Li Hongzhang's delivery of the Beiyang warship to Nagasaki deeply stimulated the national psychology of the Japanese, and conservatism deprived the Qing Dynasty of the opportunity to "strangle the Japanese Navy in its cradle." All of Japan gritted its teeth, from the emperor down to the ordinary people, fully prepared to take revenge on the Beiyang Navy.
The Nagasaki incident hit the door
On August 1, 1886, also in the twelfth year of the Qing Dynasty, Ding Ruchang, the admiral of the Beiyang Admiralty, and The Chief Instructor Xi Langweili led four warships, Zhenyuan, Dingyuan, Weiyuan, and Jiyuan, into the port of Nagasaki in Japan.
Due to the long voyage of the ironclad ship, there will be marine life attached to the bottom of the ship, which will affect the sailing speed and damage the bottom of the ship. The Qing court's Port of Lushun had not yet been completed, so Li Hongzhang asked Ding Ruchang to take four warships to the Mitsubishi Shipyard in Nagasaki, Japan, to maintain the oil and make a "goodwill visit" to Japan.
For the first time, the citizens of Nagasaki, who saw the Chinese ironclad giant ship crowding the docks and watching the dragon flag flying on the giant ship, the Japanese people were amazed, envious, and full of indignation.
The crew members were watched by the citizens of Nagasaki who had never seen the market for 12 days, and on August 13, the Japanese side watched these pilgrims from the sky always holding back on the ship, these military masters had money, let them come down to stimulate consumption, promote economic growth. So he took the initiative to invite the officers and men of the ship to the shore.
Ding Ruchang watched the crew hold their breath at sea for so long, and when they came to the dock, they were locked up by him for 12 days, which was really inhumane, so he went down the Steps of the Japanese and allowed the soldiers to come ashore.
There were no women on the warship, and the exhausted sailors rushed ashore to nagasaki's red light district, and after coming to a brothel, the boss said that the business was too good, you had to queue.
But the Beiyang sailors saw that the Japanese did not have to queue up to go directly in, they went forward to find the boss theory, but because of the language barrier, what to do here, what to do here, there is to extinguish the butterflies, the Beiyang sailors who want to burn themselves are not high in cultural attainment, they think it is not very civilized, and soon the two sides developed from relatives greetings to crowd brawls.
The Japanese police rushed over to maintain order, and as a result, one of the policemen was killed by the sailor KO.
The Japanese have suffered losses in their own territory and will certainly not be willing. Moreover, you Qing Dynasty sailors said that it was a "goodwill visit", but in fact, they came to show off their might, and now those who have killed us must take revenge.
On August 15, the Japanese police, in coordination with the Japanese ronin and citizens, surrounded the Beiyang sailors who came ashore again, and the sailors came ashore without weapons, so they faced the heavily armed Japanese with their bare hands.
But in the end, the Japanese police were killed by the marine division, 5 people were killed, more than 30 people were injured, and 10 Qing sailors were killed and 44 wounded.
The unarmed Beiyang Marine Division, facing surprise attacks, heavily armed Japanese police and Japanese ronin, and the disadvantages of away combat, this record is also acceptable.
After returning to the warship, the entire sailors were enraged and aimed 12 huge cannons at the city of Nagasaki, of which the chief instructor, the grumpy Englishman Lang Weili, was the most angry, and he ordered the shelling of Nagasaki and the killing of the Japanese navy.
"Act on the same day, put the Japanese Navy in a bad place"
However, Ding Ruchang, a big man in the Qing army, blocked Lang Weili's order, and he hurriedly asked Li Hongzhang how to deal with it.
Lang Weili also hurriedly sent a telegram to Li Hongzhang, demanding that war be waged against Japan.
The beard in the middle is the Englishman Lang Willi
When Li Hongzhang learned of this, he was very angry and summoned the Japanese consul in Tianjin Hatano and said: "It is not difficult to start a war. Our ships are anchored in your country, and the hulls and guns are indestructible and ready to be put into battle. ”
This threatening sentence is saying: Do you see if my knife is fast? You see, is it fast or not?
At this time, the Japanese Navy was just getting started, and it did not have a full-fledged naval fleet, nor did it have its own naval shipyard.
The four warships of the Beiyang Marine Division parked at the doorstep of the home were giants for the Japanese, and Zhenyuan and Dingyuan were built by German shipyards for three years, which was the largest warship in the Far East at that time.
At this time, the Japanese Navy was vulnerable in front of the Beiyang Admiralty, and if the war was launched according to Lang Weili's ideas, at least the Japanese Navy would not be able to slow down for decades.
But Ding Ruchang's conservatism deprived the Qing Dynasty of the opportunity to "strangle the Japanese Navy in its cradle."
Eventually, the Japanese gave in.
In February 1887, China and Japan signed an agreement that Japan would compensate the Qing government for 52,500 yuan, the Qing government for 15,500 yuan for Japan, and the japanese side for the medical care expenses of Nagasaki Hospital for 2,700 yuan.
Both sides unanimously concluded that the language barrier had led to the misunderstanding, so the perpetrators were left to their own governments.
Treated as a disgrace and vowed revenge
This matter is regarded as a great shame and humiliation by the Japanese, and it is intolerable that you foreigners come to our territory to do things and finally ask your own country to apologize for reparations.
The "China threat theory" has become the mainstream public opinion in Japan.
"Vigorously developing the navy" has also become a consensus in Japan.
"We must defeat Dingyuan" as the goal and slogan of the Japanese Navy.
Beginning in 1890, Japan invested 60 percent of the country's finances in the construction of the army and navy, and in 1891, Emperor Meiji allocated 350,000 yuan from his own court funds, and then one-tenth of the salaries of officials, and devoted all his strength to catch up with the Beiyang Marine Division.
Japan's first Prime Minister, Ito Hirobumi, was inspired by the Emperor to give speeches in various places, asking "patriots" to follow the emperor's example and start crowdfunding donations for the Navy.
Within half a year, a huge amount of 2 million yuan was raised, which not only made up for the shortage of government finances, but also set off a strong military boom throughout the country.
Even the most popular game for Japanese children is divided into two groups, one group dressed as the Beiyang Fleet, the other group dressed as the Japanese fleet, and the main theme of the game is to besiege Dingyuan and Zhenyuan.
One thing goes on and on
The Nagasaki incident is considered by some to be the Qing court's first diplomatic victory after the Opium War, but in the eyes of the Japanese, it is no less than a diplomatic invasion.
At that time, Japan was unable to defeat the "first power" in Asia and in the process of modernization, which made the Militarist ideology of the Japanese government and the opposition toward colonial expansion more and more intense, which indirectly made Japan strengthen its armaments and expand its army, and the Japanese Navy, which was deeply stimulated, was even more ruthless: We must defeat Dingyuan!
In 1875, the Guangxu Emperor specially ordered Li Hongzhang to found the Beiyang Marine Division, and ordered four 320-ton "mosquito ships" in Britain through Hurd.
From 1876 onwards, the military expenditure of the Beiyang Fleet was 3 million taels of silver, which lasted for ten years, and by 1886 the military expenditure of the Beiyang Fleet had dropped to less than 2 million taels of silver.
Japan's military expenditure has been growing rapidly, from 1886 to 1890, the Japanese navy invested only 750,000 yen, about 500,000 taels of silver (at that time, 12 silver was equivalent to 1.5 yen).
In 1891, at the behest of Emperor Meiji, the naval expenditure reached 2.5 million yen, or about 1.7 million taels of silver.
In 1893, the year before the sino-Japanese War began, Japan's military expenditure reached a staggering 23 million yen, of which the army expenditure was 15 million yen, about 10 million taels of silver, and the navy expenditure was 8 million yen, about 5.3 million taels of silver, excluding the emperor's court expenses and 10% of the salaries of officials.
Before the Sino-Japanese War, Japan completed its naval armament plan within 10 years and built a modern navy with 35 warships and 20 torpedo boats.
Since 1888, the Beiyang Navy has not added a single warship.
Japan's navy, which was built by the emperor's diet, the salaries of hundreds of officials, and the donation of "patriots", not only slightly surpassed the Beiyang Fleet in terms of total tonnage, but also surpassed the Beiyang Fleet in terms of overall configuration, maneuverability and attack power.
After the Beiyang Fleet stopped updating, Japan followed the pace of European navies and continued to innovate, and the newly purchased warships had a huge advantage in front of the Beiyang Naval Division.
Li Hongzhang sent the Beiyang warship to Nagasaki, which deeply stimulated the national psychology of the Japanese, and all of Japan gritted its teeth and prepared to take revenge on the Beiyang Navy.
Professional manager Lang Willi
Langville was born in England in 1843.
At the age of 14, he entered the Royal Naval School, and at the age of 16, he entered the Imperial British Navy for an internship, and has been serving in the British Navy, successively serving as warrant officer and major.
In 1877, the Qing government purchased ships from britain, and Lang Weili led the fleet to China as a captain to deliver goods, but did not return to Britain after the incident, and spent two years in Hong Kong.
In 1878, Lang Weili came again to deliver the goods, and by the way, as a foreign consultant, he helped train the sailor for a few days, during which time Li Hongzhang met this diligent and skilled British soldier.
At this time, Li Hongzhang had just established the Beiyang Marine Division, the warships were all bought from abroad, and the navy lacked talents, so it was urgent to invite a foreign military adviser, and Lang Weili, who happened to come to Tianjin to deliver goods, entered his field of vision, so he was ready to arrange an interview for him.
After the interview, Li Hongzhang found that this young man from the class could be worthy of a big responsibility, and decided to dig the corner of the British Navy with a high salary and offer a sky-high monthly salary of 600 taels of silver.
Today, it is equivalent to about 180,000 yuan.
The salaries of the entire Beiyang Marine Division are so "hao" inhuman, admiral Ding Ruchang has an annual salary of 8400 silver (2.5 million yuan), the general Liu Butou has an annual salary of 3900 silver (1.2 million yuan), the deputy general has an annual salary of 3200 silver (1 million yuan), the electrician has an annual salary of 360 silver (110,000 yuan), and the first-class artillery has an annual salary of 240 silver (72,000 yuan).
Like the foreign aid of the Chinese Super League in the previous two years, Lang Weili was moved, and the money that could not be earned in several lifetimes in Europe was obtained when he came to the Qing Dynasty and held a position.
But he prescribed three conditions:
(1) The right to dispatch Ben Yong shall be exercised. It means that you must have real power, and you can't fool him as a foreigner.
2. Leave must be sought from the British Admiralty and granted. I'm just taking time off to work part-time, not to give you a lifetime of work.
3. The Chinese side must negotiate with the British Admiralty to regard his service in China as the length of service at sea, which cannot affect his promotion in the British Navy.
The three conditions were quite harsh, especially the third condition, but Li Hongzhang was thirsty for talents and immediately negotiated with the British Admiralty, but the Admiralty did not want the active officers to train the army for the Beiyang Marine Division, and the other was a part-time job and wanted to eat both ends.
The matter is deadlocked.
It was not until three years later, when the British minister to China, Wittema, and customs officials Hurd and Jindenggan came forward to carry out activities that things took a turn for the better.
In the autumn of 1882, Lang Weili took up a part-time post as deputy admiral, the chief inspector of the Beiyang Navy, responsible for the organization, training, education and training of the Beiyang Navy.
His arrival is almost like C Ronaldo playing in the Chinese Super League, the technical and tactical level is several grades higher than that of the Asian Navy, he governs the army strictly, works diligently, instills the british navy's rules and regulations among the officers and men of the fleet, and has a serious discipline.
Lang Weili devoted a lot of effort to the training of the Beiyang Navy and showed a strong sense of professional ethics and responsibility.
Admiral Ding Ruchang was the titular commander-in-chief, but he had never played a modern navy, but only showed the field to Old Li Tou, and all the exercises and management were Lang Weili.
He himself also believes that "the foreigners who benefit the most in the water division are Lang Zongcha as the first."
When the Sino-French War broke out in August 1884, Langville recused himself from declaring neutrality by the British government and took a leave of absence to return to China.
When he returned to China in January 1886, Li Hongzhang raised his salary to 700 taels of silver per month.
In August, the aforementioned Nagasaki conflict broke out.
Although Lang Weili was a foreigner working part-time in the Beiyang Marine Division, this unit was trained by itself, and now it was bullied into its own people, and it was necessary to kill them.
He strongly advocated a declaration of war, and according to his ideas, directly hit the Japanese Navy, which was preparing to build a shipyard, for decades.
However, Ding Ruchang, who was watching the scene, rejected Lang Weili's suggestion with the idea that it would be better to have no merit than to make a mistake, and Li Hongzhang did not heed Lang Weili's request to declare war, so Lang Weili was disappointed.
Although he is in an important position, after all, he is a migrant worker, and the boss's decision cannot be influenced.
The Great Qing missed the best opportunity, and the Japanese Navy was on the verge of rising.
The opportunity to change the fortunes of the country has been given to you, and you are useless.
When Lang Weili saw this, he simply did his job well, so as not to say that I had come to cheat money.
After another four years, Lang Weili, who was paid a high salary, kept the Beiyang Navy in good order.
Battle of hearts and minds A fierce defeat
In 1887, Lang Weili was sent by Li Hongzhang to Germany and Britain to receive the four fast ships "Zhiyuan", "Jingyuan", "Jingyuan" and "Laiyuan". With "Jingyuan" as his flagship, he raised the admiral banner to command until he arrived in Xiamen to meet Ding Ruchang.
In December 1888, the Beiyang Admiralty, which welcomed four new ships, officially completed the formation of the Beiyang Fleet, during which Lang Weili had always wanted to fully control the fleet, but the Qing government did not trust him as a foreign professional manager, although the fleet had always been managed by him, but Ding Ruchang, who watched the scene, was the actual controller, and the soldiers also complained about the strict management of Lang Weili, Lang Weili planned to resign several times, feeling that it was too special to bully foreigners.
In March 1890, the contradictions finally intensified.
On February 24, Ding Ruchang led part of the navy out on a tour of Hainan. On March 6, the flagship "Dingyuan" suddenly lowered the admiral flag, and Liu Butou raised the flag of the general army.
According to the Beiyang Naval Charter, the fleet has only one admiral and two general soldiers.
There was no deputy governor, and Lang Weili was blinded by Chairman Li Hongzhang's small workplace tricks for many years.
Lang Weili believed that although Admiral Ding had left, as a deputy admiral, he should continue to raise the admiral's flag in the fleet.
But Liu Butou did not recognize his position as deputy governor.
So he sent a telegram to Chairman Li, and Li Hongzhang chose to support Liu Butou.
At this time, Lang Weili could not understand that the Beiyang Fleet was formed, the training system had matured, and Li Dong began to feel sad about 700 taels of silver per month.
Lang Weili, a 47-year-old professional manager, looked back at the Beiyang Fleet, which he had trained with one hand and paid countless painstaking efforts, and returned to Britain with a sigh.
In past history, this passage has rarely been mentioned.
After Lang Weili left, the Beiyang Fleet's armament and military discipline were abolished, and the training system began to collapse, laying the groundwork for the total annihilation of the army four years later.
After Lang Willi returned to England, the more he thought about it, the more angry he became, and in the face of this humiliation, he could not bear to swallow his anger and began to publicize his humiliating experience in China in Britain, causing an uproar.
On November 4, the British government rejected Li Hongzhang's request to hire another British as naval adviser and withdrew some of its employees in China, announcing that it would no longer accept Chinese naval students.
Without the strict management and systematic training of Lang Weili, the Beiyang Fleet ushered in the Sino-Japanese Sino-Japanese War under the leadership of Ding Ruchang, who was born in the army.
In August 1894, the Battle of Jiawu, the Beiyang Fleet was almost completely destroyed.
Ding Ruchang and Liu Butou committed suicide by swallowing opium.
Japan completes its revenge against the Beiyang Navy.
On November 13 of the same year, the Qing government finally remembered Lang Weili and asked Lang Weili for help in Britain, asking him to come to China quickly.
However, Lang Weili demanded that the Qing Dynasty must make him the supreme admiral of the navy before agreeing to support, and how could the Qing court, who wanted face, hand over a country's navy to foreigners, so he refused.
In February 1904, Langville was awarded the rank of vice admiral by the Royal Navy.
On 15 December 1906, Lang Ville died in England.
Stand in the ranks of the powerful
The Sino-Japanese War can be said to have gambled on the fate of the entire country.
The resource-poor Japan budget for the Sino-Japanese War reached 280 million yen, and once the war was defeated, the entire country would go bankrupt, so Japan could be said to challenge the Qing Dynasty with national strength.
On the other hand, the Qing Dynasty was still in a state of ignorance, and although Cixi and Li Hongzhang had the right to plot, they did not read the overall situation of the world situation at that time.
In addition, it also involves the dispute between "Cypriot defense" and "coastal defense" in the last years of the Qing Dynasty, the decadent Qing Dynasty can be described as wavering on this issue, and the starting point of the two sides of the debate is not considered from the perspective of national defense interests, which is more mixed with factional struggle and various forms of corruption, and cannot form a unified concept of national defense. Sea power is important, but sequestration is fundamental.
When we look back at history now, we have opened up the perspective of God, and in the high-level of the Qing court at that time, due to the influence of tradition, vision, long-term isolation of the country, and other factors, no one can really read and understand the overall situation of the world.
Japan knows very well that if the Japanese people want to stand up and develop their national strength, they must hammer the Qing Dynasty to death, and they can hammer more and more deaths.
After the victory of the Sino-Japanese War, the Qing government paid 200 million taels of silver to Japan, 30 million taels of ransom fees, and the Qing government paid 500,000 taels of occupation fees every year for the Japanese occupation of Weihaiwei, totaling 232 million taels of silver.
In addition, 1.2 billion tons of coal, about 200 million tons of iron ore, about 2 million tons of copper, about 200,000 tons of aluminum, and other minerals were plundered.
From currency to materials, Japan made a profit of about 500 million yen in the First Sino-Japanese War, becoming the largest upstart in Asia.
For the first time, Japan tasted the sweetness of aggression and greatly stimulated their desire to expand their invading territory.
When Lang Weili went to the Beiyang Navy to work part-time, the British still had a slight illusion about the Manchu Qing, supporting the Manchu Qing as a pawn against Russia, but seeing the humiliation of Lang Weili and the fiasco in the Battle of Jia-Wu, the decaying Manchu Qing was thrown into the trash by the British, looking at the rising Japan, the British found a new pawn against Russia.
With the support and care of the British father, Japan then defeated Russia at a heavy price.
Since then, Japan has been pulled into the group by the European and American powers.
Even as a son, Japan finally stood in the ranks of powerful countries.