Yuan Bingjian's fortune telling

1840 ~ 1842, China's soldiers and civilians used China's destruction of opium as an excuse to fight against the British invasion.

After the mid-Qing Dynasty, Britain and other countries exported a lot of drugs and opium to China.

1838 (18th year of Qing Daoguang) In winter, Daoguang Emperor sent Lin Zexu, governor of Huguang, as an imperial envoy to Guangdong to ban opium. In March of the following year, after Lin came to power, Yan Xing seized more than 20,000 boxes of opium in Humen Haikou and destroyed them all. Using this as an excuse, the British government decided to send an expeditionary force to invade China, and the British Parliament also passed the war appropriation bill for China. 1in June, 840, 47 British warships and 4,000-strong army, led by Major General Anthony Blacksland Stransham and Charles Elliot, arrived at the Pearl River Estuary in Guangdong, blocking Haikou. Since then, the Opium War has gone through three stages.

The first British invasion to the north (1840.6 ~ 12). According to the instructions of the British government, the expeditionary force blocked the seaports of Guangzhou and Xiamen (now Fujian), cut off China's overseas trade, and captured Dinghai (now Zhoushan) in Zhejiang as a forward stronghold in July. At this time, along the coast of China, except for Guangdong, which was slightly preparing for the war under the supervision of Lin Zexu, the rest were relaxed. In August, the British ship arrived outside Dagukou, Tianjin. Being awed by the military power, Daoguang emperor dismissed Lin Zexu and sent Qishan, the governor of Zhili, as an imperial minister. At the same time, the British side is also epidemic, and autumn and winter are approaching, agreeing to negotiate in Guangdong. After the British army went south, the Qing court ordered the governors of the coastal provinces to prepare for the defense of Haikou, and ordered the governor of the two rivers, Ilib, to lead troops to eastern Zhejiang to prepare for the recovery of Dinghai.

The Battle of Humen in Guangzhou (1840.12 ~1841.8)1840 65438+February, Qishan and Yi Law started negotiations in Guangdong. 184110/On October 7, the British army was dissatisfied with the progress of the negotiations, and dispatched the navy and army to capture the first gateway of Humen-Shajiao and Dajiao Fort, and launched the Battle of Humen. Hearing this, Emperor Daoguang ordered to declare war on Britain, appointed Yi Shan, the minister in charge of the guards, as the general to quell the rebellion, and dispatched more than 10,000 soldiers from all over the country to Guangdong. On February 26th, the British army dispatched naval and army troops to attack along Humen crosspiece and Dahushan Fort, forcing Guangzhou to return to the Pearl River. Guan Tianpei, the prefect of Guangdong Navy, was martyred. On May 24th, the British army attacked Guangzhou, occupied the kiosks in the southwest of the city, landed in the northwest of the city, outflanked the highlands in the north of the city, captured the fortress in the northeast of the city and shelled the city of Guangzhou. In this situation, Yishan and others accepted the British conditions and paid 6 million yuan in exchange for the British withdrawal from Guangzhou. The atrocities of the British invaders aroused the people in Sanyuanli, a suburb north of the city, to spontaneously arm themselves against Britain.

The British invaded the north again (1841.8 ~1842.8). The British government's aggressive rights and interests towards Guangzhou Yifa were still too few, so it sent a plenipotentiary to China to expand its aggression. 1841August 2 1 day, Pu Dingcha led 37 ships and 2,500 people to sail north, attacked Xiamen, Fujian and occupied Gulangyu Island. In June, 65438, he entered Zhejiang and captured Dinghai (1 841February, the British army abandoned Dinghai due to epidemic disease), and was trapped in Zhenhai (now Ningbo) in June, 10,/kloc-0. When the British troops were insufficient, they stopped attacking and waited for reinforcements.

After the defeat of Xiazhang and East Zhejiang, Daoguang sent senior officials of the official department, I Ching, to Zhejiang to replace General Yang Wei, and mobilized soldiers to prepare for the counterattack. 1in March of 842, Yijing decided to fight back at the same time by land and water in an attempt to recover Ningbo, Zhenhai and Dinghai in one fell swoop. On the night of March 10, the Qing army launched counterattacks against Ningbo and Zhenhai, which were not conducive to the war, and withdrew to their original places. The attack on Dinghai was postponed because of the unfavorable trend. On March 15, British troops stationed in Ningbo seized the opportunity to counterattack Cixi (now Cizhen) and Dabaoshan in the west of the city. The Qing army was defeated and retreated to the west of Cao 'e River. Seeing that the well-prepared counterattack in eastern Zhejiang failed again, Daoguang sent Shengjing general Qi Ying to Jiangnan to make peace with the British army (see the battle in eastern Zhejiang).

1In May of 842, the British army abandoned Ningbo and concentrated its forces on the north. 18, Zhapu Town, Pinghu, Zhejiang Province was captured. /kloc-in June of 0/6, the battle of Wusong started, and Chen Huacheng, the prefect of Jiangnan, died. After that, British reinforcements arrived outside the Yangtze River estuary, and Pu Dingcha ignored the begging and notes of Jianying and others. He returned to the Yangtze River with 73 ships and 65,438+2,000 troops, ready to cut off the China inland traffic artery canal. On July 2 1 day, more than 6,900 British troops launched the Zhenjiang campaign and met with stubborn resistance. After being killed by 169 people, Zhenjiang was captured. On the 27th, the British fleet arrived in Nanjing River, and the Qing army was unable to fight any more, and all accepted the British aggression. On August 29th, the old citizen and Pu Dingcha signed the unequal Sino-British treaty of nanking.

The Opium War was the first war in which China's soldiers and civilians resisted the invasion of western capitalist powers. The vast number of officers and men fought bravely and showed lofty patriotism. However, due to the uncertainty of peace and war in the Qing court, the decision-making was changeable, the generals were ineffective in command, the tactics were dull, and the weapons and equipment were backward, which was finally defeated by the British army. The practice of the Opium War showed that the backward feudal army could no longer defeat the initially modernized capitalist army. After the Opium War, China began to move towards a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society.