1. Bearing the humiliation and refusing to sign the contract

Li Hongzhang was extremely talented in diplomacy, but unfortunately he was born at the wrong time. In that era when the enemy was strong and we were weak, Li Hongzhang not only failed to display his diplomatic talents, but the forced signing of the Treaty of Shimonoseki and the Treaty of Xinchou became a lifelong shame, making him a reviled figure in the world. Traitor. But did Li Hongzhang really not resist at all when faced with a treaty that was humiliating and humiliating his country? In fact, he did.

After the Empress Dowager Cixi and Emperor Guangxu fled, the huge city of Beijing was filled with war and refugees, as well as the great powers waiting to carve up China. The emperor and the queen mother were gone, and the unreasonable demands of the great powers needed someone to deal with. The Empress Dowager Cixi called Li Hongzhang, who was already terminally ill, many times and ordered him to go to Beijing to negotiate with the Eight-Power Allied Forces.

Li Hongzhang, who was forced to go, did not completely compromise. When Li Hongzhang dragged his weak body to negotiate with the great powers; when he begged them to pay compensation in exchange for a treaty to cede territory; when he faced the threat of Renault , when Li Hongzhang sternly refused to sign the unequal treaty that allowed Russia to occupy the three northeastern provinces on his sick bed; Li Hongzhang really worked hard for China, and at least he did not give up the protection of China's territory.

However, the Qing Dynasty was weak at the time and could not resist the powerful powers with the strength of one person. Li Hongzhang had no choice but to sign what he called the most difficult word to write in the world - his name. After signing the last treaty, Li Hongzhang vomited a few mouthfuls of blood and entered a dying state. After leaving his last words to remind the Qing government to be careful about Russia, he stopped breathing.

2. Whales cannibalize and gradually expand

Is Li Hongzhang’s last words really correct? Yes, it seems that the several wars of aggression against China were initiated by Britain, France, the United States and Japan. But in fact, those who benefited from hiding behind the scenes and took advantage of Britain, France, the United States, and Japan to carve up China did not forget to come out to get a share of the pie, including Tsarist Russia. Tsarist Russia’s carving up of Chinese territory went beyond the modern war of aggression against China. Since the reign of Emperor Kangxi and Emperor Yongzheng, it had devoured Chinese land by signing various treaties with China.

As early as the Yongzheng period, the Kyakhta Treaty between China and Russia divided about 600,000 square kilometers of land in China. After the Opium War, the Sino-Russian "Aihui Treaty" was even more outrageous. More than 400,000 square kilometers of land north of Heilongjiang were snatched away by them, causing China to lose a large area of ??territory. In addition, the later "Beijing Treaty" The Treaty of Ili and others have occupied more than 150 kilometers of land in modern times alone.

China now only has more than 9.6 million square kilometers. It can be seen that Russia has encroached on China seriously and caused great harm to China's territorial integrity, not to mention that it later possessed Outer Mongolia. land. Tsarist Russia's exaggeration in occupying Chinese territory was even fearful of other powers that invaded China at that time.

At that time, Tsarist Russia built a railway from Siberia to Zhangjiakou. This railway, which was only more than 100 kilometers away from Beijing, not only facilitated Tsarist Russia’s invasion of China, but also exposed Russia’s Sima Zhao’s intentions, causing dissatisfaction of the Western powers. Tsarist Russia's encroachment on China's territory poses both the threat of a bloodless attack and the oppression of forceful seizure. As Li Hongzhang said, its wolfish ambitions should indeed be guarded against.

3. Survive the nation and resist bravely

In the history of the Qing Dynasty, Tsarist Russia launched many invasions of China, and most of them ended in failure in the early stages. During the Kangxi period, the Qing government made the country prosperous and the people strong. In the face of Tsarist Russia's aggression, the Qing army fought back bravely. Not only did it win, but it also signed the Treaty of Nerchinsk, making efforts to protect China's territorial integrity. It's just that since then, the Qing government has been living in the fantasy of a heavenly empire, while Tsarist Russia has embarked on the road to prosperity and strength through reforms, and has developed rapidly from a poor and weak country. Therefore, when faced with the aggression of Tsarist Russia and Western powers in the later period, the Qing government had no power to fight back and could only let others take advantage of it.

Not only Tsarist Russia, but also our neighboring country Japan, which is many times smaller than us, is a small country that is not fearable in Li Hongzhang's eyes. It was actually able to defeat China in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 and had the strength to compete with the Western powers. When they came together to carve up China, Li Hongzhang and others really woke up from the illusion of a heavenly kingdom and began the road of salvation.

In modern China, many people with lofty ideals rose up to resist and launched many salvation movements.

Li Hongzhang was one of the first progressives to launch a national salvation movement. Although Li Hongzhang's Westernization Movement was not aimed at the invaders at that time, but was only to maintain the crumbling rule of the Qing Dynasty, since the beginning of the Westernization Movement, all classes have begun the road to national salvation through progress and enlightenment.

This road to national salvation is not so easy. A country in a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society has gone from the Westernization Movement, represented by Li Hongzhang, who learned Western advanced technology, to Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao. The reform and reform of the Western system, and then the Revolution of 1911... Although this road to national salvation is not so easy, and they have been oppressed by imperialism and feudalism, there are still countless people with lofty ideals who are willing to sacrifice their lives to save the country. In danger.

"The carriage and horse have not left their saddles after hard work, and they will know that they are about to die."

Li Hongzhang, who spent his life working for the late Qing government, was no longer what he was when he wrote this poem ambition. Although he was full of enthusiasm for saving the country and fervently hoped to see China regain its strength before dying, Nai He could not save the Qing Dynasty to which he had been loyal all his life by relying on his own strength.

He can only place his hope on future generations, hoping that they can take on the important task of saving the nation, and these latecomers did indeed do it. They resisted tenaciously, fought bravely, experienced sacrifice and bloodshed again and again, and finally drove the foreign powers out of Chinese soil.

Li Hongzhang, who has finally regained the lost territory of his motherland, and whose lifelong ambition was to stabilize the country, should also be filled with emotion when he sees the scene of today's prosperous times.