Young people do not know Li Hongzhang, and grow up Fang knows the true middle hall. Speaking of Li Hongzhang, people have always been quite controversial about him, some people think that Li Hongzhang is a down-to-earth traitor, on the other hand, people think that Li Hongzhang is just born at the wrong time. Unlike the strange and funny questions cixi asked when he saw Western objects, Li Hongzhang's questions when he saw foreign buildings and Makqin machine guns were very professional.
Speaking of the late Qing Dynasty, Li Hongzhang is definitely a character that must not be said. He was born on February 15, 1823, and his intelligence and diligence in his youth allowed him to be appreciated by Zeng Guofan in 1844 (the twenty-fourth year of Daoguang) when he took the township examination. Zeng Guofan also personally gave him tutors, and here zeng guofan learned the classics that he would use for the rest of his life. In the third year of Xianfeng (1853), the Taiping Army rebelled, Li Hongzhang led the army as a scholar, and several years of regimental training made him understand how to become a good general.
The Huai army he formed made many people laugh at it, but Li Hongzhang proved that the Huai army was not so weak by holding Shanghai. Li Hongzhang also experienced the power of Western ordnance in actual combat, and under such circumstances, he replaced all the weapons of the Huai Army with foreign guns and cannons, and his combat effectiveness was greatly improved. From 1863 to 1864, Li Hongzhang led the Huai Army and the Xiang Army to destroy the Tianping Heavenly Kingdom, and after the war, Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang did something completely different. Zeng Guofan thought that the Xiang army might bring him disasters, so he insisted on cutting it. Li Hongzhang had different ideas, believing that both the Huai army and the Xiang army should be retained and used to resist foreign enemies in the future.
Due to the repeated defeats of the Qing court, they launched the Western Affairs Movement, and Li Hongzhang founded China's second modern military enterprise, the Shanghai Marine Gun Third Bureau, around 1863. He had calculated that a british shell would sell for thirty-two silver and ten thousand copper hat shells for nineteen taels. Then Li Hongzhang founded the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau, the Jinling Machine Manufacturing Bureau, and the Tianjin Machine Manufacturing Bureau in 1865, so Li Hongzhang, one of the four major military industrial enterprises in the early modern period, founded three.
Li Hongzhang's emphasis on the military is not only reflected in the opening of factories, he will also study new types of weapons. In the beginning, people used non-automatic guns, and the bullets needed to be loaded one by one, which was very troublesome. The Maxim machine gun was born in this context, which was invented by the Englishman Hiram Stevens Maxim in 1863. After many experiments, he successfully developed the world's first automatic rifle in 1883, and after improving it, he successfully manufactured it in 1884.
After the invention of this machine gun, many countries began to develop it, but in fact it was only in the trial production stage at that time. Someone also brought it to Li Hongzhang and used it in front of him, and Later Li Hongzhang became extremely interested in it. Because this can greatly improve the lethality if it is used, Li Hongzhang first asked the foreigner with this gun how many rounds it can shoot in minutes. After the foreigner told him that he could shoot six hundred rounds a minute, Li Hongzhang asked how much a bullet cost, and the foreigner told him that he needed 30 pounds.
After knowing the role and price, Li Hongzhang also began to develop it himself like other countries, and in 1888 he asked his Jinling Manufacturing Bureau to start imitating it, because this gun was imitated using a black lead bullet at that time, which was not so easy to use. Construction was discontinued in 1893. However, the Maxim heavy machine gun was later said to be a big hit in the First World War, when germany used it to kill 60,000 British people in a day, and since then countries have begun to equip the Maxim heavy machine gun.
What Li Hongzhang has always emphasized is that "training troops should give priority to the manufacture of weapons," and in fact he has done the same. He was indeed right to think so, but the Qing court was already so corrupt that even the military expenses of the water army could be used, not to mention the weapons they did not think it was necessary to buy? Many people criticize Li Hongzhang's wrong decisions, but in fact he has also made many moves to defend the country. He tried his best to safeguard the interests of the Qing court, but he was never able to change the fact that he was backward. The first time he saw the foreign edifice, he understood China's backwardness, and he did his best to save this country in danger, if he had been born in peacetime, he might have been a famous courtier.
References: "Biography of Li Hongzhang", "Li Hongzhang and the Modernization of China's Military Industry", "The Dream of Foreign Affairs: Li Hongzhang"