The ancestor curled his lips and said in a deep voice: "Where is this capital of the Qing Dynasty? Are you talking about Beijing, Yecheng or Handan?"

Liu Yu shook his head: "None of them are in Yuyang and Zhuojun. Yecheng has always been the central city of Hebei since ancient times, but in later generations, it was semi-aborized for various reasons. The Beijing I am talking about is the Zhuojun area, which is not a big city now. After hundreds of years, it has become the number one big city in the north. The two dynasties before the Qing Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty used Beijing as the capital, but it is also close to the coastline. If there are strong enemies from the sea, landing from the Dagukou area or the Qingzhou Peninsula, it will soon form a threat to Beijing."

The ancestor curled his lips and said, "If it was Yuyang and Zhuo County, it was the boundary of Youzhou, close to the Great Wall. In this way, it was very close to the northern part of Liaoxi and the former land of Yan State outside Shanhaiguan. If the Japan you mentioned occupied North Korea and then seized Liaodong, wouldn't it be possible to attack Beijing by crossing the Great Wall?"

Liu Yu said seriously: "After the capital was established, the defense of the north, northeast, and western Liaoning became the top priority. There were mountains and steep mountains there, which were not easy to pass on a large scale. Moreover, later generations built Shanhaiguan almost as strong as Tongguan, becoming the first pass in the world. Even when the Qing Dynasty entered the pass and captured the world, it was wasted more than ten years in front of Shanhaiguan before it was considered broken. It was very difficult to attack Shanhaiguan from land and attack the city of Beijing."

"On the contrary, in the Pingcheng area and the northern part of Bingzhou, the area in the north of Bingzhou has become the largest channel for the nomadic people in the south of the desert and the Donghu people in the northeast to enter the Central Plains in nearly a thousand years. However, even if you enter Bingzhou, you will want to go east to Beijing and cross the entire Taihang Mountains. In general, it is more difficult to fight from land to Beijing. This is also the fundamental reason why several dynasties dared to put the capital in Beijing, saying that the emperor guards the country's gates and the king dies in the country."

The ancestor sneered: "In this way, it would be easier to land from the sea and directly take Beijing. Then the Eight-Nation Alliance must have the power to control the sea and can use fleets to transport large-scale army landings. Did the Qing Dynasty rely on these Yihequan Boxers to fight the Eight-Nation Alliance?"

Liu Yu sighed: "Of course, I can't count on them completely. Empress Dowager Cixi and the important officials of the Qing Dynasty would not really believe in any magical skills to protect their bodies and invulnerable devils, but they were also lucky. After all, the Yihe Boxers organized were hundreds of thousands. Even if they were driven as cannon fodder to the first, they could consume the ammunition and spirit of the Eight-Nation Alliance. Those who fought with them were nearly 100,000 new army trained by the Qing Dynasty. They were trained according to the Western army's practices. They were no longer limited to the Eight Banners of the Manchus. The army to suppress rebellions in the northwest was the main force of this new army."

"But this kind of regular army and boxing people cannot improve their combat effectiveness. It is still vulnerable to the Western powers. Most of the boxing people are ignorant village men, who really believe that invulnerable to swords and guns. They are very brave. Facing the army of the Eight-Nation Alliance and the advanced foreign guns and cannons, they rushed up in batches and killed them in batches. The bodies were everywhere, but even the foreigners were difficult to get close to. The regular army of the Qing army was also good and did their best. However, in the battle, they were no match for the army of the Western powers. In the end, after losing tens of thousands of troops and more than one hundred thousand boxing people, the Qing Dynasty was defeated."

"Empress Dowager Cixi, with Emperor Guangxu and the entire harem, and most of the officials, fled westward and gave up Beijing without fighting. The Eight Banners people who remained in the city and some Qing soldiers who were unwilling to escape had a final battle with the Eight-Nation Alliance, causing considerable casualties to the enemy. However, this war still ended with the victory of the Eight-Nation Alliance. After all, if the capital of the enemy was replaced by traditional China, it would almost mean the demise of the dynasty."

"But the situation where the Eight-Nation Alliance and the Western Powers imagined that the Beijing City was lost, bandits and warlords from all over the country rose up, and the world was in chaos and China was divided. Although the former regiment leaders and their disciples in the south had a mutual protection agreement in the southeast and did not send troops north to support Empress Dowager Cixi, they did not declare their independence because of the loss of Beijing City. On the whole country, there was no rebellion everywhere like in previous dynasties and smoke everywhere."

"Empress Dowager Cixi made peace with the Eight-Nation Alliance on the way to escape. In addition to paying huge compensation, she also ordered the execution of officials who were in charge of fighting and advocated joining forces with Yihequan to fight against the enemy. She also declared Yihequan a rebel against the people and ordered Qing army officials from all over the country to wipe out it."

"The corrupt and incompetent Qing army was vulnerable to the Western powers, but the massacre and suppression of the members of the Yi and Fist, who were mainly composed of ordinary people and peasants, was like a wolf or a tiger. Therefore, this movement against foreign enemies, launched by the lower class, failed tragically. In addition to the failure of the previous reform movement, the whole country, both ordinary people and the gentry of knowledge, had already seen clearly that the rulers of the Qing Dynasty, whether Empress Dowager Cixi or Emperor Guangxu, or the nobles of the Eight Banners of the Manchus, were no longer qualified to lead this country and lead the Chinese nation to fight against foreign invasions, especially for the two great powers of Japan and Tsarist Russia, who wanted to completely annex and destroy China, they had to change a powerful leader and lead the whole country to fight them together."

"The people of lofty ideals of that era began to save China with this idea of ​​saving the nation and seeking survival. Some people learned the political and military models of Western countries and wanted to follow the path of constitutional monarchy. Some people wanted to continue the Westernization Movement, exchange China's wealth for Western weapons, overthrow the Qing Dynasty, train new troops based on the Han people, and use 400 million Han people's manpower to complete the establishment of a huge army. Some people advocated temporary surrender and turning to several powerful powers, and use the struggle between the great powers to gain time for their own reform and strengthening."
Chapter completed!