China is a country with a long history, with a history of 5,000 years, in ancient times, China's economic strength is very strong, is a well-deserved world hegemon, has absolute strength and status, has a great reputation in the world, and many neighboring countries have also come to seek asylum. Unfortunately, China was once very brilliant, but in the last years of the Qing Dynasty, because of the Qing government's closed-door policy, it led to serious domestic corruption, rapid economic decline and derailment with the world, it is for this reason that the industrial revolution was missed, and the industry of other countries continued to develop, while China was still stuck in its own way and did not make any progress. Under such circumstances, Li Hongzhang once predicted that if he wanted to be strong, he would first destroy this country, so who was this country?
Because of the corruption of the Qing government, the domestic people's livelihood can not be effectively developed, and at this time the Western powers opened the door of our country through artillery fire, China only then understood how big the gap between itself and other countries was, and was forced to sign a lot of unequal treaties, the Western government has understood that china's strength has declined to the extreme, so it has been attacking our country, and Li Hongzhang has long predicted at this time: if you want to be strong, you must first destroy this country, this country is Japan, but the Qing government at that time did not believe him. It wasn't until more than 100 years later that this prophecy was fulfilled.
There are also many different views on Li Hongzhang in history, because at that time many unequal treaties were signed by him and foreigners, so many people thought that he was a traitor to the country through and through, but some people said that if Li Hongzhang had not signed these agreements at that time, there would have been other people, and Li Hongzhang, as a weak scholar, was in turmoil throughout the Qing Dynasty, choosing to stand up and take on such a big responsibility, dealing with foreigners, and signing various unequal treaties with foreigners on behalf of the Qing court, the pressure to bear was enormous. Because facing not only the insults of the people at home but also the ridicule of foreign people, this is the most difficult and the most helpless.
When he signed the unequal treaty, he had predicted that the two neighboring countries of Russia and Japan would be the biggest stumbling block to the future development of the Qing Dynasty, and he clearly handed the imperial court a chapter at that time, saying that when the Western government invaded China, Japan's reaction was much faster than China's, indicating that Japan's military development was very good, and its sensitivity to war was also very large, which posed a huge threat to our country. However, because Japan was a small island country at that time, and the Qing Dynasty had to face the aggression of Western powers, many people did not take Japan seriously, felt that the country was not worried, and did not expect that Li Hongzhang's proposal was indeed fulfilled later.
During the Second World War, Japan launched a war of aggression against China, and it took 14 years for our country to end the War of Resistance Against Japan, and during these 14 years, the Chinese army and the Japanese army engaged in a fierce contest, and Japan carried out a large-scale aggression in our country, burning and looting everything, occupying a large amount of territory, and many ordinary people died on the battlefield. Not only that, Japan is also invincible on the Asian battlefield, invading and occupying many Southeast Asian countries, China has been competing with Japan, in order to win the war to pay a heavy price, and finally China's casualties in the war as high as 36 million, if the Qing Dynasty at that time could listen to Li Hongzhang's suggestions, suppress or prevent Japan, China will not face such a situation.
But fortunately, although Japan launched a war of aggression against China, in the end we still won the war, Japan has also been suppressed by the United States because of its defeat in World War II, until now has not escaped their control, China is now developing better and better, the military economy has been far stronger than Japan, and even can wrench the wrist of the United States, Russia and other world powers. However, we must not forget that Asia still has Japan, a country that is eyeing the tiger, and now that Japanese imperialism is also reviving, we need to pay more attention to his constant vigilance.