If both the money for the repair of the Summer Palace and the garden were allocated to the Beiyang Marine Division to buy warships, the outcome of the Sino-Japanese Naval Battle would be the same. Cixi did misappropriate funds for some other purpose, including all the things that had been done during this period in preparation for her birthday.
As for how much money Cixi embezzled for the construction of the Summer Palace, there are different theories, some say that it is 80 million taels, and in the "Kang Youwei Annals", it was changed to 30 million taels, but these claims have not been confirmed. However, we know that the cost of repairing the Summer Palace is very high, and it is recorded that cixi embezzled the cost of the navy of 5 million taels of silver. If you add other special funds, presumably more than 10 million taels is more than enough.
Then we calculate it according to 10 million taels of silver, which is not a small amount, and if it is used for the navy, whether it is to add new ships or buy equipment, it can increase the strength of the navy, which is an objective fact. But to understand the reasons for the defeat in the Sino-Japanese War, I am afraid that I will not think so.
As for the reasons for the defeat in the Sino-Japanese War, there are many reasons.
If we are specific to the Battle of Jiawu, we may wish to take a look.
Daqing was well aware of Japan's provocations and knew that Japan had invaded Korea with an iron heart. However, although Daqing was prepared, the gap with Japan was too big, and he did not dare to compete with the Japanese in his bones.
It can be said that for the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War, there was no unified thinking at all between the upper and lower levels of the Qing Dynasty, and it was not clear at all whether it was war or peace. This also led to delays in the fighter.
Cixi and the others were still thinking about their birthdays, although the scale had shrunk, but they were still very critical, and they did not know what a serious war situation they were facing.
After the outbreak of war, Li Hongzhang and others vigorously pursued the principle of "avoiding war and protecting ourselves," which led to defeat after defeat.
By contrast, the Japanese have been planning for a long time. Just as the so-called war of not fighting an unprepared war can be said to have eaten the Qing Dynasty thoroughly before the war.
If the root cause is the corruption and incompetence of the Qing Dynasty, that is to say, it is the Great Qing dynasty of industrial Japan crushing agriculture. At that time, Japan led the Qing Dynasty in almost all aspects, not only in the political system, but also in the military and technology.
If from this point of view, failure is already a foregone conclusion, and it is too whimsical to rely only on the tens of millions of taels of silver that Cixi embezzled to turn the tide of the war.