During the two Opium Wars, the gates of the Qing Empire were opened, and the great powers that entered the interior of the Qing Dynasty began to study this ancient country carefully. Among the researchers, the insights of U.S. Envoy Schaeffer are the most insightful and influential.
Foreigners taking photos with Qing officials
On January 1, 1882, Schaeffer discussed the Korean issue with Li Hongzhang in Tianjin, and after the meeting, he reported much of the information of the meeting to a senator in the United States, and proposed several articles of China policy accordingly. The report was to the effect that:
From ancient times to the present, this country has made the people believe that congwu is a disgraceful thing, and that congruence can bring real glory to itself and his family, which makes this nation lose the spirit of shangwu. In China, civilian officials are superior to military attachés, and military attaches are relatively subordinate. This has led to the fact that, even if there are armies, there is no chivalry, and there is no team spirit to create heroes and national leaders.
Late Qing army
The British served as the General Tax Department at the Great Clearance Customs, which was a strange thing. There was also a group of foreign officials under the British who controlled customs, commanded the guns and tax cruisers, and were responsible for maintaining facilities such as lighthouses. Everything that entered the Qing Dynasty from foreign countries had to go through the customs department, and in fact, the British had already controlled the commerce and diplomacy of the Qing Dynasty.
Some of the troops under the control of Governor Li Hongzhang were better trained, with a strength of about 35,000 men equipped with breech guns and field guns, hundreds of cannons, and modern heavy artillery on the turrets along the Bohai Bay coast. Although the army hired foreign instructors for training, soldiers were always sent around to work on public works, so soldiers always lacked sharpness and team spirit. As for the officers of the army, the senior officers are mainly appointed by Li Hongzhang, and the lower-ranking officers are hired and paid a monthly salary, which is similar to the hard labor service; as for the military tribunal, there is no such thing, and the reward and punishment all depend on the will of the superior. So it's not really an army in the full sense of the word.
In the suppression of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom movement, local forces have risen, contradictions with the central government have emerged, and in fact there has been a "political split" between the central and local governments. And this division permeated every aspect of the empire. Each of the 19 provinces of the Qing Dynasty had its own customs and languages, which were different or even opposed to each other, and each province was administered by a governor who was almost independent of the central government. The governors of the 19 provinces did not believe that they had a common cause, nor could they be made to fight for any common goal, so it was very difficult to build an army that had always belonged entirely to the Qing Dynasty.
The situation was worse for the Qing navy than for the army, which had four fleets, but they were independent of each other and lacked unity or unity. Li Hongzhang created a fleet of 12 warships in a year or two, which was highly efficient, but the main task of this fleet was not to deal with external challenges, but to protect Beijing. Through observation, Li Hongzhang did not understand naval construction, and in the Beiyang Marine Division, the smallest ships were actually equipped with the largest artillery, which was completely inefficient. Since the British held the position of General Tax Department, most of the warships were purchased from Britain, and the three subordinates of the General Tax Department were once "associate officers" of the British Royal Navy, so they served as naval advisers to the Beiyang Admiralty. However, when the navy arrived in Tianjin, a German official of the Tianjin Customs actually gained control of the fleet, and two French naval officers were also hired with high salaries, but did not specify specific points. People in the three countries look down on each other, are jealous of each other, and cannot play a real role at all. The Chinese officers, on the other hand, had no rank, no team spirit, no experience in maritime combat, no knowledge of the outside world, no courage, and some were corrupt, which negated the quality of this fleet and rendered the combat effectiveness of the Beiyang Marine Division worthless. In peacetime, the Beiyang Marine Division is a toy and boastful capital in the hands of Governor Li Hongzhang, and in the future war, this navy will become a victim.
Warship of the Beiyang Marine Division
In Schaeffer's view, the Qing Empire had various problems in politics and military, which led to the failure of the Qing Dynasty's efforts. Soon, in the Sino-Japanese Sino-Japanese War of 1894, Schaeffer's judgment was verified.
Sino-Japanese War