Update if anyone cares
. Maximilian was actually kind of happy ,and kind of stressed. He was now ruler of pretty much all of central Europe ,and in Poland his brother ruled. In China they were doing pretty well for themselves expect for the fact that they were being attacked by every industrial power within range of land ,and sea. They had tried resisting in the first ,and second opium wars. Those didn’t work out well for the Chinese , the British managed to get free ports to sell opium ,and Russians got outer Manchuria ,due to Chinese weakness.
This all changed in 1865 when Dowager Empress Cixi died of alleged natural causes. In truth she choked on a small fish bone during a meal. Although some were accused, what had happened was suppressed in the country, this enabled prince Gong to take power by consolidating his power in the Qing court, and he begun to be the power behind the throne of the Tongzhi emperor. He knew that the Ironhat faction who had tried to oppose his self strengthening movement, who needed someone to rally around , and that someone was Dowager Empress Ci’an ,however she didn’t want to get involved in politics, and Prince Gong didn’t want to kill her ,but he wanted the Ironhats out of his way ,and he wanted to restore China to glory, and he hatched a plan to cause a “bad accident” to Ci’an. So in 1868 Ci’an had a stroke which caused her to die in the Forbidden City, some people had accused Prince Gong as her assassin. In truth his plot to kill her would be a few months later. He would assume to be regent to the young Tongzhi emperor. Prince Gong and the young Emperor would modernized the Chinese economy by streamlining production by eliminating sincures (jobs that had a high salary ,but had no work).
In 1873 they had began to reform the army ,and build a railroad from Beijing to Tianjin, and Shanghai. The Tongzhi Emperor abolished the old way of taxation with a new western style of collecting taxes. They had also abolished the old Confucian way of education for scholars, and they had replaced the Grand council with something like an Autocratic constitutional monarchy. They had begun to build telegraphic lines for easier communication between Beijing and the major cities. They had also in 1875 made queues illegal, and built up a small 100,000 man army that knew modern weaponry through the Germans, that had reformed the army with breechloaders. In the year 1881 they had built a medium sized navy to guard coasts,and they had destroyed the old ways that had held China back ,and well somewhat on the second part large parts had remained poor ,and backward.
In 1879 they had ordered a Battleship from German shipyards called the Tingyuan ,and the Chenyuan. They were the biggest ships in the Chinese Arsenal at 7,500 tons each. China had also expanded to a 200,000 man elite military force. They were divided into 4 regions Beiyang, Fujian, Nanyang, and Guangdong regions. They were under a central command, and in 1869 they had instituted a draft for all men at age 18 for two years. They had also outlawed footbinding, and had begun to change the legal code to something British like. They had built several factories that produced armaments, and they had built several universities by 1881. They had not seen a war coming with France in 1883,and were not prepared at all for the invasion of Vietnam. They had given some arms to the Vietnamese, but not enough to protect themselves. The Sino French war had started over an accidental killing of a French diplomat. To avenge the killing of him, they had sent a 2000 man force under Jacques Milleux to Hanoi.
They had marched to a bridge in Hue. When he saw a 6,000 man army of the black flag army, he thought it will still be easy. After a five hour battle the French army surrendered to the Black Flag Army. This kicked off the Sino-French war in 1884 which had lasted until 1886 . The Qing force sent 50,000 men that were armed in the latest guns ,and cannons. The French had sent 25,000 men underestimating the Chinese as a bunch of yellow rabble. The Black Army, and the Vietnamese Army numbered 40,000. They used a mixed force of guns, bows, swords, pikes, and cannon . Their first battle of Hanoi ended with a bloody victory for the Chinese. They had lost half of their men, but the French lost 10,000 KIA , 2,500 WIA. They had withdrawn to the southern part of Tonkin, hoping to relaunch an offensive to take Hanoi in August meanwhile the French fleet was attacking Foochow, and Taiwan.
The Chinese Fujian fleet ,and Guangdong fleet were smaller than then French Far east flotilla ,and they had wireless telegraphs for easier communications between themselves. The Fleet commander Li Hongzhen was a western educated naval officer. He wasn’t a new guy ,he was a veteran of the Opium wars as a ship commander. His flagship was a 2,000 ton cruiser ICS Zhenyang. The two fleets combined into 1 fleet of 30 ships which was smaller than the Far east squadron by 4 ships. They were going to get help from the two bigger fleets in a couple months. The French knew this ,and attacked them head on. What they didn’t expect was a lot of Chinese resistance.
The siege of Foochow lasted for months with marines trying to seize the base. The Chinese navy didn’t have any large battleships in their two local fleets. The ships had decided to launch diversions for the French fleet. He decided to attempt to jump them at night in the middle of the Taiwanese strait. The siege of Foochow wasn’t going well for the French they did lose two battleships sunk in the battle including Admiral Amedee Courbet died in his flagship Bayard. The French had also lost in an offensive in Hue therefore they were deciding whether or not to call a truce.
The only reason they called a truce was protest ,and strikes at home against the adventure in China. Napoleon IV emperor of the French decided to call a truce. His government decided to talk terms with China. The war stopped in April 5, 1886 ,as the Chinese took Saigon. It was a cease fire ,and the Treaty of Hanoi was in May 1 1886. There were three points France will pay 2 billion francs over 5 years to China. Tonkin ,Annam, and Cochin china will be part of Vietnam. Thirdly Vietnam was under Suzerainty of the Chinese Empire.