As soon as the Qing Dynasty was mentioned, many people immediately popped up in their minds with the adjectives of decay, backwardness, corruption and incompetence. Indeed, since the end of the Qianlong Dynasty, the Qing Dynasty has begun to decline, and the policy of closing the country to the outside world has made the whole of China self-contained, and it has lost the opportunity to develop science and technology for hundreds of years.
It was not until modern times, when the artillery fire of the Western powers opened the country's door, that the Qing government did not know how to regret it, but unfortunately it was too late, and a series of unequal treaties on the loss of power and humiliation of the country were signed, which slowly pushed this useless Qing government to the brink of collapse.
In fact, after the door of the country was blasted open, the Qing government also struggled, and there was no road in our imagination to go black. The Qing government also wanted to resist the aggression of the Western colonists, but the equipment and technology could not keep up, and after several fruitless struggles, it slowly became a dead pig that was not afraid of boiling water.
The most obvious point is that the Qing government once engaged in a foreign affairs movement to save itself, and although it ended in failure, it can still see a hint of the Qing court's determination to resist. Moreover, although the Qing government did not have technology, the family foundation was still quite rich, and before there was indemnity, the national treasury was still relatively abundant. Without technology, you can buy it from Western countries.
It is precisely by spending money that the Qing government troops in the late Qing Dynasty were still very well equipped, and what Western-style rifles and mortars, the Qing army was actually equipped. It is not the image we imagine, holding a spear and a knife, fighting with the enemy in the flesh.
However, even if it was well-equipped, it had no combat effectiveness in the Qing army. Mainly because the corruption of the Qing government has reached its roots, the entire political system from top to bottom, all rotten, the army has nothing to defend the Qing court, the ambition to defend the country, is all scattered. This is also the reason why the equipment of the revolutionary army is not as good as that of the Qing army, but the Xinhai Revolution is still successful.
There is also a very vivid case, when the rich Qing government even imported several Krupp cannons, which were the most powerful cannons of the same era, known as the "King of The World Artillery". Produced by the German Krupp family, the cannon has a barrel length of 11.2 meters and weighs more than 49 tons.
At that time, the effective range of Krupp cannons was 20,000 meters, which was already far ahead of the range of that era. Especially within 3,000 meters, being able to penetrate anything, even a 65mm thick steel plate, is not difficult for the Krupp cannon. The most cattle is that it is not a single-shot gun, and the performance is reloaded and fired 2 rounds at a time, and the interval between 2 rounds is not more than 1 minute. Such equipment, let alone the revolutionary army, even if it is to fight the Eight-Nation Alliance, can also be opened to five or five.
But the reality is that these Krupp cannons were not fired in the hands of the Qing government. It turned out that by the end of the Qing Dynasty, the national treasury was already quite tight, and cixi's extravagant life was becoming more and more serious, and the Qing government finally did not even have the money to buy artillery shells. You know, the cost of a shell is quite high.
Therefore, when the Eight-Power Alliance invaded China and the Xinhai Revolution, the Krupp cannon became a "fake handle" that could not release the cannon, and until the final collapse of the Qing government, it failed to fire a single shot.
Later, when the War of Resistance Against Japan broke out, these Krupp cannons fell into the hands of the Japanese army, which of course had money to buy shells, which also became one of the powerful weapons of Japan's invasion of China. With these cannons, the Japanese captured one of our cities. Countless anti-Japanese martyrs and the ming people died under the cannon of the Qing Dynasty, which is really ironic.
It seems that even the most advanced weapons and equipment in the world cannot save a feudal incompetent and decadent Qing government. Although equipment is important, the most important thing in fighting a war is the people's hearts, without the hearts and cohesion of the people, everything is empty talk.