There is an American in history who has contributed great strength to the Qing Dynasty Navy, what kind of experience did he have?
In this article, I will talk to you about this topic.
The Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 was an eternal wound of the Chinese nation, Japan defeated the decaying Qing Empire, and the great powers set off a frenzy to divide China, as the current situation map said, there was Tsarist Russia in the north, France in the southwest, Japan in the east, british forces along the coast, and the Americans waited for the opportunity to divide a piece of good meat.
In this war, in addition to the vast number of heroic first-generation Chinese naval personnel, there was also an American instructor who gave his life to China, Ma Jifen.
Marguiffen set sail for China in 1885, when Congress was reluctant to invest too much money in the U.S. Navy because it was still small, so it sent many naval cadets home. Ma Jifen came to China with the idea of luck, but he did not know that he had dedicated ten years of his time to China.
Ma Jifen was introduced to Li Hongzhang by The Vice Consul Pai Quke, Li Hongzhang was very impressed by his knowledge, he not only spoke Chinese, but also exquisitely manipulated various naval instruments, and was very proficient in naval tactics, ship data and other navigational knowledge, but at that time Ma Jifen was only 24 years old, Li Hongzhang had some doubts about whether he could take on heavy responsibilities, so he arranged an exam for him. Due to the limited time, Ma Jifen could only barely pass, but the examiners were very satisfied with his performance, saying that he was the best foreign teacher hired by the Qing government.
In the Qing court at that time, the chief teacher of the Tianjin Water Master School was a fat man, and when he took this position, he could collect a large number of kickbacks from foreign companies from the purchase of arms and procurement materials, and he could earn a lot of money, but Ma Jifen never ate kickbacks, and he always did things impartially and did his best to serve the Chinese Navy. This made the cadets admire him, and Chinese officials entrusted him with the task of leading a mission to London to order new warships.
Li Hongzhang also took his advice to open the Weihai Naval Teacher School and appointed him as the chief teacher.
Once, he hosted a personal Thanksgiving dinner, and some of the Chinese naval officers even came from Hong Kong to celebrate with this friend.
At the age of 34, when China and Japan were on the verge of war, Ma Giffen could have taken a leave of absence to go home because he had not returned home once in the past decade. But he argues:
''China and Japan are about to go to war, and we are likely to say goodbye here, but I must stay in my post, and they have been kind to me for the past ten years, and it is a shame to leave them at this time.'' ''
So he stayed, changed from a teacher to an officer, and faced the bloody Yellow Sea naval battle. ”
In the Battle of the Yellow Sea, Ma Jifen's Zhenyuan was hit by the Japanese army, and Lin Tai was martyred on the spot, Ma Jifen still insisted on commanding after suffering heavy blows in the head, encouraging the Chinese soldiers to fight bravely against the combined fleet, under the command of Ma Jifen, the Beiyang Navy severely damaged the Yoshino, making it lose its combat effectiveness in the next battle.
Ma Jifen also witnessed the martyrdom scene where Deng Shichang commanded the Zhiyuan to be sunk to Songdo.
After the Battle of the Yellow Sea, the Qing government honored seven foreign officers who fought bravely for China, and Ma Jifen was awarded the Order of baoxing of the first class, wearing a flower plume and a third class.
After returning to China, Ma Giffen found that the American public opinion circles belittled his colleagues who sacrificed their lives for the country, portraying them as clowns and incompetent people with low quality, and Ma Giffin could not tolerate the slander of his friends who had heroically sacrificed, so he went around trying to justify his Chinese colleagues. However, at that time, the public opinion circle concluded that he had a brain injury, just nonsense, and the consequential hero press did not care about this at all, and seeing that his friends were misunderstood and slandered, Ma Giffin could not tolerate all this.
On February 12, 1897, Ma Jifen chose to commit suicide by drinking a bullet on the same day that ding Ruchang, the admiral of the Beiyang Marine Division, whom he admired, was forever with the heroic souls of his Chinese comrades-in-arms.