However, Ye Mingchen and Xianfeng's judgment of the situation was completely wrong. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 Info News of the "Yarrow" incident reached London, and the British Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, decided to expand the war. Members of the House of Lords condemned the use of force by officials in China, and the result was rejected by a vote of 110 to 146. Members of the House of Commons put forward another opposition motion and it was passed by a vote of 263 to 246. Palmerston immediately dissolved the House of Commons and held a new general election, which was won. On March 20, 1857, the British government sent the Earl of Elgin as an envoy to start the war. At the same time, the UK is also liaising with France and the United States to plan joint operations.

In February 1856, before the Yarrow incident, the French priest Marais was executed by local officials on charges of illegal proselytizing while serving in Xilin County, Guangxi. French journalist Bernard? In his book 1860 - The Disaster of the Old Summer Palace, Blisse said that the murder of Father Marai "angered French Catholics." The French Emperor Napoleon III was also deeply disturbed". Ye Mingchen, the governor of Liangguang, ignored France's demands for an apology and compensation, which "caused indignation in Paris," and France formed an alliance with Britain. In April 1857, France sent Baron Gro as an envoy to lead the troops east.

The US Plenipotentiary to China, who was negotiating the "treaty amendment" in Shanghai, also rushed back to Hong Kong at this time to prepare to take part in the operation. However, the US government politely rejected Britain's request to send troops, and only agreed to be consistent with Britain and France on the issue of "amending the treaty," and appointed Lieweilian to replace Bo Jia as the official minister to China. At about the same time as the "Father Ma Incident" in France in February 1856, Russia, on the principle of "equal interests", also sent Putiyatin as a plenipotentiary to demand the conclusion of a treaty with the Qing court. After being denied entry from Kyakhta and other places, Putiatin arrived in Tianjin by sea, but after being still refused, he went south to Shanghai and Hong Kong to participate in the actions of Britain, France, and the United States. How could the issue of Guangzhou's entry into the city evolve into such an unprecedentedly serious crisis?

In the twenty-second year of Qianlong, that is, in 1757. The Qing Dynasty ordered the country to be closed to the outside world, and only Guangzhou was retained as a port for foreign trade. Foreign merchants in Guangzhou were only allowed to do business with foreign firms designated by the Qing government, which were known as the "Thirteen Lines". The government dealt with foreigners through the merchants of foreign firms. Foreign businessmen can only live in designated commercial establishments, and are not allowed to go out and walk at will, let alone enter the mainland.

If a foreign merchant wants to negotiate trade with the government, the merchant can only forward the letters written by them. These letters cannot be written with the words "handed over" to so-and-so, or "handed over" to whomever or another. The cover must be covered with a respectful word like "present". The beginning of the letter should not be in an equal tone, but only in the tone of "禀", that is, "禀" and "禀", which is the opposite tone. In Qianlong's words, it means that the kingdom lacks nothing, there is no need for trade, and the barbarian small country cannot live without what it has. Opening up trade is a favor to them, and it has always been a condescending gesture of inequality.

After the Opium War, Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Fuzhou were opened up, and the Qing court's method of dealing with foreign merchants only through the "Thirteen Lines" was no longer feasible. In April 1844, Emperor Daoguang transferred Qiying to the governor of Liangguang. Thus began the practice of the Governor of Liangguang and the Minister of International Trade of various countries.

The Chinese imperial courts in all dynasties have set up the "Imperial Court" or "Ministry of Rites", and the external understanding is only "subject country" and "enemy country". The foreign relations of the imperial court are that all foreign countries are "vassal states", as long as they pay tribute and claim vassals on time. It is completely out of step with the concept of equality in modern diplomacy. After the establishment of the Governor of Liangguang and the Minister of International Commerce, all countries could no longer have the unhappiness of interacting with the "Imperial Court", and foreigners could only negotiate with the Governor of Liangguang if they had any problems, so that the Qing emperor still avoided the embarrassment of dealing directly with Western envoys. But the development of events soon exceeded the control of the Qing court.

The Qing court began to establish a system in which the governors of Liangguang and Guangzhou were to manage the trade affairs of various countries. It is to limit the scope of foreign relations to trade and commerce. The Qing court had no intention of entering into political relations with other countries, nor did it intend to engage in diplomatic activities abroad. However, after the Treaty of Nanking in 1842, trade expanded. It is not comparable to the "Thirteen Elements" period. The expansion of trade will inevitably bring political demands. The problem of entering the city can no longer be solved by a hard top.

After the Yarrow incident, the British side expanded the situation and demanded to enter the city. In 1854, Britain demanded a "revision of the treaty". Later, the United States and France also joined the ranks of calling for a "treaty amendment." The core clause of the "amendment of the treaty" is that "the minister shall be stationed in Beijing". The West no longer wants to entangle with Ye Mingchen, so they want to directly send diplomatic envoys to Beijing to deal with Emperor Xianfeng in person. The actions of the Three Kingdoms were naturally rejected by Ye Mingchen. They also diverted to Shanghai, where the governor of Jiangsu, Gil Hang'a, persuaded them to return to Guangzhou on the grounds that the handling of foreign affairs was within the authority of the governor of Guangzhou. The British and American envoys went north to the mouth of Dagu in Tianjin, asking for negotiations to "revise the treaty," but the local officials still told them that Tianjin was not a place to handle foreign trade affairs, and that they could only go back to Guangzhou to discuss with Ye Mingchen.

In 1856, the then U.S. Plenipotentiary to China, Bo Jia, in a note to Ye Mingchen asking to enter the city to negotiate a "revision of the treaty", and after being refused, he transferred to Fuzhou and asked Wang Yide, the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang, to submit his credentials directly to Emperor Xianfeng on his behalf. In accordance with the Sino-US Treaty of Wangxia, Wang Yide delivered the US credentials to Beijing by post road. Emperor Xianfeng was extremely dissatisfied with this, and reprimanded Wang Yide for letting "the chief bow down and return to the south". Go back to Guangzhou to find Ye Mingchen.

In practical terms, Ye's approach is already outdated. However, with the support of Emperor Xianfeng, Ye Mingchen strongly rejected all Western demands, and local officials also persuaded him to go south to Guangzhou on the grounds that the diplomatic affairs involved the rights of the governor of Liangguang and could not be handled locally; This approach seems to save the face of the kingdom, but the reality is that it is becoming more and more passive. Ye Mingchen ignored any foreign requests, resulting in some envoys being unable to submit their credentials after their term of office expired. The system of the Governor of Liangguang in dealing with China's foreign affairs is already in crisis.

All in all, outsiders simply have no way in. They knew that there was only one way to revise the treaty, war. In November 1857, the British envoy Ergin arrived in Hong Kong after quelling the Indian mutiny, and the Anglo-French forces were largely assembled. The British army had 43 warships and about 10,000 naval and army troops; The French also had 10 warships. The pattern of military invasion by Britain and France and diplomatic cooperation between Russia and the United States has been completed.

Dagukou is located at the mouth of the Haihe River, about 60 kilometers up the river, is Tianjin, an important town in North China. According to the records of Tianjin Prefecture in the Guangxu period of the Qing Dynasty, a boat with a draft of about 3.6 meters can take the tide from the Dagu River to Tianjin Fucheng, and a boat with a draft of 2.6 meters can also go directly to Tianjin at low tide. It can be seen that Dagukou is the gateway to Tianjin, and Tianjin is the gateway to Beijing. If the invaders capture Dagu by ship from the sea, Tianjin will be under the way. From Tianjin to Beijing, it is a thoroughfare. In a military sense, the status of Dagukou goes without saying. (To be continued.) )

PS: Nguyen Van Da won the battle and obtained many weapons, melted them back into the furnace, cast them into statues of Qin Hui and his wife, and made them kneel

In front of Yue Fei Temple.

Those who liked to joke wrote a couplet and tied it around their necks. Tied to Qin Hui is Shanglian:

"Cough, the servant is heartbroken, how can he have a good wife." Tie to Qin's wife is the following couplet: "Sigh, although the woman has a long tongue, she is not an old thief."

to this day. ”

The demeanor of complaining and scolding each other matches the content of the couplet and is lifelike. Ruan Gong visited Yue Temple and laughed heartily when he saw it.