Miscellaneous desk
< March 9	<< Feb \| March \| Apr >>	March 11 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Miscellaneous Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

March 10

Why did the Qing Empire offer so little resistance during the Second Opium War?

I'm reading about the Second Opium War and curious why it seems like the resistance by the Qing Empire in the northern theater was so feeble. It looks like after the British breached the Taku Fort, there was a disastrous cavalry charge during the Battle of Palikao against the landing party moving to Beijing but after that defeat no more resistance was put on. Beijing is taken and the Summer Palace is burned down. Considering the Qing Empire was a great empire of hundred of millions of subjects, the lack of fighting in the northern theater before its momentous defeat is really astonishing. What factors led to this outcome? Muzzleflash (talk) 13:48, 10 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

An Indefensible Defense:The Incompetence of Qing Dynasty Officials in the Opium Wars, and the Consequences of Defeat by Daniel Cone, suggests that bureaucratic inertia was the root of the problem: "Qing expectations dictated [that] local officials should be able to handle the barbarous foreigners, and when the British repeatedly proved to be a serious threat too powerful for a local force to defeat, the Manchus failed to realize it would take a concerted effort to rid China of the invaders" (p. 6/13). Alansplodge (talk) 14:11, 10 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Additionally read about the Boxer Rebellion and the Eight-Nation Alliance. --Kharon (talk) 16:45, 10 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

There was a little thing going on at the same time known as the Taiping Rebellion, a.k.a. one of the biggest wars most Westerners have never heard of. There's a mention of it in Second Opium War but it's buried in the middle of the article. The article's lead could do with some rewriting, I think. Oh, and by the way there were other rebellions going on in other parts of China: see History of China#Qing dynasty (AD 1644–1911) and Qing dynasty#Rebellion, unrest and external pressure. There's a reason this period is called the "Century of Humiliation" by Chinese nationalists. --47.146.60.177 (talk) 09:59, 11 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Gosh. Reading through the references, somethings appear to have been overlooked or completely ignored. The official Chinese stand at that time was that China did not need to 'import' anything. It could produce all that Chines needed. They also insisted, that if foreigners wanted to buy Chinese goods, they had to pay in 'silver'. There was not enough silver in circulation to pay for the Chines goods that China offered. It created a big foreign exchange problem. The solution was to use the 'black market', by supplying China with Indian opium. So, lets now come to why action was so feeble. Despite the Chines official stance that they did not need to import any Western goods, there was a very great demand for them. Much of that demand came from the wealthy moribund civil service. So, they turned a blind eye to the blooming black market in opium in order that the could buy Western goods. --Aspro (talk) 18:50, 11 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

History is full with autocratic Leaders who "fuck it up" in a grand scale. A Spanish King once invested 20 years and all of Spains forests to build the biggest naval fleet the world has seen (Spanish Armada), just to sink it all near the English coast by ignoring the weather. --Kharon (talk) 22:33, 11 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The "Spanish-American Silver for Chinese Fineries" trade system is well covered in part of 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created, especially on the economic and social disruption it caused on both sides of the Pacific. It's a very good read. --Jayron 32 19:51, 14 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]