Napoleon famously said, "Spirit is better than force." "Before and after the Sino-Japanese War, the Qing Dynasty could not see a strong spiritual force. Guangxu and Cixi fought for power over peace, ministers disagreed for their own interests, and the common people were even more scattered and indifferent to war. After the Sino-Japanese War, a Japanese official went to Shashi, Hubei Province, and was surprised to find that the officials and the people here had never heard of the war that had just been fought. An Englishman who personally experienced the war said: "This battle is not a war between China and Japan, but a war between Li Hongzhang and Japan, and most of the Chinese are still ignorant of the war." Li Hongzhang also expressed his feelings, saying that he was "a master of the whole country with the strength of a corner of the Northern Ocean." So scattered and not gathered, the war can not be defeated!
In Japan, when the upper echelons decided to launch a war against The DPRK and China, the Japanese government and the parliament, which originally had great contradictions, immediately fought against each other. Under the persuasion of thinkers, many rich merchants said that "if they do not join the army, they must fulfill the responsibilities of the people" and have donated huge sums of money. The majority of the Japanese people, encouraged by the idea of "asserting national power," were also guided to support the war and participate in the war, thus achieving "the unity of national public opinion." From January 1894 to November 1895, 66 Japanese newspapers sent 114 journalists, 11 painters, and 4 videographers to report on the war, in addition to many military reporters sent by Chinese the military itself. By inciting hostility and hatred toward China and Chinese, Japan's nationalist sentiments continued to rise and went to extremes, completing its war mobilization. It was precisely the formation of the national consciousness that enabled Japan to truly use the "strength of the whole country" in the Sino-Japanese War.
In terms of the concept of war, China has always emphasized the cultivation of the world with benevolence and righteousness, and has a cautious and even disgusted attitude toward war violence. Zhu Yuanzhang, the grandfather of the Ming Dynasty, believed that the army and war were like poisons, and only when the state and society were sick would they be forced to use it to attack poison with poison. In modern China, from the Opium War to the Sino-Japanese War, the Qing Dynasty also showed a serious negative tendency in the planning and implementation of the war, always reacting passively, and on the issue of military reform, it was also a typical "good scar and forget the pain", which is undoubtedly inseparable from this pacifist military culture.
Japan, deeply influenced by its Bushido spirit and stimulated by the Western powers, quickly formed a more extreme militaristic view of war, and they even characterized this campaign as "civilization eliminating barbarism", so no matter what methods they adopt, they are in line with "righteousness" and "righteous war". In the face of this much bloodier and much stronger war culture, the inability of China's war culture has been fully demonstrated, and neither the officers and men on the battlefield nor the people in the rear have found spiritual motivation from it.
In terms of scientific and technological awareness, Chinese culture attaches great importance to the road and light weapons, and regards advanced science and technology as "strange tricks and tricks". In the mid-to-late 15th century, China invented and used the flowering shell for the first time in the world, but during the Opium War, Lin Zexu struggled to learn about the flowering shell technology from the British army. Twenty or thirty years later, Zuo Zongtang went west to Xinjiang and found the physical objects of the flowering shells left by the Ming Dynasty in Fengxiang, Shaanxi, and could not help but sigh: If "someone paid attention to this, why did the island people cross the sea and be proud of me for decades." Therefore, after the Beiyang Navy became an army that year, the technology and equipment were stagnant, and within a few years, they were overtaken by the Japanese Navy, forming a situation where the speed, gun speed and shell power were not as good as those of the Japanese army.
To reflect on the Sino-Japanese War, we must reflect not only on the strategic level, but also on the cultural level. Spiritual culture is the gene of human society, and the contest of culture is the deeper contest.