The Opium War enabled the Qing government to open a semi-colonial and semi-feudal modern history, then the Sino-Japanese War completely broke the Qing government to pieces, and the rapid decline of the Qing government began with the Sino-Japanese War.
The Sino-Japanese War brought an unprecedented crisis to the Qing government, and imperialism accelerated the process of invading China, and eventually the invasion of China by the Eight-Power Alliance broke out.
As early as 1874, Li Hongzhang had predicted that there would be an early and late war between China and Japan, and stressed the construction of modern coastal defense, so why did he lose the Sino-Japanese War after twenty years of painstaking preparations?
Judging from the defeat of the Opium War, China's modern coastal defense is lacking
Many people have a prejudice against the Qing Dynasty, believing that the Qing Dynasty is a regime that is afraid of war, in fact, this is a big mistake, the Qing Dynasty has always attached importance to foreign wars, and with the Qing Dynasty, it has never stopped wars.
In order to quell the rebellion of the Dzungars in the northwest, the Qing Dynasty defeated it after the three dynasties of Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong, which was not difficult.
During the period of the Opium War, the Qing government also did its best to resist, and before the defeat, there was no intention of reconciliation, and every time it was a fight until it could no longer fight before signing a contract.
Since the Qing government was so experienced in fighting wars, why could it still not resist the invasion of Western powers?
This is because since the Qing Dynasty, the focus of national defense construction has been on land defense, and the sea has been regarded as a natural danger, and since the Opium War, the forces threatening the Qing government have not come from land, but from the sea, which the Qing government could not face.
Li Hongzhang is understandable to say that this is a change that has not been seen in a thousand years, after all, before the Opium War, there had never been such a powerful enemy from the sea.
At that time, it was not that the national strength of the Qing Dynasty was inferior to that of the British, and from the military level alone, the defeat of the Opium War was that the Qing government did not have the awareness of coastal defense and did not have the idea of establishing a navy.
Using the thinking of land defense to defend against the enemy at sea, the result is that everyone has fought from Guangzhou to Tianjin, and the results of the battle in Guangzhou have spread to Beijing. (A bit of an exaggeration)
From the 1874 "Haiphong Preparatory Fold", we can see Li Hongzhang's prediction of Japan
After the outbreak of the Opium War, various countries signed treaties with the Qing government one after another, especially what made the Qing government unacceptable was that from 1871, Japan began to provoke in Taiwan, and in 1874, it launched the Peony Society Incident, which shocked the Qing court, so the Qing court asked Li Hongzhang and others to find a way.
Therefore, Li Hongzhang proposed the "Haiphong Preparatory Fold", which is more than 10,000 words long and demonstrates in detail the necessity of China's coastal defense and how to build modern coastal defense.
In the text, Li Hongzhang bluntly said: "The mouths of the rivers and seas, the opening of the doors, have been a public place for me and the enemy." "Coastal defense has arrived" seems to be defenseless. ”
In the process of Japan's revitalizing taiwan, the government was able to solve the problem under the pressure of public opinion of foreign powers by mobilizing the army and purchasing advanced artillery.
However, Li Hongzhang creatively proposed, "If you prepare for hesitation in advance, the soldiers will not dare to come, and the defense of Wude can be slowed down for a day!" In other words, if it is fully prepared in advance, Japan will not dare to attack.
From the beginning, it can be seen that Li Hongzhang's understanding of Taiwan's affairs and the settlement of this incident is not that Japan is afraid of us, but that Japan is afraid of the Western powers, but the great powers will not always be on our side, and once Japan rises, the great powers will also throw a rat trap.
If you want to be invincible in the future war, you must first rectify coastal defense, strength is the last word!
The great debate on coastal defense triggered by Li Hongzhang's "Preparing for the Fold of Coastal Defense"
After "Preparing for the Fold of Coastal Defense", Ding Richang then wrote the "Coastal Defense Regulations" which was a supplement to Li Hongzhang's coastal defense ideas, in which Ding Richang introduced the Crimean War, the American Civil War, and the Franco-Prussian War in the world at that time, and once again emphasized that "the seven southeastern provinces approaching the sea are the ones who can start at night"
The outbreak of the Peony Society incident made those who did not understand coastal defense also know that it was necessary to strengthen the construction of coastal defense, and from this point of view, Li Hongzhang or Ding Richang was like nonsense.
Therefore, this strengthening of coastal defense construction is not the key to the problem, the key to the problem is still in terms of money. It is also him to buy a ship for the construction of modern coastal defense, and it is also him to buy five ships, which depends on how much silver it costs.
At that time, the representative of the Sai Defense Faction, Zuo Zongtang, who was using troops in Shaanxi and Gansu, was a relatively enlightened person, and he said that coastal defense should indeed be built, which was questioned by the mother, and the key was that while strengthening the construction of coastal defense, we should not delay the military expenditure in the northwest.
In response to Zuo Zongtang's statement, Li Hongzhang simply said that the northwest was originally a desolate place, and spending a lot of military expenditure on it every year simply did not pay off the loss.
At that time, Li Hongzhang put forward a famous analogy, which probably meant that Gyeonggi was compared to the heart, and the northwest, northeast and other frontiers were compared to hands and feet, without naval garrison, the heart was directly taken out, and without hands and feet, at least it could still live.
This is also an important reason why people have been attacking Li Hongzhang.
Coastal defense and cyprus defense must be grasped with both hands, and both hands must be a hard border defense strategy
Generally speaking, around 1874, the coastal defense faction and the Cypriot faction engaged in a fierce debate, some people said that they attached importance to coastal defense and abandoned cypriot defense; some people said that they paid attention to cypriot defense and gave up coastal defense; others said that they should first engage in coastal defense and then engage in cypriot defense; and some advocated first engaging in cypriot defense, and then engaging in coastal defense.
In short, just like the tongue twister, every day in the imperial court ink to ink, and finally the Qing court adopted the strategy of coastal defense and cypriot defense at the same time, both hands must be grasped, both hands must be hard.
From the current point of view, the Qing court's approach is undoubtedly correct, in line with the current values, and no aspect can be easily abandoned.
The so-called Sai defense is to continue to support Zuo Zongtang in carrying out the western expedition, and the so-called coastal defense is to build a navy in the south and north seas.
In the gap between the Pacification of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement and the Two Opium Wars, it was also during the internal adjustment of the world's capitalist powers that the Qing government was given an excellent opportunity for development, which is what we call Tongzhi Zhongxing.
During this period, the Western Expedition led by Zuo Zongtang achieved a victory rarely seen by the Qing government in modern times, recovered Ili, stabilized the situation in the northwest, and ensured the barrier in the northwest of the Qing court, without any worries.
Zuo Zongtang's reputation also reached its peak, in addition to the Western Expedition is the Qing court's naval construction, but also made great progress, in 1888 the Beiyang Marine Division was built, in terms of displacement is the first in Asia, the eighth navy in the world.
At that time, the Beiyang Marine Division also went to Japan to show off its might, and the Japanese Navy really felt the pressure from the Qing government, and immediately strengthened the investment of naval funds.
Hundreds of millions of silver to support the Western Expedition and four million two a year of the Beiyang Marine Division
So how much did Zuo Zongtang's western expedition cost, becoming a deal that Li Hongzhang didn't think was a good deal?
From 1866, When Zuo Zongtang began to march northwest, until the end of the Western Expedition in 1881, Zuo Zongtang handled a total of four reimbursement cases, adding up to 92.51 million taels, plus other special salaries, it can be concluded that Zuo Zongtang's entire military expenditure on the Western Expedition was above 100 million taels of silver.
Many people may not have any concept of this hundred million taels of silver, the Qing Dynasty from Kangxi to Daoguang years, more than a hundred years of northwest military use, the total number of military salaries was more than 33 million taels, while Zuo Zongtang fought for 14 years, spending three times.
After Japan signed the "Yantai Treaty" with the Qing court, Japan's threat to the Qing government has become greater and greater, and at that time, the navy constantly urged Li Hongzhang to buy ironclad ships to strengthen coastal defense, and Li Hongzhang really could not raise funds in the imperial court, because the places where money could be raised were basically blocked by Zuo Zongtang.
The biggest controversy over Zuo Zongtang's military expenditure in the west was that he borrowed 23 million taels of principal and interest from the West as collateral by customs taxes, of which as much as 8 million taels of interest alone.
The Beiyang Marine Division was completed, spending thirty million and two silver to build the world's eighth (displacement is not real strength), and then the annual funding for the Navy was four million two, Beiyang two million, Nanyang two million (originally five million, of which one million was given to Cixi to repair the garden), Nanyang Minister Shen Baozhen thought that two million was not enough to do anything, simply give it to Beiyang.
The defeat in the Sino-Japanese War was, in the final analysis, the result of not paying attention to coastal defense
From 1888 onwards, the Beiyang Naval Division ushered in its peak, but since then the Beiyang Naval Division has never added a warship, and in 1891 the Qing government proposed a policy of suspending the purchase of naval arms for two years, which was actually to stop the renewal of naval equipment indefinitely.
Many people have concluded that the Qing government system was not good when the Sino-Japanese War was defeated, the morale of the army was insufficient, and so on, in fact, from the perspective of equipment alone, in the era of rapid development of the navy at that time, there was no addition of a ship and a cannon for six years, how could it beat others.
Japan has long seen this gap, in 1894 the naval strength is not as good as yours, then I will fight again in 1895, not in 1895, then I will fight again in 1896, anyway, your navy is stopped.
The reason why this nonsensical arms cessation plan appeared in 1891 was the product of the internal struggle of the qing court rulers, Cixi Xiuyuanzi was on the one hand, but from 1891 to 1894, it was only three years, occupying only three million naval funds, which was not as much as the eight million interest borrowed by Zuo Zongtang for the Western Expedition.
At that time, the Guangxu Emperor was pro-government, and in order to let Guangxu gain power as soon as possible, Qingliu, headed by Emperor Guangxu's teacher Weng Tonggong, not only repaired the garden to make Cixi happy and let Cixi move out of the Forbidden City, but on the other hand began to suppress Cixi's right-hand man Li Hongzhang.
However, Weng Tonggong could not influence the entire government, especially at that time, Qingliu also attached great importance to Jiangshan Sheji, and they would definitely not accept the bad policies of the Qing court, in fact, when the imperial court proposed to indefinitely shelve the imported gunboats of the navy, no one in the entire Qing court except Li Hongzhang spoke out against it.
The entire imperial court believed that as long as the navy was built, it could take on the heavy responsibility of coastal defense.
Insufficient understanding of coastal defense is the fundamental reason for the defeat of the Sino-Japanese War!