As the last feudal dynasty in China, the Qing Dynasty has always been spurned by the world. People turned a deaf ear to Qianlong's prosperous life, but they relished the closure of the country. Corruption, decline, traitor... These words became an inherent impression of the Qing Dynasty. This labeled history, countless people have participated in its writing, Cixi, Li Hongzhang, Xianfeng... These people have added a lot of color to this humiliating history. However, in addition to them, there was another person who had tried to save the Qing Dynasty from fire and water, this person was called "crazy" by Cixi, and he was Song Yuren.
Song Yuren's plan to sneak into Japan
Song Yuren is known as Sichuan's "first person to open his eyes to see the world", and the reason why he can see the world is that I think it is inseparable from his personal experience. In 1894, Song Yuren sent an envoy to Europe. During his stay in Europe, Song Yuren examined the political, economic, and social situations of foreign countries, and these contacts gave him a different view of the current situation in China, providing an opportunity for him to "attack Japan and save China" ideas.
However, since the government at that time was controlled by the peace-seeking faction, Although Song Yuren's ideas were supported by Zhang Zhidong, they were opposed by Cixi, Li Hongzhang and others. In this way, a plan that could change history had to be stifled in the "cradle".
The specifics of the sneak attack plan
Song Yuren was concerned about the country and continued to pay attention to the country's war trends during his travels abroad. At that time, it was the Sino-Japanese Sino-Japanese War, and Song Renzong saw that his country was in dire straits, so he thought of a way to put it to death and live later: Why wait for Japan to come to China to provoke a war, but not take advantage of Japan's inferiority to take the initiative to attack?
If Japan has military superiority and is inferior in local resources, if we can seize this weakness and take the initiative to launch a war in Japan, is there still room for reversing the situation?
Song Yuren believes that Japan is far inferior to China in terms of resources, and if it can transfer the battlefield to the Japanese mainland, drag Japan down, and then consume Japanese resources, presumably Japan will not be able to hold out for long. To this end, Song Yuren also formulated a detailed "sneak attack plan".
This plan was really unexpected, Song Yuren actually planned to buy warships from foreign countries and hire Australian sailors to pretend to be Australian merchants, and wanted to directly drive the warships to Nagasaki under the banner of "protecting the caravan" and attack Tokyo to play a "straight smashing yellow dragon".
"The ideal is very full, the reality is very bone", Song Yuren's enthusiasm has not yet been spilled, but it has been poured with cold water first. This basin of "cold water" was spilled by Empress Dowager Cixi. As a veteran "hedonist", Cixi would never let go of a good life and take the initiative to provoke a war that might cause her losses even more.
Therefore, Song Yuren ignored a crucial factor from the beginning, and his prediction of this war even lacked a prerequisite.
epilogue
It is true that Song Yuren came up with this method out of deep love for the country, and it cannot be said that this method is completely devoid of merit, but it is very difficult to really implement. Take the purchase of warships, the national treasury at that time was very empty, even Empress Dowager Cixi's birthday needed to "raise money" from the people, at this time, if you insist on buying such an expensive warship, it is bound to loot the people's fat and people's ointment, even if there is no Cixi and other people's obstruction, then the people will resist. Therefore, this idea is not so easy to implement, although it is different from Cixi's perspective of saying that he is crazy, but this idea is indeed a bit crazy.