If cixi hadn't stopped him, this crazy man almost hit Tokyo, added a four-island province to the map of China, and rewritten the history of the world later!
However, when Cixi learned of his crazy idea, she directly accused him of causing trouble and demanded that he immediately stop the plan.
It was this woman who spent the money the Navy used to buy warships on her birthday. The opportunity to overturn China's reversal was rejected again, and the Maguan Treaty was signed with Japan, which greatly deepened the degree of semi-colonial and semi-feudalization of China and completely lost the ability of the Qing government to overturn.
However, the Qing government could not be saved by one or two victories, and at most it was to survive for a while and then wait for the next bigger defeat. What the Qing court needed was not a victory, but a complete and complete change!
And this crazy man named Song Yuren is known
The first person in Sichuan to open his eyes to the world
！
He had long realized that if he wanted to stop being bullied by the great powers, he would have to learn advanced ideas and carry out reforms, so he attached great importance to diplomacy. When many people were fighting in the imperial court, he was far away from the political center and sent to Europe and looked forward to it. After learning about the history of Europe, he discovered.
There are many small countries here, because of reform, because of the restoration of the law. Their national power became far greater than that of a country, and this success was clearly replicable.
A typical example is the Japan in Asia, which began the rapid rise of the Meiji Restoration by learning from the West, and then used its growing national strength to gradually abolish the unequal treaties signed with the Western powers and get rid of the crisis of colonization.
And when they reach a certain level, they set their sights on the rest of Asia. After all, the reason why the Western powers were strong at that time was because of colonization, and at that time China was undoubtedly one of the few countries in the world that did not become a colony and was weak, and the most important thing was that it was close to Japan.
So they took the initiative to provoke the war, and the Sino-Japanese war broke out completely during Song Yuren's mission in Europe. Song Yuren, who is familiar with the history of the western powers, knows that Japan is following their example. If China wins, it will be fine, but if it fails, it will be miserable. However, he knew that if a small country wanted to rely on war and colonization to make a fortune after the reform, it must meet a condition.
That is, the country he invaded must be very weak, and the Qing government at that time, although it was not strong, could not be said to be weak.
In 1888, the Beiyang Marine Division was recognized as the ninth in asia in the world, and if the strength of the country was used against Japan, it was simply a grasp of the hand, even if it could not win the drag, it could drag Japan to death. So he wrote to the Qing government:
The soldiers are short of money, and they last long enough to be trapped!
However, he still overestimated the Qing government, or overestimated Cixi, when the Beiyang Marine Division first engaged the Japanese Navy, although the losses were not small, but the Japanese warships took the lead in escaping. Originally, the Beiyang Marine Division planned to take advantage of the victory to pursue, but Li Hongzhang ordered to stop the pursuit, and this was undoubtedly the arrogance of others to destroy their own prestige, and soon after the Japanese army made a comeback, China and Japan carried out the Battle of Weihaiwei, this time the Chinese side was no longer the opponent of the Japanese army at all, the Beiyang Fleet was completely destroyed, and the Japanese army had also entered the territory of the Qing Dynasty.
In fact, at this time, the Qing Dynasty still had the strength of a war, because many of those Eight Banner Masters fled before the battle, so the losses were not very large, and there were many people who understood that japan's depleted military resources were difficult to replenish, and now they were only fighting with war, once the Japanese offensive was blocked, then they would be powerless to follow, and it was not impossible to launch a counteroffensive when the time came, and even invade the Japanese mainland, so they suggested: behead the deserters, reorganize and resist the Japanese Kou!
However, the Qing government was really too weak, and Li Hongzhang, the master and faction figure who held the power of the imperial court, did not intend to continue the war from the beginning of the war, and after the successive defeats of the Road Army and Navy, they had no intention of resisting, but only bent on peace.
They have repeatedly asked Japan to negotiate,
At this time, however, the Japanese no longer unilaterally pursued military victory, but tried to gain greater benefits from the peace talks with the Qing Dynasty
。 In simple terms,
Japan feels that the chips in its hands are not enough
。
In the end, the Qing government said that japan agreed to negotiate at any cost in exchange for an armistice.
Before Japan agreed to negotiate, Song Yujin, who was abroad, had an almost crazy idea. That is, when Japan attacked China with national strength, he led a surprise attack on the Japanese mainland.
If it succeeds, then the Japanese army will become a lone army, and it will be destroyed sooner or later. Even if it failed, it would allow the Japanese army to retreat, so that the Qing government would have a chance to breathe. And the idea is very feasible, Song Yuren plans to buy five small ships, ten torpedo boats, and hire two thousand Australian sailors to form a surprise army.
At that time, Japan greatly admired the Western powers, and Australia belonged to the British king, this strange army was Australian, they pretended to be Australian merchants, and then hung the British flag, close to Japan no one dared to stop the inspection, when the time came to directly attack japan's ports and capital Tokyo, the battleships were ready, the fighters were also properly recruited, it can be said that everything is only owed to the East Wind.
However, Song Yuren still underestimated the weakness of the imperial court, after his plan was known to his superiors, Li Hongzhang, who advocated peace, directly opposed it, Cixi also added the charge of causing trouble to Song Yuren, and ordered him to be summoned back to China to wait for the fall, Song Yuren's plan to attack the Japanese mainland was stillborn, he knew that the Qing government was so weak that it was no longer saved, he could only sigh and wrote the "Borrowing Record" on the way back home.
In March 1895, the Qing court signed the Treaty of Maguan with Japan, which humiliated the country, and Japan also received sky-high compensation, with 200 million taels of silver alone.
What is the concept of 200 million taels, he can buy 320 flagships of the Beiyang Navy at that time, not to mention the 200 million taels of silver, that is, Cixi's birthday, embezzled 7 million taels of silver from the Beiyang Naval Division's military expenditure, which is enough to buy 11 Beiyang flagships, and at the time of the Sino-Japanese Naval Battle, the Beiyang Naval Division only had 12 warships.
In 1888, the Beiyang Marine Division was ranked first in the world at the forefront of Asia, but from its establishment to the eve of the Sino-Japanese Naval Battle, the Beiyang Naval Division did not renew a single shot and a bullet for six years, let alone the renewal and maintenance of battleships, because the naval expenses were used by Cixi to engage in pomp and circumstance.
It is said that at that time, the main Japanese warship, the Yoshino, was originally a ship booked by the Beiyang Marine Division, and the deposit was paid, but later because Cixi could not afford to buy the battleship for the birthday of the Beiyang Marine Division, the British sold this warship that the Qing government did not buy to the Japanese. In order to buy this battleship, the Japanese emperor and the empress fell out of their homes, and even a Japanese woman sold herself to donate money! Just to buy this battleship.
The Qing government was in stark contrast to Japan, cixi spent money on several warships on a birthday, and the Maguan Treaty was not just reparations, this treaty can be said to be a loss of power and humiliation. It has brought unprecedented national crises to the Chinese nation and greatly deepened the degree of semi-colonization of Chinese society; on the other hand, it has made Japan's national strength stronger and laid an important foundation for it to become a great power.
At the same time, the Qing Empire only had the name of the empire left, and the great powers realized that this was not a great power at all, just a piece of fat to be slaughtered, so the great powers took the opportunity to set off a frenzy to divide China, the Chinese nation fell into an unprecedented crisis, and then the Eight-Power Alliance invaded China, the Qing government was forced to sign an unequal treaty again, and China was completely reduced to a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society.