China has been going on for thousands of years, and there have been all kinds of naval battles. Naval warfare refers to the battles fought by the two warring parties with the navy as the main body and mainly in the sea, and according to the main state, it can be subdivided into two types of naval warfare: maritime offensive warfare and maritime defensive warfare. I believe that everyone has heard about the Battle of Jiawu, right? The Beiyang Naval Division and the Japanese Naval Division fought fiercely in the Yellow Sea, and each of them sent 12 ships, and as a result, the Chinese side retreated to Weihaiwei with five ships sinking into the sea and 800 casualties, allowing the Japanese army to control the yellow sea.
It can be seen that the victory or defeat of naval battles sometimes has a great impact on the current situation. What factors contribute to naval warfare? Now please turn your attention to the late Qing Dynasty, the late Qing Dynasty to fight naval battles, what is the situation? It can be summarized in sixteen words: more defense and less attack, more defeat and less victory, the situation is not good, and if it does not work, run. What causes this? Before exploring this question, we can first look at the history of naval warfare in China.
Above_ Sea coachman – The Netherlands
Foreign aggression and naval warfare
Historically, the obvious impact on China was the naval battles caused by the Westerners and the East. After the Age of Discovery, europeans extended their colonization to all parts of the world, while the Portuguese and Dutch first set their sights on China. In the face of this threat, Chinese choose to bravely confront it.
As early as 1521, Wang Feng, the deputy envoy of Guangdong Haidao, fought a naval battle with the grape people in Tuen Mun. The Portuguese possessed new guns and other weapons, and concentrated 12 large "centipede ships" with long-range, high-precision artillery. Wang Was not equipped as well as the Portuguese, and his first attack failed. Then Wang Feng bribed the Portuguese sailors and with their assistance made Flang machines, and adopted the method of fire attack, setting fire to the Portuguese ships, and finally won the victory.
The Flang machine is a large rear-loading cannon made using European technology during the Zhengde period of the Ming Dynasty, and the equipment reached 3800 in 1537
In 1623, the Dutch landed and colonized Taiwan. The Dutch plundered gold and silver, trafficked in human beings, slaughtered the people, and did nothing wrong, and the people of Taiwan failed several times to resist. In 1661, Zheng successfully landed at Lu'er Gate. The Dutch were well equipped and sent the ships Hector and the speedboat Malia to attack the Zheng army. The Zheng army's ships were small and refined, and one ship was equipped with two artillery pieces, bravely facing the Dutch attack and finally repelling the Dutch army.
It can be seen that since the Ming Dynasty, China has had to consider the threat of foreign aggression along the coast.
In the Qing Dynasty, the long-imposed sea ban ensured political stability to a certain extent, but when the uninvited guests, the British who claimed to be the empire that never set, sent people by boat, the Qing Dynasty was doomed to no peace. The late Qing Dynasty was forced to be involved in many naval battles, such as the Battle of Majiang, the Battle of Zhejiang East, and the Battle of the Yellow Sea, so it also began to pay attention to the construction of the navy. The Beiyang Marine Division of the late Qing Dynasty was known as the first water division in Asia, but in the late Qing Dynasty, when it encountered naval battles, it was always more defensive and less offensive, and even escaped, and rarely showed the courage to resist to the end.
Above: Lushunkou in the last years of the Qing Dynasty (c. 1903)
Here's an example. Everyone knows about the Sino-Japanese War, right? In this war, the Japanese army will invade Lushun. At this time, the generals in charge of defense in Lushun Military Port were Jiang Guiti and Huang Shilin, who belonged to different factions and could not control anyone. But the foreign enemy is about to invade, and there must be a general. These generals pushed Jiang Guiti out as commander-in-chief and were responsible for deploying commands. But Jiang Guiti was helpless in the face of the Japanese attack, and he was terrified and only wanted to find help. Of course, in order to show that he had made a difference, Jiang Guiti still proposed the defensive strategy of "preparing multiple forces and dividing points", that is, dividing the Qing army into multiple parts to guard different areas. As a result, this defensive measure was in the hands of the Japanese army, because the Qing army was not concentrated, and the Japanese army could break through each one.
In addition to the commander of the nest, there is also a "hidden marshal" Gong Zhaojie. Jiang Gui also proposed a self-made clever defensive strategy and expressed his willingness to defend, while Gong Zhaojie tried to escape from the battlefield on the pretext of "transporting grain and rice by commercial transportation" and requesting assistance, but of course this act of avoiding war was prevented by Li Hongzhang. During the Battle of the Yellow Sea, there were also incidents of warship escape. The "Jiyuan" flew away while hanging a white flag, and in order to avoid the pursuit of "Yoshino", he was forced to attack "Yoshino" with artillery shells, and finally was able to return to weihaiwei military port.
The above example can be seen that when the late Qingshui Division encounters the enemy, it generally does not choose to take the initiative to attack, but mainly on defense, and if the situation is not good, it will choose to escape. But why didn't the Late Qing Shui Division fight to the death?
Above_ The cruiser Jiyuan
Second, the reason for the tendency to defend or flee rather than attack
1. "Artifact" cause
An important reason why the late QingShui Army was so "instigated" was that there was a large gap between the late Qing Dynasty and the enemy's weapons. Take, for example, the Battle of Majiang in the Sino-Lismarine War. In terms of the number of cruisers, the French held five, a full four more than the Qing army, and the displacement of French cruisers was in the range of 3,000 tons to 4,000 tons, more than twice that of the Qing cruiser Yangwu. In terms of fleet equipment, when the Qing army was equipped with small-caliber and lethal smoothbore guns, the French fleet's large-caliber breech rifles were flaunting their might, and the French army also had Hatchkais rapid-fire machine guns and torpedo boats, which the Qing army did not have.
In terms of machine power, the French ships that have undergone the baptism of the industrial revolution use steam-powered composite machines, while the technology of the Qing ships is not enough, and they can only use vertical machines and horizontal machines. In terms of armor protection, armored belts or bulletproof bulwarks are the standard for steam engine gun guns on French ships, while the key parts of the Qing ship are "wood", and the protection ability is very poor. There is a saying that "it is difficult for a woman to cook without rice", even if the late Qingshui Division wants to win the battle, the equipment does not seek to lead, but it must keep up.
The late Qing navy was inferior to that of foreign invaders, which was the external cause of its naval defeat. In addition, attention should also be paid to the internal causes of the failure of the late Qing Navy.
Li Hongzhang (February 15, 1823 – November 7, 1901)
2. "Institutional" reasons
The "Re-shu Keelung Tamsui Military Letter" once recorded the situation of the late Qing navy being independent, saying that although the late Qing Dynasty had established a naval fleet, there was no unified command of the fleet, and the localities were independent, and it was difficult to dispatch at critical moments. For example, during the Sino-French Naval War, the Fujian Marine Division requested Li Hongzhang to send assistance from the Beiyang Naval Division, but Li Hongzhang refused to send troops in the name of protecting Qifu. The French lone fleet once blockaded the Taiwan Strait, and the Qing court ordered the Nanyang Marine Division and the Beiyang Marine Division to come to support, but the Minister of The Southern and Northern Oceans received the order and unanimously prevaricated the matter on the grounds of insufficient equipment and coal. The Qing government also noticed the hidden dangers of the navy being difficult to dispatch.
So in 1885, the Qing government established the Navy Yamen to try to unify the command of the local fleet, but the local governors regarded the naval fleet as private property and were unwilling to submit to the management of the naval yamen. Huang Tifang, the left attendant of the military department who managed military affairs, once impeached Li Hongzhang for this reason, saying that Li Hongzhang's Beiyang Water Division was not the water division of the Navy's Yamen, but Li Hongzhang's personal water division.
Above_ The Beiyang Naval Charter formulated by the Navy Yamen
In the late Qing Dynasty, even the system of unified deployment of the navy was not established, and the marine division was generally isolated and helpless in the face of naval battles, and in order to preserve the power, the marine division must have either prevented or fled in a naval battle.
It is worth noting that there are also great problems in the training system for officers and men of the army in the late Qingshui Division. Zhang Zheyu, a Beiyang "Coming Far" ship, pointed out that the Beiyang Admiralty exercised a gun target, and the ship moved the target without moving. Shen Shoukun pointed out that the Beiyang Marine Division's practice only seeks to be neat, and "the training is still a fur." It can be seen that the Beiyang Water Division, the strongest of the late Qingshui Divisions, only pays attention to neatness and good looks when practicing, and is not pragmatic in retreat. But naval warfare is brutal, and playing tricks will only lead to defeat. It is human nature to seek fear of death, and in this case, the sailor will weigh himself in the face of a strong enemy, and rarely take the initiative to attack.
Above_ A group photo of the officers and men of a warship of the Beiyang Marine Division
3. "Thought" reasons
The above two reasons are the two reasons that prompted the Late Qingshui Division to show cowardice in naval battles, and of course, the ideological backwardness of the late Qing rulers was also the reason for the poor performance of the Late Qingshui Division.
At the national level, the rulers of the late Qing Dynasty lacked the concept of "sea power". In 1890, U.S. Navy Colonel Mahan's "The Impact of Sea Power on History" pointed out the concept of "sea power" that controlled and used the sea to make the country prosperous. For a long time, the Qing government did not have the concept of sea power.
During the Sino-Japanese War, the focus of the Beiyang Fleet was to hold the "Beiyang Pass". Japan attaches great importance to the struggle for sea supremacy in the Yellow Sea and often takes the initiative to attack. In the late Qing Dynasty, there was no concept of sea power, so it was not painful to lose the ocean, but only felt that it would cost extra manpower and material resources to defend the ocean, and it would not be beneficial. Japan, on the other hand, had the concept of sea power and a sense of expansion, so the navy was more effective. The lack of the concept of sea power made the late Qing Dynasty mainly defensive in naval battles and did not take the initiative to attack. It was not until 1908 that the Qing government began to "formulate sovereignty within the territorial sea boundary", but it was too late.
Above_ Lin Zexu (30 August 1785 – 22 November 1850), courtesy name Yuanfu
In terms of political tradition, defense has always been the mainstream of coastal defense in the late Qing Dynasty. During the Opium War, Lin Zexu and Wei Yuan put forward the view that it was better to guard the outer ocean than to guard the sea mouth, and it was better to guard the sea mouth than to guard the inland river. In the eyes of Lin Wei and Lin Wei, the inland river is the most important, the sea mouth is second, and the outer ocean is the least important.
In 1874, in the face of a new situation under greater pressure, Li Hongzhang, a minister of power, pointed out that the focus should be on the defense of the Gyeonggi region and the Yangtze River Valley, and the late Qingshui Division was weak, and it was only suitable for defense in combat, and should be attacked by defending. How to do it defensively? The idea of Li Hongzhang and others is very interesting. Li Hongzhang thought so: The two ironclad warships of "Dingyuan" and "Zhenyuan" should have "raised their might on the sea" during the Taiping Period, and when there was a war, they would "take in the sea mouth and fight with defense." The problem was that the two ironclad ships not only had the ability to fight in the ocean, but also had a strong offensive power, because Li Hongzhang was too conservative, so he went from an attack weapon to a defensive weapon.
Author: Xia Zhen Correction/Editor: Lilith
References: Analysis of Coastal Defense Maps of The Late Qing Dynasty Naval Battle and Discussion on the Causes of Military Defeat, Zhang Yanxin, Jilin University, 2019
The text was created by the History University Hall team, and the picture originated from the Internet and the copyright belongs to the original author