I. Reason for the outbreak: Britain and France in order to further open up the Chinese market, expanding the interests of aggression in China.

Second, through:

1, in 1856, Britain under the pretext of Guangdong sailors in Guangzhou Huangpu to capture the Chinese ship "Yaluo" on the pirates, send troops to attack Guangzhou. France also sent troops to invade China on the pretext that the French Catholic priest Marais was killed in Xilin, Guangxi.

2, May 20, 1858, after the British and French forces shelled the Dagu Battery, the Qing government in the British and French invaders under the threat of intimidation, respectively, with Russia, Britain, France and the United States signed the Treaty of Tianjin.

3, the second battle of Dagu Kou Anglo-French allied forces failed miserably. 1860 Anglo-French allied forces landed from Beitang, captured Tianjin and then attacked Beijing, looting and burning Yuanmingyuan. The Qing court sent Yixin as Minister Plenipotentiary to negotiate peace and signed the Sino-British and Sino-French "Treaty of Beijing".

Three results: the withdrawal of the British and French forces, the Qing government signed a series of unequal treaties with the invaders, a large amount of land was ceded, and the semi-colonialization of Chinese society was further deepened.

IV. Impact:

1. Politically, it cost China more sovereignty and territory, and China lost more than one million square kilometers of land.

2. Economically, the expansion of foreign invasion forces into China's coastal provinces and reaching into China's interior facilitated the dumping of commodities by the Great Powers, the plundering of cheap raw materials and labor, and subjected China to the aggressive impact of the capitalist economy.

3. China's semi-colonial and semi-feudalized society was further deepened.

The Second Opium War was a war of aggression against China jointly launched by Britain and France with the support of Russia and the United States. It was a war in which Britain and France, in order to further open up the Chinese market and expand their aggressive interests in China, took advantage of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom movement in China and used the Yarrow incident and the Ma Shenfu incident as a pretext to join forces to attack the Qing government.

In 1860, the British and French forces attacked Beijing, the Qing Emperor fled to Chengde, the British and French forces broke into the Yuanmingyuan and plundered the jewels and burned it down. In the war, the Tsarist Russians came out to "mediate" and coerced the Qing government to cede more than 1.5 million square kilometers of territory, thus becoming the biggest winner. The war ended with the signing of the Treaty of Beijing.

The Second Opium War forced the Qing government to sign the Treaty of Tianjin and the Treaty of Beijing, the Treaty of Aigun, and other peace treaties, and the invasion of the great powers went deeper. As a result, China lost more than 1.5 million square kilometers of territory in the northeast and northwest **** after the war, the Qing government was able to focus on the suppression of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, to maintain rule.

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