First Opium war

Why did the British hold off the siege of Nanking towards the end of the Opium war?
They had assembled a sizeable force that could easily have taken the city with little resistance. If they took the city then they would control the Yangtze and the capital would be cut off completely, the emperor would be forced to surrender.
Why did they instead draw up a peace treaty rather than force a complete surrunder of the Qing dynasty to the British empire and force vassalage unto China as a province like that of India?

Bump

Every Imperial nation on earth including America wanted a piece of China. It was the big new promised market, ripe and just waiting to buy everyone's crap. If Britain had essentially annexed China, WW1 would have occurred much sooner.

I mean they were already annexing India, trying to control two humongous Asian empires would be too much even for them. They made a half-hearted attempt to divide Qing China with the other European powers during the late 19th century though.

The Opium Wars are some of my favorite bits of history btw, literally invading a country to get it addicted to drugs.

>literally invading a country to get it addicted to drugs

Laissez-faire capitalism is a beautiful thing.

user this is 1842, there is no other Imperial power that can challenge Britain

the goal of the war was ending the canton trading system and opening up more cities to trade access, they kept the scope of the conflict narrow

Yes but they just so happened to seize huge swathes of land on the way and found themselves in a position to force total surrender

That would only succeed in toppling the regime, not China as a whole. This is why the bongs supported the Qing during the Taiping rebellion.

They wanted a regime in control of the entire country they could negotiate with.

>Why did they instead draw up a peace treaty rather than force a complete surrunder of the Qing dynasty to the British empire and force vassalage unto China as a province like that of India?

1) China was a bit more unified than India was. Britits couldn't literally play the same "Game of Princes" as they did with the Indian Rajs/Sultans/Princes/Emirs/Chiefs.

2) The point of British adventure in China wasn't to invade the place but open its market up.

3) What Britain did to do that wasn't only an asshole move to China: it was an asshole move versus other Europeans. Britain was the only European country Chinese didn't want to trade with. Largely because their merchants were assholes and British goods were nothing special. French, Portuguese, Spain, Netherlands, and Russia have all been trading with the Qing Chinese for quite a long time.

4) Related to the last point: the other Europeans themselves reacted to the sudden British cornering of the China market by demanding their own concessions from the Qing as well. As such the Brits had to compete with other Europeans for the Chinese market. It was the greatest fear of the Imperialist world that the Qing government would collapse and therefore create a "Scramble for China" in China and lead to a general European war. Therefore.

5) The Europeans propped up the Qing Imperial Government. Keeping it weak that it cant challenge them but strong enough so it wont collapse. Related to that.

6) Final point is the Qing themselves. They were weak but were still pretty wily actually. It knew that Colonial Powers competed for China and often it played them against each other. A good example of this was during the Treaty of Shimonoseki after the Sino-Japanese War, when Qing China prevented Japan from having Chinese concessions by telling them that the Europeans won't take that well.

Thank fuck they did, British Hong Kong was the pearl of the orient. And despite what Beijing might have you believe, most of the people living there thought so too.

So why didn't Europeans scramble for China when the Qing Dynasty fell?

Hong Kong was a barren wasteland at the time of the Opium war.
You must be thinking of Shanghai or Canton

1) The Replacement Government was a republic. Shitting on a democratic republic was a no-no in a time of high nationalism.

2) When China did actually break up. It did in 1916. A time when Europenises were happily massacring each other.

At this point though it doesn't even matter how centralized China was. HMS Nemesis alone could've destroyed the entire Chinese fleet, they were simply too outmatched technologically. Surely the defeat of the Qing loses their legitimacy as the ruler of China? Also at this point other European powers couldn't compete as Britain had already established a strong military presence in China making any intervention a declaration of war against the British Empire

Yes it started off as a fishing village, I mean by the time the 20th century was in its swing and the Communists kicked the government out to Taiwan, Hong Kong was a bastion where the Chinese could do what they do better than anyone else: make money. If the Opium Wars had never happened, it'd probably still be a fishing village.

Whose would adminster china instead of the Qing then. The British sure as couldn't in the chaos that would have happened afterwards.

>this is 1842, there is no other Imperial power that can challenge Britain
This is bong fantasy. The sole reason the bongs went off to shoot up peasants in China was because if they'd tried that against anybody that mattered, they'd get BTFO. But insects, witch doctors and pajeets the bongs could handle (sometimes).

>chaos that would have happened afterwards
And turns China into petty kingdoms, divide and conquer
The Royal navy at that time was larger than all the navies of the world combined. The British empire had the largest GDP in the world, had the largest source of manpower and the greatest industrial output. At this point no other nation could even compete. It's like USA post 1991, but can't even be threatened with nukes.

The bongs tried to war with the subhuman slavs, and got their nose bloodied. A few decades later they tried to put down a few Dutch peasants and got their nose bloodied. Problem in both cases was that they weren't facing insects, witch doctors or pajeets. Doesn't matter what you're fantasizing might have happened, what matters is what happened.

>At this point though it doesn't even matter how centralized China was.
It does, again unlike India, the people too were far more unified. Topple the Qing? Boom, rebellion. And the Taiping rebellion showed what an outdated but well motivated Chinese rebel army could do to a westernized force.
>Surely the defeat of the Qing loses their legitimacy as the ruler of China?
And Britain could be only seen as a legitimate Chinese dynasty if Queen Victoria becomes a man, Becomes an Emperor of China, claims mandate of heaven, declares of Chinese Dynasty, and spouts Confucian, and orders for the sinification of Britain. You know, like what the Mongols and Manchus did?
>Britain had already established a strong military presence
Wrong, 1840-1850s, the Hong Kong garrison relied on British Indian reinforcements. 1870-1900, forget Britain having military supremacy. Russians built a railroad to China, French parked their butts in Indochina. Americans seized the Philippines, and Japan modernized.

Oh and speaking of America: Americans prevented British (and Russian) dominance in China in two ways.
1) Open Door Policy. America drew up a treaty where everyone can get access to China and nobody messes with Qing China's sovereignity. This was backed by the lesser powers and cornered Britain into accepting the deal. Russia was so pissed it didn't join in.
2) When German and American manufacturing overtook Britain, the laws of the market meant that the Chinese couldn't give a shit about British goods anymore. So funnily: the Americans in the Philippines were making more money than Brits did in China.

Forgot to link you.

The British Navy gives an illusion that the Brits Rule the world, but by 1900 American Capitalism was shitting on them.

>nose bloodied
How so

>muh boors
american/10

I should also add: the Europeans (except Russians) and Americans were also arming the Qing Army as a weak but a very bothersome counterweight against any among them who planned to take all of China for himself. The collective efforts of British, French, German, military advisors led to the birth of the Beiyang Army.

That army matured in 1900 and was quite a modern force at the time, at least in paper. Its sheer threat was that it was just very large. We eventually get to see the Beiyang in action in 1911: when the Qing Dynasty collapsed.

Because it sided with the Revolution it was actually defeating as Sun Yat-Sen offered the presidency to its supreme commander, Yuan Shikai..

>How so
I've referenced two wars that are well represented in the historical record, lad. Good luck with your education.

Explain how the British had their nose bloodied in the Boer war

>1840-1850s, the Hong Kong garrison relied on British Indian reinforcements. 1870-1900, forget Britain having military supremacy.
Correct. And as weak as the bongs were in Asia, they became even weaker as they recognized that they were shooting up too many illiterate peasants around the world and thus might be threatened in Bongistan. Eventually, this weakness and overextension and misbegotten perfidy is what led to the Singapore disaster. Nippon held a grudge for all that perfidy.

My bad i was thinking about the first boer war

Hang on I'm talking immediate post-opium war not 50 years later. The British army swept through China during the opium war so by 1842 they had a strong presence. Also why are you bringing up America, they're not even a relevant economic power let alone military power at this point?
This is like saying China rules the world now because "muh manufacturing" and "muh debts"

Again, I've referenced two wars that are well represented in the historical record, lad. Good luck with your education.

Russia lost the Crimean war user

Well the boers lost the boer wars as well. Maybe he was referring to specific engagements or something.

>The British army swept through China during the opium war so by 1842 they had a strong presence.
That promptly went home to India with the ones remaining guarding the concessions.

Who knew overseas garrisons were expensive.

A military presence that wasn't hostile to other Europeans either.

>Russia lost the Crimean war user
Right, and the bongs "won" the Great War, is it?

Not hardly, they committed seppuku.

You may wish to rethink matters, user.

British empire lost 40,000
Russia lost 500,000
But that's the point of this thread. Why did they immediately leave instead of seizing nanking and forcing surrender and greater concessions of land and reduction to vassalage state

Not him but Britain's goal's were different than in India, they weren't carving out vast territories, they wanted free trade, formal relations, and a stronghold for controlling British trade.
A weak and destabilised qing means a collapsing china that cant sell tea and buy opium.

See points 1, 2, 3.Really: Other Europeans, Chinese unity, and expressed British objectives of opening trade. Those were very important.

So the bongs didn't just have a lust for imperialism and the expansion of the British empire?

Follow up: ARE YOU SUGGESTING THE BRITISH EMPIRE IS A SIDE EFFECT OF MERCANTILISM? WHAT THE FUCK WOULD HAPPEN IF BRITAIN ACTUALLY WANTED AN EMPIRE FOR THE SAKE OF IT?

Nah, considering the Scramble of Africa happened a decade after.

Really, they were just after Chinese cash. China was more trouble than it is worth Indiaing. Lots of Brits will die (in the Opium War, Brits just fought 1 of the 8 Chinese Banner armies), they could end up fighting other Europeans, and if victorious, they'll have a highly rebellious province in China.

Maybe not one singular power, but not even the British empire can go to war with all of Europe.

Would they really team up against Britain? Who would go first? One power gets pushed in the boxing rimg and gets torn apart. All the others see is less competition

If they annex China? You bet your ass they would team up

Why didn't they step in when Britain annexed 1/3 of the world?

Because they honestly couldn't.
Is just historical ignorance.