After the Sino-Japanese Sino-Japanese Naval Battle, the Qing official Song Yuren once proposed a plan to avenge Japan, which may achieve the goal of destroying Japan, but Cixi refused, and Song also lost his official position, causing China to miss an opportunity to stop Japan's rise, laying the groundwork for greater disasters in the future. So, what is Song Yuren's plan? If his plan is implemented, will it really have the desired effect?
Sino-Japanese Naval Battle
In China's tragic modern history, the world powers at that time carried out endless oppression of China, and the Qing Dynasty at that time was corrupt and incompetent, blindly retreating, and fueling the arrogance of the great powers. At that time, Japan, like China, was invaded by foreign countries. However, after the ascension of Emperor Meiji to the throne, Japan gradually became stronger and implemented a policy of foreign expansion after a series of reforms.
They had long ago formulated a plan to invade Korea and the Great Qing, and then in 1894, Japan took the opportunity of the Korean "Dongxue Party" uprising, under the pretext of helping the Qing to suppress, sent troops to Korea, and then captured the Korean Imperial Palace, blatantly carrying out aggressive actions.
Soon after, Japan's attention was also on Daqing, and soon, the "Battle of Jiawu" broke out. As a result, as we all know, the Qing Dynasty was completely defeated in this war, and the Great Qing State was forced to sign the Treaty of Maguan with Japan, which humiliated the country.
Song Yuren's judgment
Song Yuren was an early bourgeois reformist thinker in China, who in his early years, because of his academic excellence, worked in the Hanlin Academy of the Qing Dynasty, could not bear the oppression of the Qing Dynasty by the great powers, and began to study diplomacy, envoys to Europe, and began to study the development of foreign countries.
At the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War, Song Yuren was in England at the time, serving as a counselor of four European countries. When he heard of the defeat of the Qing Dynasty, Song was distraught and germinated the idea of revenge against Japan, proposed a bold plan and wrote to the imperial court.
Song Yuren has been studying abroad for many years and has a good understanding of the situation in various countries at that time, including Japan. He believes that Japan's land area is small, its resources are limited, and its industrial base is not so strong. If the Qing Dynasty and the Japanese state go to war at this time, Japan will not be able to persist for several years, and Japan will inevitably lose, which can be described as the prototype of a protracted war. Unfortunately, in the end, Song's letter was rejected by Empress Dowager Cixi, and Song lost his official position, which was a pity.
Song Yuren's plan
So, what is Song Yuren's revenge plan? First, under the guise of foreign missions, two thousand professional Australian soldiers were hired to attack Tokyo from the Philippines, and then purchased ships from Britain, formed a new marine division, and directly attacked the Japanese mainland.
This plan seems to be unattainable, but there is still some feasibility in careful analysis. When Song Yuren and several other important imperial court officials such as Zhang Zhidong began to conspire, the plan was learned by the imperial court, and Cixi and Li Hongzhang strongly opposed it.
In the eyes of a group of cixi people, today's Qing Dynasty is self-sufficient, only demanding and self-protecting, and the country is still stable. Because of Cixi's obstruction, Song's plan had to be stopped. Subsequently, Song was recalled, demoted, and returned to work at the Hanlin Academy.
Song Yuren's enthusiasm for serving the country was thus extinguished, and he lost an opportunity to delay the rise of Japan. The imperial court's obstruction of Song Yuren's plan this time is enough to see that the imperial court at this time is still "unrepentant" after experiencing several violations.
The upper echelons of the imperial court, headed by Cixi, had become accustomed to making peace through indemnities and had no sense of resistance, which was a sad thing.
Whether Song Yuren's plan can be realized
So, can Song's plan be realized in the end? In fact, Song's plan, while feasible, was unrealistic.
Even if things did go smoothly and according to plan, how could our army achieve victory after invading the Japanese mainland, with only two thousand hired men? Without the support of the imperial court, how was the marine division fleet formed? How to achieve logistical support?
Although Japan's resources are limited, after more than ten years of development, its strength can not be underestimated, even if it invades the Japanese mainland, how long can it last? This pile of pieces is a very real problem. However, victory or defeat was another matter, and the poor and weak Qing Dynasty had been suppressed without the courage to resist.
Song Yuren has such a plan, and he can already be regarded as a warrior. At least in that era of poverty and weakness, there was still a group of people with lofty ideals like Song Yuren, and in the following decades, more and more people with lofty ideals were constantly awakening and making various attempts at reform.
epilogue
After the Sino-Japanese War, after Japan received high reparations from the Qing Dynasty, the country had a large income, and Japan invested this huge amount of money in industrial construction. In the decades that followed, Japan continued to develop, turning itself into one of the industrial powers in one fell swoop, taking the first step in the war of aggression against China.
The Qing government was eventually overthrown by bourgeois revolutionaries, and the revolutionary wave in China gradually rose, and by 1931, when Song Yuren died, the whole of China was in turmoil, and the forces of all sides were constantly integrating. Until 1945, with the efforts of the people of the whole country, the Japanese invaders were expelled from our territory, which should be what Song Yuren hoped to see.