In the late Qing Dynasty, the Qing Dynasty had fallen, and at this time there were few ministers above the court who were concerned about the future and destiny of the country. In the eyes of these courtiers, the great powers were nothing more than competing for the land of the Qing Dynasty and plundering the money of the Qing Dynasty. They felt that as long as they met the needs of the great powers, after all, the Great Qing Dynasty was rich in things, and the leader was Cixi. Cixi did not want to fight the great powers at all, and even in her eyes, the Beiyang Marine Division was not as important as her own birthday feast. Although Cixi held supreme power, she did not think about the people or the country at all, so that the feudal Qing Dynasty soon collapsed.
Li Hongzhang painstakingly managed the Beiyang Marine Division for many years, but in the end he was defeated and defeated by Japan. At that time, most of the powerful people landed from the sea and entered the Great Qing Kingdom, so in the last years of the Qing Dynasty, people gradually paid attention to coastal defense, which led to the plan to build a Beiyang Marine Division. Of course, it was right to build a marine division and consolidate the coastal defense of the Qing Dynasty. Although Empress Dowager Cixi supported this initiative and entrusted this task to Li Hongzhang, a trusted late Qing dynasty official, the latter approach was not satisfactory. Empress Dowager Cixi did not have a sense of urgency at all, so that she embezzled naval funds many times, and finally the combat effectiveness of the Beiyang Marine Division could be imagined.
If the Beiyang Marine Division's military expenses are sufficient and the army is well-trained, with such equipment, the probability of victory in the Sino-Japanese War is still very large. When Li Hongzhang was running the Beiyang Marine Division, he was often worried about the military expenses of the water division, most of which were borrowed, and almost all coastal defense at that time used this method to raise military funds, after all, in the late Qing Dynasty, the national treasury had no silver or silver. But even so, Cixi was still worried about these military expenses, and later embezzled these military expenses when repairing the Summer Palace and when she held her own birthday banquet. When the Sino-Japanese War began, the Beiyang Marine Division could be said to have suffered a lot on the battlefield.
In the Battle of the Yellow Sea, the Qing army lost on the battlefield, and at this time there was a minister named Song Yuren, who wrote to the imperial court to bring the war to the Japanese mainland, so that the probability of victory was greatly increased. During the Ming Dynasty, the Wokou wantonly invaded the coastal areas of our country, so it was better to take advantage of this war and directly drive the marine division to Japan and fight on the Japanese mainland. In fact, Japan was determined to win the war against the Qing army at that time, because Japan's national strength at that time was not strong, and they wanted to obtain war reparations through a war and let Japan's national strength increase rapidly. Therefore, in the Sino-Japanese War, the Japanese army could not afford to consume, and their rear supplies were problematic, after all, when Japan launched a war and hollowed out the family foundation.
However, Cixi did not look at this recital, and at this time, Cixi only cared about herself. So is this method of Song Yuren feasible? In fact, it was feasible, and at that time he made a lot of preparations for going to Japan to fight. For example, several British warships were purchased, and thousands of foreign fighters were recruited, who were good at landing warfare, and if they were surprised, they would drive their chariots to Japan, which would launch a surprise attack and was likely to be victorious. In fact, at that time, Japan was relatively chaotic, social contradictions were very sharp, and even in many places there were peasant uprisings, if you take the opportunity to attack Japan, the Sino-Japanese War will not be defeated, let alone compensate Japan with huge amounts of silver.
However, these are just Song Yuren's imaginations, and they have not been put into practice at all. At that time, the government of the late Qing Dynasty was very corrupt, And Empress Dowager Cixi did not support it, and the other ministers were not easy to say anything. In fact, Song Yuren's war plan was appreciated by many ministers, such as Zhang Zhidong and Liu Kunyi. After the defeat in the Sino-Japanese War, Song Yuren felt that his ambitions were difficult to reward, and Later Cixi criticized the purchase of warships on his own initiative. Because there were more ministers involved this time, in the end, Song Yuren's "fault" was not pursued, which shows that the imperial court at that time had fainted to this point, and the demise of the Qing Dynasty was also doomed. After returning to China, although Song Yuren did not accept punishment, he rarely paid attention to political affairs in the second half of his life, and devoted himself to writing books and sayings.
Song Yuren's conception of warfare was completely reasonable, but it was not recognized by the imperial court. So why could Song Yuren think of such a way of fighting? This person had been studying abroad before, had traveled to many countries, and during his time as a counselor abroad, Song Yuren learned advanced foreign ideas. He knew that if the thinking of the Chinese people did not change, it would be difficult to save the situation in the Qing Dynasty. Therefore, after Song Yuren returned to China, in Sichuan, he actively called on the local people to study advanced ideas, and in order to better disseminate ideas, he founded the far-reaching newspaper "Yu Bao" in Sichuan and Chongqing, which greatly promoted the dissemination of advanced ideas in the West.
Song Yuren was a staunch patriot, and he did this mainly to save the Stormy Qing, but his enthusiasm was not valued by the imperial court, and he eventually missed the fighter. Imagine if this strange army had entered Japan by surprise, the Japanese would certainly not have thought of it, and if they were fighting on the Japanese mainland, coupled with the serious contradictions in Japan, the Japanese army would not have the capital to wage a long war, and the Qing army might have won. However, history does not assume that in the end, the Qing Dynasty cut off the land and paid compensation, and this battle was really too small.