Cause
Some opinions in China think that the cause is that the western powers attempted to carve up China with the boxer rebellion against evil missionaries and consuls as an excuse.
the main opinion in the west is that the Qing dynasty condoned the Boxer Rebellion and brutally killed western missionaries and consular personnel, and Boxers attacked foreign embassies in Dongjiaominxiang and Xishiku Church.
Another view is that the rulers of the Qing Dynasty attempted to attack the control of western countries through the Boxer Rebellion to strengthen their dominant position.
On June 17th, 19, Eight-Nation Alliance captured Dagu Fort; Tianjin was captured on July 14; On August 2, 2, soldiers set out from Tianjin along the banks of the canal and captured Beijing on the 14th. Empress Dowager Cixi, Emperor Guangxu and his relatives fled to Xi 'an and sent Yi Kuang and Li Hongzhang to beg for peace. In September, German Field Marshal Vadexi was promoted as Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Forces to visit China, and the number of invading troops increased to 1, one after another, with troops from Beijing and Tianjin invading Shanhaiguan, Baoding, Zhengding and even Shanxi. During this period, the emperor and Russia separately mobilized 17, foot cavalry to invade the northeast of China in six ways. In December, the Coalition forces put forward the Outline of Peace, which forced the Qing government to accept it in its entirety, and signed the Treaty of Xin Chou on September 7, 191. After that, Eight-Nation Alliance withdrew its troops and returned to China, except for one stationed in Beijing, Tianjin and Yushu.
Eight-Nation Alliance's military action ended with the Qing government being forced to sign an unequal treaty with eleven countries, namely, the "Bitter and Ugly Treaty", which stipulated that the Qing government should pay 45 million silver in thirty-nine years, and it was called boxer indemnity. As a result of Eight-Nation Alliance's invasion, it is also an indisputable fact that a large number of precious China cultural relics and heritages originally hidden in the Qing court were plundered and destroyed.
during the war, Russia invaded and occupied the whole northeast of China, which also laid the groundwork for the future Russo-Japanese war.
According to some views of China, Eight-Nation Alliance's military action is an aggressive war. Eight-Nation Alliance not only violated China's sovereignty, but also committed all kinds of evils in China, which completely plunged China into a semi-feudal and semi-colonial society, while the Boxer Movement was a peasant movement against imperialism.
The main point of view in the West is that this is a multinational cooperative military action to rescue ambassadors and citizens of various countries, and the cause of the incident is that the Boxer Rebellion attacked the embassy in Dongjiaominxiang and the German minister Cleander was killed.
in the past, even some western extremists thought that western countries were shouldering the arduous task of civilizing backward ethnic groups, but objectively speaking, it did create conditions for China to break away from feudal rule. Moreover, after that, because the Qing government could not pay such a huge indemnity, it sent overseas students to the west instead, which indirectly promoted the process of China's learning from the west.
The Yuanmingyuan, located in Haidian District, northwest of Beijing, China, is a group of large-scale royal gardens in the Qing Dynasty. It consists of Yuanmingyuan and its attached director, Chunyuan Garden and Qichun Garden (later renamed Wanchun Garden), and is commonly known as the "Yuanming Three Gardens". Its scale is magnificent, it blends all kinds of garden styles and skillfully uses all kinds of gardening techniques. It can be called the pinnacle of China's garden art history, and it is called "the garden of ten thousand gardens" by western countries. In 186, the garden was burned by the British and French allied forces, and only the ruins are left. In 1988, the site of Yuanmingyuan was announced by the Chinese people and the State Council as one of the third batch of national key cultural relics protection units.
During the Second Opium War, the British and French allied forces reached Deshengmen and Andingmen in Beijing on October 6, 186. The soldiers of Sengqin and Ruilin retreated to Yuanmingyuan, and the British and French allied forces chased them to Yuanmingyuan.
At first, the allied soldiers warned not to enter the Garden, for fear that China would claim for lost property in the future, but soon thousands of French soldiers rushed into the Yuanmingyuan, and the officers and men guarding the Garden were outnumbered. Seeing that the French army was robbing, the British commander Grant approved the British army to enter the park. Allied soldiers plundered the treasures and furnishings in the garden. According to British officials' estimation afterwards, the value of cultural relics and treasures (gold, silver, precious stones, silks and satins, antique furnishings, etc.) plundered was as much as 6 million pounds, and the value of rare books, pagodas, porcelain, furniture, etc., which were destroyed because of ignorance of their value or inconvenience in handling, was similar.
because the negotiators of the Qing court had arrested the British ambassador Parkes and his party and imprisoned him in Yuanmingyuan, the British army found the dismembered body of the Times reporter in the garden, so the British commander Erjin ordered the garden to be set on fire on October 18th as a punishment for the Qing court. On October 18th, the 1st British Army Corps set fire to all parts of the garden. At the same time, it sent teams to burn down nearby royal gardens such as Jingyi Garden, Jingming Garden, Qingyi Garden and Changchun Garden. The Yuanmingyuan fire lasted for two days, and more than 3 eunuchs and maids were killed in the fire. French writer victor hugo once strongly condemned this, calling it "the victory of two robbers".
After the Yuanmingyuan, a bird cage site in Xiyanglou, Changchun Garden, was burned, some scenic spots still survived. According to the investigation report of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the 12th year of Tongzhi (1873), the surviving buildings in the Park include the Grand Duke of Kuan, Zibi Mountain House, Yuyue Feiyue, Gengyuntang, Shenxiu Siyong, Zhiguotang, Kenongxuan, Shunmutian, Chunyuxuan, Xinghuachun Pavilion, Wenchang Pavilion, Kuixingge, Pengdao Yaotai, Wanfang Anhe Cross Pavilion and Cangzhouwu. In the 12th year of Tongzhi, Empress Dowager Cixi and Emperor Tongzhi planned to rebuild Yuanmingyuan, and planned to restore the Qianchao District and Jiuzhou District of Yuanmingyuan, as well as a few scenic spots to the north and west of Fuhai, and renamed Qichun Garden "Wanchun Garden" as the residence of Empress Dowager Cixi. However, the plan was finally abandoned after 11 months of construction due to lack of financial resources. Since then, there have been small-scale repairs to some scenic spots in the park. Empress Dowager Cixi and Emperor Guangxu have visited the park for many times. At this time, in addition to the surviving buildings, Yuanmingyuan still retains a large number of precious flowers and trees, mountains and rivers, and building foundations. Most of the bridges, roads, garden walls and gates are intact.
in p>19, Eight-Nation Alliance captured Beijing, and the Qing government fled again. In the chaos, Yuanmingyuan was robbed by nearby troops and bandits. Except for the new palace gate (the palace gate of Qichun Garden), all the remaining buildings in the park were demolished by bandits and sold brick and wood. The ancient and famous trees, wooden bridges and wooden stakes in the building foundation in the park were all robbed and transported to the nearby Qinghe town for sale.
The seven-hole sluice in Changchun Garden was demolished in 195s. In the decades after the demise of the Qing Dynasty, the site of Yuanmingyuan continued to be looted. Square bricks, strip stones, stones, white marble carvings, Taihu stones and green flaky stones in the park were transported away by warlords and bureaucrats to build private gardens and tombs, and the tiger skin stone fence of Yuanmingyuan was demolished to build roads. In addition, some relics of Yuanmingyuan were placed in public places, such as the bronze unicorn at the gate of Changchun Garden, the Danbi Stone at Anyou Palace and the Minser Monument in Shui Mu, which were moved to the Summer Palace from 191 to 1937. Anyou Palace Huabiao, Shiqilin, Xiyanglou Line Faqiao, Fanwei Shiyu, Meishi Monument, Yanhua Monument and Wenyuan Pavilion Monument were moved to the old libraries of yenching university and Beijing respectively. Precious Taihu stones such as Lanting Monument and "Qinglian Flower" were moved to Zhongshan Park in 1915. The stone lion and its pedestal in the East Gate of Changchun Garden moved to Zhengyangmen and xinhua gate. The white marble and bricks at the site of Xiyanglou were also transported away by warlords and bureaucrats, or bought by various stone workshops and carved into other stones on the spot. In 1928, the stone of Dashuifa site was demolished to build a monument to the fallen soldiers in Suiyuan. During the Japanese occupation, some sites in the park were filled with lakes by Pingshan under the slogan of "rewarding agriculture" and changed into paddy fields.
In 195s, it was planned to locate the Beijing Botanical Garden of China Academy of Sciences here. However, in 196s, most of the land in the garden was changed to farmland by nearby production teams, and a large number of people poured in quickly. The remaining buildings such as Fuhai Stone revetment in Yuanmingyuan, the remaining wall and foundation of Shepherd's City, the three-hole bridge in Wanchun Garden, the gate for transporting materials and the seven-hole gate in Changchun Garden, and all the remaining garden walls were demolished, and the only remaining ancient flower temple tree in the garden was cut down. Especially after 1975, many units razed earth mountains, filled lakes, cut down trees, built factories, pig farms and chicken farms in the park, and the original mountain water system and the remaining ancient tree vegetation of Yuanmingyuan site completely disappeared.