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The Second Opium War was a war of aggression against China jointly launched by Britain and France with the support of the United States and Russia from October 1856 to October 1860. The purpose is that Britain and France will further open up the Chinese market and expand their aggression interests in China. Because Britain and France launched wars under the pretext of the Yarrow incident and the Ma priest incident respectively, they were called 'The Arrow War' by the British. Also known as 'Anglo-French expedition to China' or 'Second Anglo-Chinese War'. At the same time, because this war can be regarded as the continuation and expansion of the first Opium War (the essential purpose of the two wars is the same), it is also called the 'Second Opium War'.
In 1860, the British and French forces invaded Beijing, the Qing emperor fled to Chengde, and the British and French forces broke into the Yuanmingyuan and plundered and burned the jewels. During the war, after sending troops, Tsarist Russia claimed to be 'contributing to mediation' and coerced the Qing government to cede more than 1.5 million square kilometers of territory, thus becoming the biggest winner. The war ended when the Qing government was forced to sign the Treaty of Beijing.
The Second Opium War forced the Qing government to successively sign the Sino-Russian 'Aigun Treaty', 'Tianjin Treaty' and 'Beijing Treaty' and other peace treaties, and the foreign powers invaded more deeply. As a result, China lost a total of more than 1.5 million square kilometers of territory in the northeast and northwest. After the war, the Qing government was able to concentrate its efforts to suppress the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and maintain its rule. Foreign aggression forces have expanded to the coastal provinces and the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River.
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