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This sudden turn of events surely caught Prince Gong by surprise. On October 16, he was still outside of the city walls when the allies entered Beijing (Weng Tonghe 1970, 1:201). The allies had ignored the prince’s complaints about plundering the Yuanming Yuan and other royal demesnes; and now Elgin notified him in a haughty manner that the principal imperial garden as a whole should be burned down to the ground as punishment. The humiliation was huge and inevitable. Had he put up a stiff resistance and shown some courage, the prince might still have some bargaining chips to play; however, with Beijing having been occupied by the allies, he knew he was totally at the mercy of the enemy. He could only plead to Elgin, again through Hengqi, to spare the Yuanming Yuan. Nevertheless, Elgin was adamant, and on October 18 he waited no longer to give his order to set fire to the Yuanming Yuan and its subsidiary gardens (YMYA 1991, 1:559–562; cf. the memorial by Prince Gong, Guiliang, and Wenxiang in Jiang Tingfu 1931, 1972, 1:269–270; Cai Shenzhi n.d., 157) 去书内
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  • 林勇辉 林勇辉

    This passage centers on Prince Gong’s desperate and powerless predicament right before the burning of the Yuanming Yuan, weaving multiple official archives and memorials to reconstruct a pivotal, sorrowful historical moment. Caught off guard by the allied occupation of Beijing, Prince Gong remained stranded outside the city on October 16. Lord Elgin dismissed all his protests against the looting of imperial gardens and arrogantly announced a punitive order to raze the entire Yuanming Yuan complex. The text lays bare the prince’s complete diplomatic disadvantage. Without military leverage after the capital fell, he lost every bargaining chip and could only beg Elgin to spare the garden via the mediator Hengqi, yet Elgin refused to back down and ordered the mass arson on October 18. Supported by Qing diplomatic files, ministerial memorials and academic compilations, the writing balances Prince Gong’s personal despair with Western commanders’ punitive logic mentioned in earlier extracts. Together with eyewitness records of foreign troops marching through Beijing’s gates, this segment completes the full lead-up to the Yuanming Yuan catastrophe. It vividly illustrates how military defeat stripped Qing negotiators of any agency, turning earnest pleas into meaningless gestures and cementing the profound national humiliation of the late Qing Dynasty.

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  • 用户863583 用户863583

    包裹

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