Why did Cixi dare to declare war on the 11 most powerful countries in the world at that time?

Because Cixi has an invulnerable Boxer. In the past, it was very difficult for the Qing Dynasty to fight wars, and the most obvious manifestation of this difficulty was the people's disdain for war.

To be honest, although the people at that time were ignorant, they were not stupid, they all knew that it was you who loved Xinjueluo's world, so let us work hard, how could it be so easy? Moreover, the Qing ** own Eight Banners army has long been rotten, smoking big cigarettes, and playing with women. Since the time of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the Qing ** has no army available, and has to agree to assemble its own defense forces in various places, the most famous of which is the Hunan army of Zeng Guofan.

However, whether it was Zeng Guofan's Hunan army or Li Hongzhang's Huai army, they were their own troops, and they were loyal to their commanders rather than national leaders. So at that time, although Cixi was not pleasing to the eyes of foreigners, she was really incapable of fighting. At this time, a wave suddenly emerged from Shandong from the People's Boxers, and it is said that they are still invulnerable.

The most important thing is that they are loyal to our Qing court, and they don't need to spend money on the Qing Dynasty. As soon as Cixi saw that the people of the whole country had spontaneously mobilized, and the situation was absolutely good, she would do it. With the Boxer Rebellion, Cixi dared to declare war on the whole world at that time.

At that time, Cixi also did not know the height of the sky, he felt that the Qing Dynasty was the strongest country, and he did not understand that Western countries already had tanks.

At that time, Cixi declared war with the eleven countries of the Xinian Xinfang, because the people at that time had risen up a few Gao tribes, and the organization made him feel that he could fight, and secondly, because the requirements of the foreigners were too high and quiet.

It's because he thought that his country was very powerful and not so corrupt, so he didn't think badly at all.

Sugiyama's death had a great impact on foreigners, because he was Japanese, and China and Japan had only signed the Treaty of Shimonoseki beforehand. Cixi wanted to be lenient, but she was afraid of provoking a military mutiny in the Gan army, so she had to deal with the punishment. At this point, Cixi Dabai can no longer control the situation by herself.

She decided to declare war on the Eleven Kingdoms of the East, which she thought was a clumsy plan. She wanted to use the Boxer Rebellion to hold the ministers of the Great Powers hostage as a way to bully the coup d'état of the Great Powers and voluntarily "return to power". Suppose that the Boxers failed, they were scapegoats!

But the situation was not something she could get anywhere else.

As for why only eight countries came, let's talk about the three countries that didn't come. Spain did not come, the Netherlands and Belgium, let's talk about Spain first, Spain was ready to attack China in the Ming Dynasty, but when preparing to attack, his armada was completely annihilated, so that they had no strength to implement their plan, and the annihilation of the armada, but also made Spain begin to decline, and when the Empress Dowager Cixi declared war on the world, it was not that they did not want to come, but they had no ability to come.

The situation of Belgium and the Netherlands is similar to that of Spain, that is, they do not have enough troops to participate in the war in the Far East, but although the three of them did not join the war, they still have them in the post-war partition agreement, and as for the reason, their church was destroyed by the war.

If you don't know, you know the eight countries, but you don't know the eleven countries.

The declaration of war on the outside world is a hundred years of misinformation: it is an internal war mobilization order, not a declaration of war.

On June 20, the Qing court issued an edict saying that the imperial court had fallen into the dual predicament of foreign soldiers and Boxers, and asked the governors of the provinces to make a comprehensive plan, liaise with one party, and receive help from the Beijing division to save the situation. On 21 June, the Qing court officially issued an "edict declaring war," saying that the great powers "have bullied our country, invaded our land, ravaged our people, and extorted our property for 30 years."

This edict is quite intriguing. First of all, the edict declared war on the grounds that the foreigners forcibly demanded the Dagukou Fort, but it was not known that the Dagukou Fort had fallen as early as June 17 at this time, but the Governor of Zhili concealed it and did not report it. In other words, the capture of the Dagukou Fort by the coalition forces on June 17 actually constituted a declaration of war in the de facto sense, and the declaration of war by the Qing court on June 21 lagged behind.

Second, the edict did not declare war on a specific person, but only used a pronoun "they" with contempt, so it is questionable whether this can be regarded as a declaration of war in public international law (in fact, no country later declared a formal war);

Third, the edict explained to the people why the imperial court had made such a decision and called for a joint defense against the enemy, which seemed more like an internal war mobilization order than a declaration of war. Therefore, it is obviously a major misunderstanding to say that the Empress Dowager Cixi "brazenly" declared war on the Eleven Kingdoms, and it is legally and logically untenable.

On May 21, 1900, Rong Lu hurriedly attacked and reported highly confidential information to the Empress Dowager Cixi, saying that the ministers of various countries had jointly decided to "order the Empress Dowager to return to power", and Cixi declared war on the Eleven Nations in order to retain power.

The Empress Dowager Cixi took out hundreds of thousands of taels and rewarded the Boxers who recited mantras and boxing in Beijing and Tianjin, asking them to attack the concession in Tianjin and besiege the embassy in Beijing.

On the one hand, the Empress Dowager Cixi instigated the Boxers to attack the embassies of various countries, and on the other hand, she sent vegetables and fruits to the embassies to offer condolences. Rong Lu saw that Lafayette's policy was repeated and full of contradictions, and he would declare war for a while, but then send condolences again.

Therefore, we are prepared accordingly. He transferred Yuan Shikai's German-style armed Wuwei right army to Dong Fuxiang's Gan army to attack the embassy, and at the same time, he also sent people to disguise themselves as bandits and transport arms and ammunition to the embassy.

On July 14, the Eight-Nation Coalition captured Tianjin; On August 2, it marched along both sides of the canal from Tianjin, and soon occupied Langfang. In the early morning of August 14, she came to the outside of Beijing to launch a general attack on Beijing, and the Empress Dowager Cixi fled all the way to Xi'an.