When Western Europe and the United States marched vigorously into the modern industrial society, the rulers of the Qing Dynasty in China were still immersed in China's arrogance, stuck on their laurels and closed their doors, and gradually fell behind the western powers.
Although the Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong dynasties in the early Qing Dynasty still had some afterglow of China's great powers, after the prosperous period of Kangxi and Qianlong, the Qing Dynasty turned from prosperity to decline and began to decline. Since then, there has never been a monarch with great talent in the Qing Dynasty, and his successors are all mediocre people.
After the death of Qianlong, Emperor Jiaqing succeeded to the throne. Small Shenyang, where Jiaqing was overthrown, suddenly became an upstart and lived in peace. After Jiaqing's death, Daoguang succeeded to the throne, although he was the most thrifty emperor in the Qing Dynasty and tried to govern the country. But at this time, the Qing dynasty was riddled with holes, and the outside world had undergone earth-shaking changes. The Manchu rulers of the frog in the well finally ushered in a heavy blow from the western powers and signed the first foreign inequality treaty, treaty of nanking.
During Daoguang's reign, although the Qing Dynasty had begun to decline, among Asian countries, China's economy, culture and military were outstanding at that time. So Daoguang, like his ancestors, thought that his empire was vast, vast, populous and powerful, and he was full of confidence in China's superiority.
1840, Britain decided to send an expeditionary force to invade China on the pretext that Lin Zexu destroyed opium in Humen. Daoguang naively thought that only the British in a small barbarian country were bullied in Guangdong, trying to find their own judgment. Daoguang generously comforted the British and said: We treat our own residents and the people of overseas vassal countries equally. If the people of foreign vassal countries in the Qing Dynasty were wronged, I will certainly uphold justice for you.
So Daoguang sent people to Guangzhou to investigate and dismissed Lin Zexu from his investigation post. He thinks that by punishing his client, he can make a settlement. Daoguang didn't realize the seriousness of the problem. It wasn't until/kloc-the maritime overlord of the 9th century hit Nanjing that the Qing court panicked and sent people to negotiate with the British.
The British attached great importance to the intelligence work of the Qing Dynasty and collected a lot of information on all aspects of this decadent dynasty. By contrast, Daoguang knows almost nothing about Britain. Although as early as the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, China drew the first world map in human history, and the error between this map and our current world map is basically small; But Daoguang doesn't even know where Britain is, and even asks if it borders Xinjiang.
Daoguang learned from the British that the British monarch was a queen, and she was only in her early twenties. She whimsically hoped to take Queen Victoria as a concubine, so that China and Britain would not have to fight and the world would be at peace.
Daoguang's dream was quickly shattered mercilessly, and the tough British threatened the Qing government with their guns and promised the whole contents of treaty of nanking. Daoguang accepted the princess's dream and became a world-class joke. Ancient China, also in the ignorance of the Qing emperor, opened a humiliating modern history.