Ding Ruchang's journey from the position of a descending general of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom to the position of the admiral of the Beiyang Marine Division was really uninspiring, but full of helplessness in the official field at the end of the Qing Dynasty. In that era of change, only the Qing Dynasty could have had an unusual event such as the reuse of Ding Ruchang. It can be said that the reuse of Ding Ruchang is not only a tragedy of the Official Game of the Qing Dynasty, but also the tragedy of the Beiyang Marine Division, and the tragedy of Li Hongzhang and the tragedy of the Great Qing.
Let's first take a look at Ding Ruchang's life experience before he rose to prominence as a Beiyang Marine Division.
Ding Ruchang was also a bitter origin, attending a private school for three years in his childhood, but then dropped out of school due to his family's poverty, and since then he has been working for short-term workers, doing rough work and making tofu for a living. Later, there was a famine in his hometown, and his parents died of illness one after another, so Ding Ruchang threw himself under the door of Cheng Xueqi, the general of the Taiping Army. Because of the bravery of the battle, it is very important. In 1861, Cheng Xueqi surrendered to the Xiang Army and became a subordinate of the "Nine Marshals" Zeng Guoquan. After that, every time Zeng Guoquan fought, he would let Ding Ruchang be the guide, saying that it was reused, but it was better to let him be cannon fodder.
After the First World War in Anqing, Li Hongzhang established the Huai Army, and Cheng Xueqi and Ding Ruchang were assigned to the Huai Army camp. Ding Ruchang commanded the cavalry to fight bravely, and was soon promoted to the rank of chief soldier. Later, he had a conflict with Liu Mingchuan, the "first inspector of Taiwan", and was almost killed, so he could only avoid disaster and go home. After staying at home for a few years, Ding Ruchang once again went to Li Hongzhang, hoping that the governor directly under the governor and minister of trade and commerce in Beiyang would arrange a job for him.
After some conversation, Li Hongzhang suddenly felt that this former cavalry Qianzong was very "cute". Ding Ruchang is a native of Lujiang County, Anhui Province, and Li Hongzhang is a native of Hefei, Anhui Province. Moreover, Ding Ruchang was a down-to-earth person and had extreme respect for his superiors, even to the point of some blind obedience. Li Hongzhang was in the whirlpool of the official field, in order to run the navy, almost offended everyone in the imperial court, and he very much needed a person who completely obeyed his own orders, as an extension of his own hands and feet, to run errands for himself. And Ding Ruchang is undoubtedly a very suitable candidate. Therefore, Li Hongzhang put forward two life suggestions to Ding Ruchang: First, draw a clear line with Liu Mingchuan, don't think about entering the DPRK as an official, and be at ease with yourself; second, he is preparing for the navy and lacks a commander. If Ding Ruchang can study in Britain, the position of naval commander will be his in the future.
The first suggestion, Ding Ruchang did. Originally, he was not the kind of person who had all the exquisite faces, and he did not have the capital and means to mix in the official field of the imperial court, so he did not have to bother with that; but the second suggestion, Ding Ruchang did not do it. It was indeed a little difficult for him, a man who had only attended a private school for three years, to study the navy abroad. Li Hongzhang also understood, so he helped him push away Zuo Zongtang's transfer order to Ding Ruchang and left him by his side.
Ding Ruchang pressed the table first, and first said the Beiyang Marine Division.
Li Hongzhang, as the first person to understand the official field in the late Qing Dynasty, knew that running a navy must start from talent. So he set up a ship administration school very early, and recruited a large number of young talents from Fujian, Guangdong and other places for training. After graduation, he sent a group of high-achieving people to study in the Uk. Among them are Lin Taizeng, Liu Butou, Sa Zhenbing, Fang Boqian and other well-known admirals. After studying abroad, these people have opened their eyes and seen the world, and their outlook on life and world outlook have been greatly improved. However, after all, they were selected by the Qing Dynasty and had to come back to become naval officers. At the beginning of the formation of the Beiyang Marine Division, these students who stayed in the ocean served as the pipe belts of each main ironclad ship.
However, the officialdom of the Qing Dynasty was a big dyeing vat, and even the purest people could not be left alone in this turbid environment. Among the Beiyang Marine Division, some factional struggles gradually appeared. There are roughly two "parties," one is the "Min Party" headed by Lin Taizeng and Liu Butou, and the other is the "Guangdong Party" headed by Deng Shichang. The rivalry between the two parties has a great impact on combat effectiveness. More importantly, these students who studied abroad had insight, and they were not at all in tune with the old ministers in the DPRK and China, and even questioned Li Hongzhang's instructions. Li Hongzhang was aware of these circumstances, so he ignored the opposition of many people and forcibly supported the obedient Ding Ruchang to become the commander of the Beiyang Marine Division.
From the above description, it can be imagined what kind of situation Ding Ruchang can be when he arrives at the Beiyang Water Division. Those who stayed in the ocean naturally looked down on this cavalry commander who had not drunk foreign ink, and conflicts between the two sides were inevitable. However, Ding Ruchang was capable in this regard, and under his control, the Beiyang Marine Division, who was originally young and vigorous, gradually became obedient. In the end, what method he used, anyway, the author is not very clear, but it should be related to Li Hongzhang's support behind.
Uniting all the forces that can be united is Ding Ruchang's ability. However, this kind of ability is more suitable for being a "political commissar" than for being a commander-in-chief. He did not lack bravery, but he did not have a big picture view, was too obedient to Li Hongzhang, and finally destroyed the Beiyang Marine Division.
After the Dongxue Uprising in Korea, relations between Japan and the Qing Dynasty intensified. Or rather, the Japanese are becoming more and more determined in their determination to fight. In the Qing Dynasty court, almost everyone's eyes looked at Li Hongzhang to see if the Beiyang Marine Division he personally created was really invincible in Asia. But sorry, just to see. If there is a problem and I hope they will come to their aid, then don't think about it. Li Hongzhang's colleagues regarded him as an opponent on the road to promotion, and the emperor and empress dowager regarded him as a potential factor of instability, hoping that he would lose something in the future battle. Therefore, some people said that Li Hongzhang was: "One person is the enemy of a country." ”
Of course, Li Hongzhang knew that the Beiyang Marine Division and the Huai Army had become a superficial decoration, and the situation was very miserable, and it was difficult to win the battle against Japan. So what is the tragic situation? To put it simply, there are a few: The hull of the Beiyang Marine Division warship has been lacking maintenance for many years, and its performance has been greatly inferior to before; Ding Ruchang has repeatedly mentioned that it is necessary to equip itself with rapid-fire guns, but the result has not been successful under the disturbances of other ministers; the shells used by the warships of the Beiyang Marine Division are produced at the Tianjin Ordnance Institute, and the shells are inconsistent with the caliber of the main guns and cannot be loaded; the coal used in the engine boilers of the Beiyang Marine Division is the eight-channel coal of the Kaiping Mining Bureau, with a low combustion rate, a lot of cinder, and large coal smoke, which makes the Beiyang warships, which are already inferior in speed, even more slow. On the other hand, the Japanese combined fleet, their coal is also from the Kaiping Mining Bureau of high-quality five-channel coal... The seemingly powerful Beiyang Marine Division has been tossed into the "maritime honor guard" by the Qing Dynasty themselves.
Li Hongzhang understood this, so at the beginning of the Sino-Japanese War, his order to Ding Ruchang was always to "protect the ship and avoid the battle." Ding Ruchang also faithfully carried out this order, giving up the opportunity to take the initiative to attack the Japanese troop carriers and seize the initiative in the war. If the Beiyang Marine Division attacked troop carriers, or went to the Japanese mainland to harass, it would disrupt the rhythm of the Japanese combined fleet and thus take part of the initiative. At that time, the commander of the Japanese combined fleet, Ito Yuheng, was most afraid of the Beiyang Marine Division, so he took the initiative to make a move to "attack the west with sound from the east" and constantly sent warships to invade China's coastal defenses, and Li Hongzhang could only order Ding Ruchang to go back and forth to make up for defenses, tired of coping. At the beginning, Xiang Yu, the king of Chu, was killed by Liu Bang with this trick, and now, the Beiyang Marine Division has also embarked on this road. Later, the Japanese warships made a fierce disturbance, and Li Hongzhang simply ordered the Beiyang Marine Division to cruise only offshore.
It is said that with the ability of Liu Butou, Deng Shichang, and others, they should not be unaware of the dangers of this strategy. But under Ding Ruchang's suppression and mediation, they finally did not have a chance to speak out. By the time of the Battle of the Yellow Sea, the Beiyang Marine Division was already exhausted and could only be slaughtered. So Ding Ruchang committed suicide, the Beiyang Marine Division was gone, the Sino-Japanese War was lost, Li Hongzhang went to Japan to negotiate, relied on the "cooperation" of the Japanese youth to make a "bitter meat plan", and finally extinguished the flames of war at the cost of ceding Taiwan Island and its affiliated islands, the Penghu Islands, and compensating 200 million taels of silver.
We cannot say that Ding Ruchang was guilty of the Sino-Japanese War, after all, the reuse of him was entirely Li Hongzhang's ducking on the shelves. Ding Ruchang's ability and character were simply not suitable for independently commanding a large army. It cannot be said that Li Hongzhang is guilty, and he has no way to make a difference in the environment where everyone is hostile to him. It can only be said that the Qing government at that time was that virtue, under the leadership of Cixi, it was obvious that it was already weak, but it was still blindly arrogant every day and immersed in its own infighting. Although no snowflake was innocent at the time of the avalanche, the main person responsible for the weakness of the evening sun was still in the palace.