Second Opium War (oct 8, 1856 – oct 24, 1860)

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The Second Opium War, also known as the Second Anglo-Chinese War or Arrow War, was fought between the United Kingdom and France against the Qing dynasty of China between 1856 and 1860. It was the second major conflict in the Opium Wars, which were fought over the right to import opium to China, and resulted in a second defeat for the Qing and the forced legalization of the opium trade. It caused many Chinese officials to believe that conflicts with the Western powers were no longer traditional wars, but part of a looming national crisis.

On October 8th, 1856, Qing officials seized the Arrow, a British-registered cargo ship, and arrested its Chinese sailors. The British consul, Harry Parkes, protested, upon which the viceroy of Liangguang, Ye Mingchen, delivered most of the sailors to the British on October 22nd, but refused to release the rest. The next day, British gunboats shelled the city of Canton. The British government decided to seek redress from China and dispatched a naval force led by Michael Seymour, and France joined in the action, citing as its reason the murder of a French missionary in China. After coordination with each other, the British and French stormed Canton in December 1857. Ye was captured and the governor of Guangdong surrendered. The alliance then moved north to demand a treaty from the Qing court, and on May 20th, 1858, captured the Taku Forts, stormed Tianjin, and threatened the capital Beijing. The Qing asked for peace, and signed the Treaty of Tientsin with Great Britain and France in 1858.

However, the Xianfeng Emperor refused to ratify the treaty, after which the Qing general Sengge Rinchen restarted the war with the British and French that month. Allied reinforcements sailed from Hong Kong, and his troops were defeated. As the alliance's forces advanced toward Beijing, Parkes and a number of British and French officers were captured as hostages, and some were tortured or murdered. These events prompted Lord Elgin to order his soldiers to loot and burn the Old Summer Palace as soon as they captured Beijing. The emperor and his entourage fled to Rehe, while Prince Gong stayed to conduct the negotiations, signing the Convention of Peking with the alliance on October 24th, 1860, thus ratifying the Treaty of Tientsin and bringing the Second Opium War to an end.

During and after the Second Opium War, the Qing government was also forced to sign treaties with Russia, such as the Treaty of Aigun and the Convention of Peking. As a result, China ceded more than 1.5 million square kilometers (0.58 million square miles) of territory to Russia in its north-east and north-west. With the conclusion of the war, the Qing government was able to concentrate on countering the Taiping Rebellion and maintaining its rule. Among other things, the Convention of Peking ceded the Kowloon Peninsula to the British as part of Hong Kong.

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