The Sino-Japanese War, which broke out in 1894, was not an ordinary war, but a watershed in the development of China and Japan. The huge reparations have made the gap between China and Japan wider, one falling, the other soaring.
Sino-Japanese naval battle
How much money did the Japanese get in total?
The Treaty of Shimonoseki not only allowed China to cede Taiwan, but also suffered huge economic losses.
The fourth paragraph of the treaty stipulates that China will compensate the total amount of military expenses of 200 million taels of silver, and at the same time, in order to redeem the Liaodong Peninsula, China must pay Japan a "ransom fee" of 30 million taels of silver.
The military expenses of the Japanese army stationed in Weihaiwei for three years were all paid by China, 500,000 taels of silver per year, and a total of 1.5 million taels of silver for three years.
That is to say, Japan directly received 231.5 million taels of silver reparations from China, converted into yen, which is almost 360 million yuan, plus interest on installments, etc.
As well as some additional money from Japan (such as extorting 13.25 million taels of silver from China under the pretext that China's Kuping silver is not in good condition), a total of about 400 million yen.
The war consumed about 200 million yen in the Japanese war, and the net profit was about 200 million!
Sino-Japanese negotiations
What are the Japanese doing with all this money?
The Japanese government was ecstatic when it received the money, and except for some of the money used to give back to the emperor and Taiwan's operating expenses, the rest of the money was spent on military, economic and educational purposes, and both short-term and long-term.
The main destinations are as follows:
1. Military development: Expand the armaments of the army and navy and realize military modernization.
This cost accounted for about half of the reparations, which was mainly spent on the Navy. As a result, the Japanese Army expanded from 70,000 to 375,000 (225,000 were reserves), the total tonnage of the Navy increased from 60,000 to 260,000 tons, and the number of warships increased to 80, making it one of the world's top three military powers.
Second, the economy: complete the currency reform and integrate into the world economic system.
Japan completed the silver standard to gold standard currency reform with more than 72.6 million yen of the reparations payment, and quickly integrated into the world economic system.
silver
3. Establish a number of funds, such as the Supplementary Fund for Warships and Mines and Boats with 30 million yen, the Disaster Preparedness Fund and the Education Fund with 10 million yen each.
In particular, the establishment of the Education Fund has defined the Japanese education system and greatly improved Japanese education.
Japan Girls' School
In 1900, Japan established Kyoto Imperial University and established a wide range of specialized schools, and the enrollment rate of elementary schools increased dramatically.
In addition, Wen Tiejun, a professor at Chinese Minmin University, believes that the Japanese spent one-third of the reparations money on rural construction, thus having the basis for Japan's later take-off.
It has become a watershed in the development of China and Japan
Whether it is in the military, economy, or education, Japan has the capital for rapid development, while China, which has lost a lot of blood, has suffered heavy losses and is sinking deeper and deeper into the quagmire.
Japan's modern military
From a data, we can know what this reparations of more than two hundred million taels of silver mean.
In 1894, the Qing Dynasty's fiscal revenue was about 81 million taels of silver. What does this mean? This reparation is equivalent to 2.9 years of revenue from the Qing government
(The Qing government later owed hundreds of millions of taels of silver to other countries.)
For the Japanese government, this is a windfall.
In 1893, Japan's budget revenue was 88.04 million yen, and the actual final account was 113.77 million yen, which was converted into about 75.85 million taels of silver, that is, the Qing Dynasty's reparations were equivalent to the Japanese government's fiscal revenue for 3 years.
The Qing dynasty, which lost a lot of blood, became weaker and weaker from then on, while Japan began to take off after "blood transfusion".
The gap between China and Japan widened wider, and later Japan even wanted to establish the so-called "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere", and even openly invaded China.
Of course, we all know the final outcome.
Surrender Japan