dynasties, paintings and calligraphy of Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, etc. It can be said to be the largest museum in the world.
However, this Yuanmingyuan, which has been in operation for hundreds of years, was brutally destroyed by the British and French Coalition forces known as "Western civilized people".
On the evening of October 6th, 65438/KLOC-0, the French invading army first invaded Yuanmingyuan. They were stunned by the huge treasure house in front of them, had bad ideas and robbed that night. All valuables are put in the pockets of soldiers and taken back to their camp. Wenfeng, the manager of Yuanmingyuan, couldn't stop the robbers, so he jumped into the lake in the garden and committed suicide.
Early the next morning, the British army followed. A French officer who was walking out of the garden said cheerfully to the British officer standing at the door, "Gentlemen, why don't you come in?" You are not allowed to enter here, look! "He reached out and took out a gold bar from the big pocket of his coat." This is gold, real gold! " "
So, British leader Grant publicly ordered that officers could enter the park to rob in batches, and then ordered the whole army to rob freely. This group of robbers who were fighting with naked fire killed each other, and the whole Yuanmingyuan was in chaos.
Maybe it's because there are so many cultural relics and treasures in the garden that the robbers don't know what to take. One minute they rob gold and silver, the other they rob pearls, emeralds and precious stones. There are so many things to rob that they often throw away their silver for gold. He threw away the gold in order to get the jewels. Because the stolen time is too short, many cultural relics cannot be identified carefully, and things like gold are mistaken for brass and destroyed. What's more, some valuable manuscripts were used as waste paper to ignite the pipeline and burned in vain.
The anglo-French allied forces snatched almost everything that could be moved. All cultural relics that cannot be taken away or taken away in time shall be broken or broken with sticks. A large number of stolen goods robbed by robbers are auctioned on the spot, and the money from the auction is distributed to officers and men according to grades; Some people were shipped back to their motherland; Others were given as gifts to the Queen of England and the French emperor. Up to now, a considerable number of China cultural relics in British and French museums have come from Yuanmingyuan.
After the Yuanmingyuan was destroyed by crazy robbery, in order to cover up the scandal and force the Qing government to agree to their surrender conditions, the British and French Coalition forces decided to burn all the Yuanmingyuan.
10 June 18 in the early morning, 3,500 British cavalry began a planned garden burning operation. They set out together, broke into Yuanmingyuan, and set fires everywhere. The magnificent Yuanmingyuan suddenly turned into a sea of fire. Black smoke rose from the trees and formed a cloud in the northwest of Beijing. Then, it slowly drifted to the southeast with the wind, stretching for more than 50 kilometers, and even the sky was a little dark. The fire lasted for three days and nights.
In this way, this famous garden, which is known as the "Garden of Ten Thousand Gardens" and embodies the wisdom and sweat of the French people, was destroyed by the British and French allied forces. All that remains is piles of rubble and ruins.
Three days after the Yuanmingyuan was burned, the corrupt Qing government gave in completely and signed the Beijing Treaty with the British and French aggressors. The Beijing Treaty not only recognized the effectiveness of the Tianjin Treaty, but also opened Tianjin as a trading port, raised the military compensation of Britain and France to 8 million and 2 million respectively, ceded the Kowloon Peninsula to Britain, and allowed French missionaries to preach in various provinces.