Ye Mingchen, a high-ranking official of the Qing Dynasty, was captured and taken to India and treated as a monkey for people to watch. What happened?

Ye Mingchen is definitely a typical figure in the ancient Chinese official system. His contradictory thoughts have created a dramatic life, which makes modern people look like he was sent by a monkey to be responsible for comedy. mean. After Ye Mingchen was captured and taken to India, he was regarded as a monkey for people to watch. It was just an exaggeration. Overall, the British still respected Ye Mingchen

Ye Mingchen was a very talented person who definitely knew how to be a good person. , life, and the way to be an official. In the fifteenth year of Daoguang's reign (1835), he passed the Jinshi examination at the age of 28 and was selected as a Shujishi. Three years later, he was released to the prefecture. After that, it can be said that he has been on a steady rise and has been promoted many times. In the twenty-seventh year of Daoguang (1847), Ye Mingchen, who had only been in office for 12 years, had already been promoted to the position of governor of Guangdong. In the second year of Xianfeng (1852), after Ye Mingchen served as governor for five years, he was promoted to governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, becoming a veritable official in the border areas.

Ye Mingchen was talented and made great contributions to the Qing Dynasty, especially in quelling civil strife. In 1851, before and after the Taiping Rebellion, Ye Mingchen crusaded against the anti-Qing God-Worship Organization in Guangdong, killing tens of thousands of people and successfully curbing the development momentum of the God-Worship Society in Guangdong. In 1854, the Guangdong Tiandi Hui gathered people to attack Guangzhou. Ye Mingchen relied on artillery to retreat and stand firm. With the assistance of American and British warships, he calmed the situation and maintained stability in Guangdong.

At the same time, Ye Mingchen firmly resisted the invasion of foreign powers. After the First Opium War, when he was governor of Guangdong, he cooperated with Xu Guangjin, governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, to resolutely prevent the British from settling in Guangzhou City. He was an anti-foreign hardliner. Moreover, Ye Mingchen also spread his agents throughout the newly ceded Hong Kong, collecting intelligence and resolutely fighting the great powers to the end.

Up to this point, Ye Mingchen seems to be quite accomplished, and he has a sense of justice to protect his family and country. However, what I am going to talk about next, Ye Mingchen has some "funny" and even "absurd" talents.

Ye Mingchen has a dull and strong personality, and is diligent in official affairs, which makes his subordinates a little afraid of him. Because of this, Ye Mingchen lacked channels for speech and sources of information, and he was inevitably "foolish" in his work. When he was wiping out the Tiandihui, he mistakenly took the name of the branch of the Tiandihui as the location, which caused a lot of trouble. One time, Ye Mingchen suddenly learned that a man named "Lao Wanshan" was responsible for the division of heaven and earth, so he immediately sent people to Lao Wanshan to pick up people on the spot. Of course, they found nothing. Ye Mingchen made a lot of jokes, and his subordinates did not dare to remind him. Ye Mingchen never tired of it, and came back empty-handed every time, but he had no idea what went wrong.

We have said before that Ye Mingchen is good at "the way of being an official". Where does this way come from? To put it bluntly, it is fraud. He sent many informants to Hong Kong and other places to spy on the news. Every time he got the news, he would filter it and report good news to the court instead of bad news. He would even confuse right and wrong and fabricate facts. Ye Mingchen always talks about the defeat of the British army, and France's neutrality in the Sino-British conflict. As a result, Emperor Xianfeng at that time was very happy in the capital every day. There was nothing going on in Guangdong, and he was so happy. In fact, that is not the case at all. The Second Opium War is about to break out. The British and French forces are going to invade Beijing and burn the Old Summer Palace.

Ye Mingchen did not make any particularly great achievements in controlling the great powers, but he still had some means to suppress internal rebellions. When pacifying the Tiandihui, Ye Mingchen could not find the real Tiandihui Shantang every time, so he could not arrest anyone. what to do? There were so many ordinary people around that they would be arrested and killed, but no one would check whether they were really members of the Heaven and Earth Society. After all, he, Ye Mingchen, is the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, and he, Ye Mingchen, has the final say. As a result, Ye Mingchen slaughtered hundreds of people every day, killing 70,000 to 80,000 people in just three months. Then, he reported to the court that how many bandits had been suppressed, what a great achievement.

Ye Mingchen was strong and dared to massacre people, but he did not dare to fight against the great powers. Ye Mingchen resolutely rejected the great powers, but his attitude towards the great powers was to "act like a rogue", and he learned the key to the "dragging" tactic. He had an arrogant attitude towards foreign envoys. Under normal circumstances, he would neither accept letters of credence from foreign envoys nor reply to notes from foreign envoys. Even if he did reply, it would be in a few words and unclear, which made these foreign envoys confused. I'm scratching my head, I don't know why.

If the "delay" is to develop production, strengthen war preparations, prepare for the final war with the great powers, or increase the bargaining chips, then that's it. In fact, the officials of the Qing government, including Ye Mingchen, seemed to have done nothing, just procrastinating for the sake of procrastination.

In 1856, the Arrow incident broke out. The Guangdong Navy seized the Arrow, and the British consul launched an attack. However, Ye Mingchen only released the arrested sailors without further communication, which ultimately triggered the second incident. The Second Opium War. The British navy began to mobilize and deploy, but Ye Mingchen ignored it at all and even went to watch the rural test of riding and shooting for two consecutive days with great interest. Facing the British ships that had passed through Humen, Ye Mingchen ordered the Guangdong Navy to retreat and not to fire or fight back. The fort defenders along the way also received Ye Mingchen's order and avoided fighting. Then, the British army easily occupied all the Qing army's fortifications outside Guangzhou City, and pushed directly to the city walls.

Ye Mingchen was very calm and ordered the customs to be closed and trade to be interrupted. I will sanction you and will no longer trade with you.

However, in the face of strong ships and powerful artillery, is it you, Ye Mingchen, who said that there is no business and will not do it? Therefore, Ye Mingchen mobilized the rural warriors to practice vigorously, trying to scare the British army. Of course the British army ignored it. They were just here to fight, so they were still afraid. The British army bombarded the Governor's Yamen, but Ye Mingchen was sitting in the second hall in danger, showing no fear at all. He was calm. The reason why he is so calm will be discussed later. Because there were few British troops, they rushed into Guangzhou City and looted it, then withdrew. Ye Mingchen won a "complete victory" against the British.