The Yuanmingyuan poem written by Wang Menyun (1832- 19 16) said: "Before the enemy soldiers arrive, the shepherd boy will see the Mount Li fire." He said to himself, "When foreigners come to Beijing and see the magnificent furnishings in the Garden Palace, they all avoid each other for fear that the other party will demand compensation for property losses. Moreover, foreigners went out, and the nobles and the poor advocated raping the people and pretending to be foreigners, so they set fire first and the foreigners returned to their divisions to plunder. " Wang works in the shogunate and is in charge of the production department of the powerful minister. According to what he saw and heard, he thought that when the British and French allied forces occupied Beijing, the first people who entered Yuanmingyuan were not the British and French allied forces, but local aborigines and poor Manchu people near Haidian.
Huang Xun (1890- 1937), the author of The Flower Companion People's Sanctuary, also mentioned this mystery. In this regard, Huang Jun commented: "At the beginning of the battle of Yuanmingyuan, the allies only burned the official residence outside the park, or it was a military need. And many flag-bearers took the opportunity to plunder, so the Coalition forces also entered the park. " According to the memoirs of British and French allied soldiers, they pursued Manchu soldiers and entered Yuanmingyuan on June 6, 65438/kloc-0. In order to fight that day, several houses were burned outside Yuanmingyuan. British and French soldiers from the countryside, living in the palace, have a wide field of vision and are salivating, and are already talking about stealing treasures. But it is said that the first day was fine, only a few French soldiers took a few small things as souvenirs and didn't start work. The next day, June 7th, 10, China people in Haidian did it. They dare not rob the palace occupied by foreign soldiers, so they rob the houses of unattended servants, butlers and eunuchs.
The Yuanmingyuan was looted, and the British and French allied forces were the culprit, but the crime of "raping people" could not escape. After the British and French allied forces officially started looting, mobs in Beijing began looting on a larger scale. It is said that the river ditch is full of pots and pans, which can't be moved or thrown away. After that, Yuanmingyuan was restless. People in Beijing drag scooters to Haidian whenever there is unrest or officers and men usually neglect to take precautions. From nanmu and BRIC to stones and tiles, the emperor's things have all been moved home. Fortunately, you can still find porcelain and jade articles that can be picked up in the ruins.
Therefore, from the outside world, Yuanmingyuan was first burned by China people. Of course, the British and French allied forces are not good either. They have organized and disciplined the distribution of stolen goods, handling and auctioning Yuanmingyuan property in the garden. By the time the British minister Erkin decided to burn the Yuanmingyuan in retaliation for the Qing government's killing of hostages, the tragedy was already scheduled.
Perhaps, many kind people will doubt the authenticity of the above records, but the scene after the US military captured Baghdad in the first half of the Iraq war is obvious to all. Iraqi museums were ransacked, and TV images showed some Iraqis robbing their homes, even the Embassy of China in Iraq was not spared. The word "fish in troubled waters" is often used in the history of China. I think it was not only foreign invaders who robbed, but also "our own people". At the end of Qin dynasty, Xiang Yu set fire to Xianyang, and Chu soldiers set fire to it. There must be a large number of local people among the robbers, otherwise why did the fire in history last for "three months"? Li Zicheng, the "King of Breakthrough" in the late Ming Dynasty, entered Beijing, and it was also the local people in Beijing who robbed him first, but it was too late. During the Revolution of 1911, similar incidents occurred in Beijing, Nanjing and Wuhan. Some people want to take advantage of the chaos to plunder, but because a group of businessmen, politicians and gentry have come forward to defend and prohibit looting, this is the best opportunity in the history of regime change.
At home and abroad, the phenomenon of "taking advantage of the fire to rob" again and again in history shows that this is not a problem of the cultural quality of the people of a certain country, nor a problem of a national character defect, but an institutional problem. If a country or a society does not encourage its citizens to own their own independent property, career, beliefs and pursuits, and cannot enjoy the right to participate in the governance of the country, without the awareness of citizens, they will not consider themselves masters of the country and will be irresponsible for their actions. Once there is a chance to rob, they will rush into a mob.