The Opium War made China lose its independent status and began to become a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society, and the social nature of China changed greatly. From a semi-colonial perspective, after the Opium War, China's sovereignty over territory, territorial sea, justice, tariffs and trade began to be seriously damaged, and China has lost its independent national status politically. In particular, the concession established by the foreign powers was completely independent of China's administrative system and legal authority, and it was a "country within a country" and became the base for the foreign powers to pursue their policy of aggression against China. From a semi-feudal point of view, after the Opium War, the natural economy marked by small farmers and cottage industries began to collapse. On the one hand, the cottage industry in the southeast coastal areas, mainly cotton textile industry, has been greatly impacted by foreign goods. On the other hand, agricultural products, mainly silk tea, have become more and more commercialized.
The First Opium War (1840- 1842)
The Sino-British Opium War in the 20th year of Daoguang (1840) changed the history of China and the fate of Hongkong.
After the middle period of Jiaqing, the rule of Qing Dynasty declined gradually. The Qing government still claimed to be a "paradise", and it was arrogant and closed its eyes. At the same time, the European and American powers are advancing by leaps and bounds, and China, with its vast territory and large population, is the main target of expanding overseas markets. China has been an agricultural country since ancient times. With the self-sufficient natural economy and the conservative thought of "China is superior to the country", China people have always had little demand for foreign products. In order to make huge profits, foreign businessmen smuggled a large amount of opium from South China into China, and the import volume of opium increased from 4,000 cases at the beginning of Daoguang's accession to the throne to 40,200 cases in the eighteenth year of Daoguang, that is, before the outbreak of the Opium War. The spread of opium affects people's physical and mental health, corrupts the management of officials, leads to the outflow of silver and the shortage of government revenue. Daoguang continued the policy of banning smoking since Yongzheng, but opium smuggling not only failed, but became increasingly rampant. The development of the situation has aroused the vigilance of people in the ruling and opposition parties. Daoguang ordered the frontier defense minister to discuss the idea of banning smoking, and there were different opinions in the ruling and opposition parties. What finally touched Daoguang Emperor was the memorial of Lin Zexu, governor of Huguang at that time. Lin Zexu hit the nail on the head and pointed out: Opium can't help but weaken the country's poor in a few decades. "There are not many soldiers who can defend the enemy in the Central Plains, and there is no silver to pay." This situation is obviously what Daoguang Emperor did not want to see anyway. "Soldiers" and "silver" are two fatal loopholes in feudal rule. In November of the 18th year of Daoguang (1838), Lin Zexu went to Guangdong to ban opium.
Lin Zexu/KLOC-0 arrived in Guangzhou in March, 839, and immediately banned smoking, strictly investigated cigarette dealers, reorganized the navy, and instructed foreign businessmen to hand in opium. On June 3 of the same year, more than 20,000 boxes (more than 2 million Jin) of opium were destroyed in public at Humen Beach. China's smoking ban met with strong opposition from the British government. 1June, 840 (in the summer of the 20th year of Daoguang), the British Expeditionary Force consisting of 48 ships and more than 4,000 officers and men blocked the Pearl River Estuary in Guangzhou, and the Opium War broke out. Under the deployment of Lin Zexu, the soldiers and civilians in Guangzhou are ready for battle. The British army had no chance to invade Xiamen from the north, but it didn't succeed. He invaded Dinghai, Zhejiang, and then went to Haikou, Tianjin, and sent a note from the British Foreign Secretary to Qishan, the governor of Zhili. Qishan was ordered to go to Chuanbi, outside Humen, Tianjin, to negotiate with the British Commander-in-Chief and agree on a draft agreement, which was called "Chuanbi Cao Yue" in history. China ceded Hong Kong with compensation of 6 million yuan, Britain returned Dinghai, and the diplomacy of the two countries went hand in hand. The Qing government was furious, so in January of the 21st year of Daoguang, the Qing government declared war on Britain and appointed Yi Shan, the nephew of the emperor, as a general to fight in Guangdong. The following month, British troops captured Humen Fort, and Guan Tianpei, the Guangdong Navy's prefect, died. Qishan was locked and brought to Beijing to plead guilty. In April of the same year, the people spontaneously fought against the British invaders in Sanyuanli, a suburb of Guangzhou, showing the courage of China people to resist foreign invasion.
In the summer and autumn of the same year, the British army continued to expand the war situation and successively captured Xiamen, Fujian, Dinghai, Zhenhai and Ningbo. His nephew Yijing was ordered to go to Zhejiang to take charge of military affairs, but he was defeated and fled to Hangzhou. In the 22nd year of Daoguang, the British captured Wusongkou Fort, and the garrison commander Chen Huacheng died. After that, the British army once occupied Shanghai and Baoshan, then broke into the Yangtze River, captured Zhenjiang, cut off the north-south traffic of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, and then reached Nanjing, an important town in the south of the Yangtze River. On July 24th of the same year, at the gunpoint of the British army, the Qing government was forced to sign the "treaty of nanking" which humiliated the country. This was the first unequal treaty of the Qing government, which seriously damaged China's sovereignty. He stipulated that China should cede Hong Kong and pay 21 million silver dollars for foreign trade in five port cities: Guangzhou, Xiamen, Fuzhou, Ningbo and Shanghai. In addition, Britain also enjoys agreed tariffs, and obtains consular jurisdiction, unilateral MFN treatment and concessions by signing the Humen Treaty, a supplementary document to the Charter of the Five Ports and the treaty of nanking. The United States and France followed closely, coercing the Qing government to sign an unequal treaty with it. In the 29th year of Daoguang, Portugal expelled China's officials in Macau, stopped paying the rent, and openly occupied Macau.
As a result of the Opium War, the Chinese Empire closed Gu Men for 5,000 years for self-defense, and it was opened by British sharp guns from then on. From then on, it is impossible to get back together. US President Taylor immediately sent a plenipotentiary ambassador to Guangzhou by warship. The Qing government was frightened and quickly signed the Wang Xia Treaty with him.
French warships sailed to Guangzhou to demonstrate, claiming to attack Zhoushan Islands in the north. Daoguang Emperor quickly signed the Huangpu Treaty with him. China people have never heard of several western countries, such as Portugal, Spain, Belgium, Prussia (Germany), Austria-Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and so on. "Some tiny countries that China has heard of or never heard of were not eligible to pay tribute in the past, and now they are all waiting in line." (Bai Yang's History of China, Volume II) They signed treaties with China one by one and enjoyed the same privileges as the British in treaty of nanking. The Chinese empire suddenly fell into a semi-colonial state. In 5,000 years, I have never been insulted like this.
The influence of the Opium War
(1) the change of social nature. After the Opium War, China's territory, territorial sea and judicial sovereignty were destroyed. Taking advantage of the privilege of aggression, foreign invaders frantically dumped goods and plundered raw materials in China, gradually involved the China market in the world capitalist market, and China's self-sufficient feudal economy gradually collapsed. China began to become a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society.
② Changes in social contradictions. The main social contradiction, from the contradiction between the landlord class and the peasant class, began to change into the contradiction between foreign capitalism and the Chinese nation, feudalism and the masses; The contradiction between foreign capitalism and the Chinese nation has become the most important contradiction among various social contradictions.
(3) changes in revolutionary tasks. After the Opium War, the people of China shouldered the dual revolutionary task of opposing foreign capitalist aggression and domestic feudal rule. China has since entered the period of the old democratic revolution.
The Second Opium War (1856- 1860)
Causes of the Second Opium War
(1) The root cause: After the Opium War, the door of China was opened, but the market was not fully opened. Britain, France and the United States requested to amend the contract in an attempt to further open the China market.
(2) The Qing government rejected the request of Britain, France and the United States to amend the treaty.
(3) Direct causes: the British excuse "Yarrow Incident" and the French excuse "Father Ma Incident".
In the 1950s, with the further development of industrial production in capitalist countries such as Britain, France and the United States, more raw material producing areas and commodity markets were required. They are increasingly dissatisfied with the rights and interests plundered from China in the First Opium War, and demand to sign a new unequal treaty on the basis of treaty of nanking. 1854 and 1856, Britain, France and the United States put forward unreasonable demands to the Qing government, including opening the whole territory of China and legalizing the opium trade, on the pretext of helping suppress the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, which were rejected by the Qing government. Subsequently, Britain and France planned a new war of aggression against China to achieve their evil goals by force. This is the second Opium War in which Britain and France jointly invaded China.
France invaded China on the pretext of 1856, when the French priest Marais was killed in Xilin, Guangxi. Britain, on the other hand, eagerly created an excuse to wage war-the Yarrow incident. Yarrow is a smuggling ship from China. It once obtained a registration certificate in Hong Kong, which has expired. 1856 10, China navy boarded Yarrow near Guangzhou to catch bandits, which was protested by British consul in Guangzhou, Parkes. Although Ye, Governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, agreed to repatriate the China crew arrested on the Yarrow, the British side ignored it. 10 in late June, the British army suddenly launched an attack, occupied the battery along the river south of Guangzhou, and once rushed into Guangzhou. Due to the shortage of troops, the British army retreated from the provincial river in June 1857, waiting for reinforcements.
1857 In September, the British Plenipotentiary Erkin led the navy and army to Hong Kong. In June 5438+10, the French plenipotentiary Gro also arrived with troops. 65438+In mid-February, more than 5,000 British and French troops attacked Guangzhou and occupied Guangzhou on the 29th. Ye, governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, was captured. Guangdong Governor and Guangzhou General defected to the enemy, and under the surveillance of Britain and France, they organized the first local puppet regime in China's modern history.
1April, 858, the British and French fleets arrived in the waters off Dagukou. On May 20th, the allied forces launched an attack, and Dagubao fell after tenacious resistance. The British and French fleet immediately went up the Baihe River and arrived in Tianjin. In a panic, the Qing government immediately sent Gui Liang, a college student, to Tianjin to make peace. Under the threat of Britain and France, Gui Liang signed shameful traitorous treaties with Britain and France in late June-Sino-British and Sino-French Tianjin Treaties. According to the Tianjin Treaty, the Foreign Minister is stationed in Beijing; Kainiuzhuang (later changed to Yingkou), Dengzhou (later changed to Yantai), Tainan, Danshui, Chaozhou (later changed to Shantou), Qiongzhou, Hankou, Jiujiang, Jiangning (Nanjing) and Zhenjiang are trading ports; China Customs employs foreigners; Foreign missionaries enter the mainland to preach freely; Foreigners travel to the mainland for trade; Foreign merchant ships can travel in the Yangtze estuary; China paid 4 million taels to Britain and 2 million taels to France. Prior to this, the Tianjin Treaty between China, Russia and China had been signed in advance. At the same time, Russia forced Yi Shan, the general of Heilongjiang Province, to sign the Aihui Treaty by force, and occupied more than 600,000 square kilometers of territory south of the Outer Xing 'an Mountains and north of Heilongjiang.
At the beginning of 1859, the British and French governments appointed Proust and Boolean Brown as ambassadors to China respectively. In mid-June, the British and French ministers led warships to Dagukou, refused to land from Beitang designated by the Qing government, and arrogantly returned to Beijing via Dagukou to exchange contracts. On June 25th, British and French warships launched an attack on Dagu Fort. After rectification, the defenders of Dagu fought back, sinking and injuring more than one British and French warship 10, and killing four or five hundred invaders. The British and French allied forces hastily evacuated Dagukou.
1860 In April, the plenipotentiaries of Britain and France, Erkin and Gro, once again led a large number of troops to China. In late May, British troops occupied Dalian Bay. At the beginning of June, the French army occupied Yantai and completed the blockade of Bohai Bay. 1 year in August, the British and French allied forces landed in Beitang, and fell into Dagu Fort in February1year, and occupied Tianjin on August 24. The Qing army retreated to Zhangjiawan and Tongzhou (now Tongxian). On September 9, the allied forces advanced into Tongzhou and defeated the Qing army 2 1 at Baliqiao in Tongzhou. The next day, Emperor Xianfeng fled to Jehol. /kloc-at the beginning of 0/0, the allied forces occupied Yuanmingyuan, wantonly looted and destroyed it, and set it on fire. Therefore, one of the most magnificent palace masterpieces in the world was destroyed by the British and French invaders. 13, the left-behind authorities in Beijing surrendered to Britain and France and handed over Andingmen. The allied forces took control of Beijing without bloodshed. 10 in late June, representatives of the Qing government played games with Prince Gong. Successively exchanged the ratification documents of Tianjin Treaty with the representatives of Britain and France, and concluded the Beijing Treaty. The Second Opium War ended here. The Beijing Treaty stipulates that the Tianjin Treaty effectively opened Tianjin as a commercial port; Allow China workers to go abroad; Cede Kowloon to Britain; Return Catholic assets; The compensation for Britain and France increased to 8 million Liang. At the same time, the Beijing Treaty between China and Russia occupied 400,000 square kilometers east of the Wusuli River, including Sakhalin Island.
Politically, the influence of the Second Opium War: China lost a large territory (more than 6,543,800 square kilometers in total) and sovereignty; Chinese and foreign reactionary forces openly colluded to suppress the resistance of the people of China. Economically, foreign aggression extended to coastal provinces and inland areas, which intensified the economic aggression against China.
After the Opium War, China society has undergone fundamental changes, which not only caused changes in the political and economic fields, but also caused changes in ideas. Our consensus is that the Opium War was the starting point for China to be enslaved by foreign capitalism, which transformed China from a feudal society into a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society. This is a turning point in the history of China and the beginning of the modern history of China.