At the beginning of the XIX century,"Foreign devils"This title spread with the invasion of foreign tribes, and the Qing people felt the pain of their bullying and hated them deeply. Unlike in the past, this foreign invasion did not come from barbarians, but from foreigners with relatively advanced science and technology and political systems.
The War of 1840 was called in England"Trade Wars", not"Opium Wars"。This war was not for the plundering of wealth or women, let alone the destruction of the Qing Dynasty, but for trade and the spread of culture, even proselytizing. The main purpose of the British war was to do business with the Qing people and achieve trade. This was made clear in the Treaty of Nanjing, which was signed at that time.
The Treaty of Nanking (also known as the Treaty of Jiangning) was the result of the war and the evidence of their invasion of the Qing Dynasty. However, it is this treaty that provides the best glimpse into the motives of the aggression. In addition to ending the war, its main content was almost entirely economic demands, including trade between the five ports, war reparations, the cession of Hong Kong, the establishment of tariffs, freedom**, etc. Even if Hong Kong is ceded, it is to promote trade**, not to covet the throne. This can be seen from the consent of the Daoguang Emperor of the Qing Dynasty.
Some people regard unequal treaties such as the Xincho Treaty as a loss of power and humiliation of the country, but in fact they are not unequal. For example:"The Emperor of the Qing Dynasty and the Great British Monarch will always be in peace, and the Chinese and British people under their jurisdiction will be friendly with each other, and those who live in other countries will be blessed by that country", which is not considered inequality. Again,"The Emperor allowed the British people to bring their families to live in five ports along the coast of the Qing Dynasty, including Guangzhou, Fuzhou, Xiamen, Ningbo, and Shanghai"It is only to ensure the smoothness of the **, not to buy and sell.
As for change"Prime Minister's National Affairs Yamen"for"Ministry of Foreign Affairs", the two countries are called"Note"In essence, the Qing Dynasty was required to integrate with the international community and handle affairs in accordance with the international conventions formulated by the West. This was the unanimous consensus of the great powers, and Britain, while representing the aspirations of Western countries, also guided the Qing court to move closer to the modern international system.
Behind the economic goals are longer-term political and cultural goals. The impact of this war on the Qing Dynasty was too deep, not only did it lose the opportunity to resist in the war, but it also had no room to save itself. The collapse of the Qing dynasty system was not only the defeat of the dynasty itself, but also the failure of the system and the current. Even if she is a strong woman, Cixi, what she saved was only the regime and the imperial family, which was different from the death of the country and the death of the nation that the patriots wanted to save at that time. As a result, the Qing Dynasty was irreversibly defeated, and finally abdicated in the 1911 Xinhai Revolution.