stingy Emperor Daoguang: refused to spend money How terrible?

The enemy soldiers came rolling like dark clouds, trying to overthrow the citywalls; when our army was standing by, the sun was shining on the armor, and thelight was shining. It always comes. The trade conflict between thetwo great powers of the East and West in the 19th century eventually led to abloody battle and a fire battle.

On June 28, 1840, British Admiral George Elliott led 16 warships, 4 armedships, 28 transport ships and 4,000 army personnel to the surface of Guangzhou,China, and ordered the Pearl River Estuary to be blocked. The Opium Warofficially broke out.

After that, the British Expeditionary Force will take over the coast of Chinaand be invincible. However, this is not where we are most embarrassed.

The most embarrassing thing is that this British expeditionary force is only asmall unit.

Guangzhou was quiet before the Opium War.

01, "Frugality" Daoguang Emperor

Imperial envoy Lin Zexu once believed that Britain was too far away from China,so he "knows he dare not monitor China by invading othercountries." However, considering that British military strengthcannot be underestimated, he has done a lot of combat readiness.

However, the frozen three feet are not cold. The military gap betweenChina and Britain cannot be closed in a short time. British ForeignSecretary Bamazu has threatened, "According to people in China, this canbe achieved with naval power, two double-tier battleships and three cruisers,at least one of which is large. ferry".

Lin Zexu once played the role of Daoguang, hoping that the government wouldallocate funds for Western ships and guns for coastal defense.

However, as we all know, Emperor Daoguang is a very frugal emperor. Whenhis robe was torn, let the court ladies repair it. He wanted to havedinner, so he asked the eunuch to buy cheap pancakes from outside the palaceand swallow them with hot water. After dinner, he went to bed with thequeen, saving money on candles and kerosene. Therefore, Lin Zexu asked DaoGuangdi for money as hard as Trump tweeted less.

In all fairness, Emperor Daoguang's frugality and diligence were completelyregarded as qualified monarchs in the evaluation system of the emperors inancient China. However, times have changed, and the era of EmperorDaoguang is no longer the era in which Chinese civilization dominates theworld.

At this time, the money that should be spent must be spent. The keyability of a big man like Dao Guangdi is to spend money, not save money.

In desperation, Lin Zexu had to find a way to raise funds from the privatesector. But how much money can be raised from the private sector? LinZexu clutched the money in his hand and could hardly afford a bronze gun fromLiverpool and a British warship Cambridge.

In addition, Charlie Yili, a British business executive in China, stoodout. Before he acquiesced in selling Cambridge, he had sent people todismantle the cannons on board. Lin Zexu bought only an emptyshell. However, even if it is an empty shell, it is a modern ship, muchbetter than China's existing ships, so Lin Zexu did not choose to cancel theorder. However, the empty shell did not play any role in subsequent warsbecause Chinese sailors did not know how to control it.

Without the money to buy modern military equipment, people can only make steelby local methods.

Lin Zexu found a steel cable and placed it across the river to prevent Britishwarships from moving freely. He filled hundreds of rafts with gunpowder,intending to crash them into British warships and trigger anexplosion. The other is to mobilize villagers around Guangzhou to carryvarious agricultural tools and some fire rope rifles to help government forcescompete with the British army.

All these primitive and backward means of preparation are incredible to usmodern people, but standing in the historical environment where Lin Zexu is, hehas done everything he can. Moreover, despite his old preparations, heshould not give up. In addition, Yang Fang's 33,354 enemy strategy "commandedGarbo to collect all the tools of women drowners nearby as a means to suppressthem and remove them from the Royal Palace wooden boat" to "thedrowner's tool mouth will lead the thief's route ", Thereby breakingthe" magic "of the intruder.

Yes, you are not wrong. The name of the magnificent Qing dynasty empire turnedthe ship artillery into a black art.

Lin Zexu was very upset. With teammates like Yang Fang, you can imagine howtired he will be.

When the British warship went north to Tianjin to demonstrate, Lin Zexu onceagain played the Emperor Daoguang. "Since the first year of Gu Dao, I

met such a boss, not to mention Lin Zexu, the rebirth of Jiang Ziya, Zhou Gong,Zhu Geliang, and Wang Shouren. Therefore, after he was dismissed, He wrote apoem and lamented: "I have no more policy of peace and tranquility, and Iam ashamed to say that I can build a ship to train the navy. "

In this confrontation between the medieval army and the modern army, theChinese army and people suffered enormously for lack of powerful ships andguns.

The highest point of Guangzhou in the Qing Dynasty-Zhenhai Lou

Yishan was in Guangzhou. The force is 20 times that of the British army, butthe contradiction between guns and guns is far more serious than that ofBritish ships. The British army successfully landed, occupied the fortress inthe northern suburb of Guangzhou, and shot down Guangzhou.

Since then, the British army attacked the north Dinghai. Dinghai companyChangge and 4,000 soldiers died in the battle. Minister Yu Qian and thegovernor of the two rivers Yu Qian also died in the battle. These soldiers paidthe price of blood and tears to Emperor Daoguang.

In addition to the corpses, the Qing government also spent a total of 72million silver dollars on military expenses. Together with the 6 millionGuangzhou redemption fee previously given to the British army and the 21million two silver compensation stipulated in the "Nanjing Treaty",the total cost is nearly 120 million two silver.

What does 120 million two silver mean? In 1840, the Qing government hadonly 103.4 million silver in national inventory. I estimate that EmperorDaoguang would yell when he calculated this number in the dead ofnight. How many dragon robes can he buy with these 120 million silverdollars? How many candies can you buy? He saves clothes and food,does not build pavilions, and does not like wine ponds and meatforests. As a result, instead of saving money, he lost a lot of money.

Emperor Daoguang couldn't bear to pay a small sum to buy warships andartillery, and finally had to pay a large sum to buy peace andsecurity. Emperor Daoguang paid a huge price for his small and largelosses, and he was even worse than Song Renzong.

Song Renzong knew he could not defeat the Liao Dynasty. In any case,fighting is costly and may not win. It is better to give Liao Dynasty somemoney in exchange for peace. In Song Renzong, there has been no war fornearly half a century between the Song and Liao dynasties. The economy ofthe Song Dynasty also reached unprecedented prosperity.