The Battle of Jiawu was once a disaster for the Chinese nation, and the powerful fleet lost to Japan, which was once considered a small country next to it. In fact, there is a misunderstanding that the average person will think that the Qing Dynasty is huge and the national income will be much higher than that of Japan. Therefore, the military expenditure for the Beiyang Navy is also higher than that of Japan. This is not the case, how big is the gap?
Let's first understand the fact that the Qing Dynasty Navy not only had Beiyang, but only Beiyang fought against Japan. And to say that the military expenditure of Beiyang does not represent the military expenditure of the Navy. However, because the Nanyang Navy is too weak, the majority of military expenditure is still in the Beiyang. Liang Qichao's "Biography of Li Hongzhang" once said: "One person is the enemy of one country." Li Hongzhang was the leader of the Huai Army, and the entire Beiyang Naval Division and the subordinate Liaodong and Shandong Coastal Defenses were under the jurisdiction of Li Hongzhang's Huai Army. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, there were many factions, so that in the war with Japan, only the Huai army participated in the war. The Huai Army was a local army that rose up during the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and this army was disarmed on a large scale after the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was pacified. Later, the Qing court found that although the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was suppressed, the country was still not peaceful. For example, the Huai Army, in order to ensure the safety of the Great Qing Sea Frontier, had to use the Huai Army. Many people in the Beiyang Water Division have a background in the Huai Army, such as Ding Ruchang, who was the admiral of the Water Division, who surrendered to the Huai Army as the former Taiping Heavenly Kingdom general. So, when it comes to the beiyang navy's military expenditure, how stingy is Daqing?
Since the beiyang marine division was founded in 1875, and since the beginning of the Sino-Japanese Naval War in 1894, in the 20 years of the Qing court, including coastal defense funds and coastal defense funds, various expenses were included. This still has to be included in the construction of coastal defense bases, such as the construction of coastal defense bases, the Beiyang Marine Division spent a total of about 37.96 million taels of silver, an average of almost 1.9 million taels a year. This amount of money looks like a lot, but it should be known that the Qing government's annual fiscal expenditure was about 80 million taels, which accounted for about 2.375% of the annual fiscal expenditure. This comparison is not to feel that there is very little. This account may not be intuitive, because Daqing is a big country. With such a large volume, there are more places where money needs to be used. There will certainly be people who say that this is not a lot. So, look at how much Japan has invested in the navy?
Japan's time from 1886 to 1893 and the Qing Dynasty's construction of the navy were small, but they have always been very invested. The proportion of naval military expenditure has always exceeded 10% per year. In these 8 years, the total expenditure of the navy reached 76 million yen, about 50.66 million taels of silver, which is 1.3 times the total investment of the Beiyang Marine Division in 20 years, and this account is 3.3 times if the average is annual. Many people feel that the average annual age is not fair, because Japan's construction time is short, and China's construction time is long. The Navy's ships are relatively slow to be replaced, and the later long-term maintenance is less, so the average is unfair. However, even compared to the total amount, Japan's investment is also much higher than that of the Beiyang Navy. The Beiyang Navy was formally established in 1888, and according to the American "U.S. Naval Yearbook", the fleet strength was once the first in Asia and the ninth in the world. Let's see who are the top eight? They are: Britain, France, Russia, Germany, Spain, Ottoman Turkey, Italy, the United States. It can be said that the Beiyang Navy built in that year is basically still very strong in Asia.
In addition to the insufficient investment of naval military funds, internal strife is also escalating. In the Qing Dynasty, the struggle between the imperial party and the later party also continued to escalate, and the most interesting thing is that Weng Tonggong's imperial party was the main battle, but did not control the army. Therefore, in the Sino-Japanese War, it was still necessary to rely on Li Hongzhang, who advocated peace talks, and these post-party parties to fight. It was precisely these various problems that led to the collapse of the Beiyang Marine Division.