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On November 24, 1892, in the early morning, the Guangxu Emperor issued an edict early in the morning:
Coinciding with the Empress Dowager's flower JiaChang period, Shou Yu Hongkai, and The Emperor led the world's subjects to congratulate Hongxu. All ceremonies should be prepared, and Bing specially sent ministers to handle them respectfully, so as to show caution!
Subsequently, the military aircraft king ministers and relevant departments personally served, and began a ceremony with great fanfare for the most expensive birthday in history;
What's going on here?
Cixi and Guangxu
You know, this is the only thing that the post-party and the imperial party recognize at this moment, and both feel that they should do well;
Behind this lies the power game and demands of the two parties:
The Hou Party hoped that the 60th birthday of Empress Dowager Cixi would be brilliant and beautiful, highlighting the empress dowager's government;
The imperial party hopes that the empress dowager can take the 60th birthday as the node, truly retreat to the harem, and let Quan Guangxu;
So, did the wishes of both empresses come true?
01
The Temptation of the Uighur Kingdom: The Encroachment empire succeeds step by step
On the eve of Empress Dowager Cixi's 70th birthday, the whole of Beijing was preparing for the longevity celebration;
In Shanghai, Zhang Taiyan, who was arrested and imprisoned for the "Su Report", was full of grief and indignation and wrote such a couplet in the "West Prison" in Shanghai:
Today to Nanyuan, tomorrow to beihai, when to go to ancient Chang'an? Sigh Li Min anointed withered blood, only for one person to sing and celebrate.
Fifty cut Ryukyu, sixty cut Taiwan, and now cut the three eastern provinces! PainChi County's state is good and good, and every time there is a long life wish for Xinjiang.
At the end of the 19th century, China and Korea in the Far East became the focus of the great powers' conquest of colonies;
In 1868, after the Meiji Restoration, Japan became the younger brother of the ranks of the great powers and embarked on the path of militarism of foreign expansion;
Therefore, based on the declaration of the meiji Emperor's accession to the throne, the entire Japanese high-level formulated the infamous "mainland policy", the core of which was to systematically use force to carry out aggressive expansion against Korea, China, and even the world;
The reigning Meiji Emperor
In the thirteenth year of Tongzhi, in 1874, on the 40th birthday of Empress Dowager Cixi, Japan carried out armed aggression against Taiwan, which was the initial attempt of mainland policy;
Subsequently, in 1875, that is, in the first year of Guangxu, Japan further occupied the Kuril Islands, and the following year, it annexed the Ogasawara Islands, coerced Korea into signing the Treaty of Ganghwa, and obtained privileges such as trade, land lease, consular adjudication, and freedom of navigation;
Since then, it has fully infiltrated Korea and vigorously rejected the "suzerainty" of the Qing Empire over Korea.
In 1879, the Ryukyu Islands were changed to Okinawa Prefecture and incorporated into the Japanese territory;
Ryukyu Islands
In 1884, Korea, with the support of the Qing army, quickly suppressed the "Koshin Coup" conspired by Japan;
Subsequently, Japan sent Minister Itō Hirobumi to China to sign the Sino-Japanese "Special Articles of the Tianjin Conference", which was actually a trap set by Japan by taking advantage of the Qing government's unfamiliarity with international law in order to encroach on Korea in the future;
The Article states:
Major incidents of chaos in the DPRK in the future,
If China and Japan need to send troops to Korea, they must notify each other in advance;
Ten years later, in the spring of 1894 (the twentieth year of Guangxu), the Dongxue Party revolt broke out in Korea, and in June, at the request of the Korean government, the Qing Empire sent the directly subordinate viceroy Ye Zhichao to Korea to suppress the uprising;
Ye Zhichao
At the same time, the Japanese government was notified;
The Qing government could never have imagined that Japan was already "densely prepared for war" against Korea at this moment, and in June, the Japanese garrison had begun to continuously provoke the Qing Imperial garrison.
China and Japan have reached the brink of war;
In mid-July, when most of the people in the upper echelons of power were preparing for Empress Dowager Cixi's 60th birthday in November;
The Guangxu Emperor has begun to jump out of this hilarious illusion and begin to stand up and express his positive attitude of "one force to lead the battle";
02
Main Battle VS Main Peace: The Internal Friction of Guangxu and Li Hongzhang
In June 1894, Weng Tonggong's disciple Zhang Jian of the Hanlin Academy advocated the war, but at that time, the navy and army were all under the command of Li Hongzhang, then the minister of Beiyang;
The two felt that their strength was weak, so they instigated the core of the imperial party, Wenting style, ZhiRui secretly communicated with Guangxu Aifei Zhenfei, and entered Guangxu;
Thus, within the imperial party, the idea of the main war was unified;
Within a few days, the edicts of active preparation for war were issued one after another, and local officials expressed two different attitudes;
At this time, Li Hongzhang should also appear;
Li Hongzhang's diplomatic tactics have a characteristic: using yi to control yi
That is to say, the great powers all want to share a piece of the pie in China, but which one wants to be dominant, it is estimated that it is enough; this is Li Hongzhang's cognition;
However, after the good offices of Russia and Britain, it was basically determined that they could only be accomplices;
The Attitude of the Guangxu Emperor in the main battle was not to be said, because when he was preparing for war, in order to expand his armaments, he actually rebelled against the Empress for the first time, "Please stop the Summer Palace project to replenish military expenses";
This was the first time since he ascended to the emperor's throne; the decoration of the Summer Palace project was one of the key projects of the Western Empress Dowager's longevity ceremony;
Finally, the result of the compromise was that the Empress claimed to be able to simplify some of the celebrations; in fact, it did not simplify;
Cixi was busy with its own longevity ceremony, so the spearhead of the imperial party's main battle was directly pointed at Li Hongzhang, a powerful figure in the post-party;
On June 25, 1894, the Guangxu Emperor issued the first edict:
The gist is: According to the current situation, it is inevitable to start a war, Li Hongzhang, your commander-in-chief, should plan the response strategy, and quickly report it, do not obsess over the mediation between the nations;
A telegram in which reality rebuked Li Hongzhang's cowardly attitude, pointed out that Russia and Britain had bad intentions, and finally asked him to actively prepare for war;
The result can be imagined, Li Hongzhang Yang obeyed the yin and continued to prevaricate;
On July 1, the Guangxu Emperor ordered the Military Aircraft Department to issue a second, more severely worded telegram to Li Hongzhang:
The gist is: let you plan as soon as possible, play the coping strategy, you don't go to the book, now the situation is so serious, you, as a military commander, don't even care;
On July 4, the Guangxu Emperor sent another telegram accusing him of begging the British to send a fleet to Japan to persuade him, and declared to him that the Qing government should make a big deal of conquest and was not suitable for the use of other states;
On July 6, Li Hongzhang sent a telegram to Ye Zhichao, the Qing government garrison in North Korea, saying that he was mediating with Russia and Britain to let them close their camps and defend themselves, and not to do much trouble;
On July 16, the Guangxu Emperor sent the Sheng army under the command of the Ningxia general Wei Rugui and the Yi army led by Ma Yukun, a total of 8,000 people, to land in northern Korea from Dadonggou by boat;
Subsequently, the Fengji Tuanyong under the command of the left precious Fengjun and the deputy capital Feng Asheng A, also entered Korea by land;
Since then, the four-way army has entered the north of Korea, and the troops have pointed directly at Seoul, North Korea;
On July 23, the Japanese army sent troops to rush into the Korean Imperial Palace to prop up the puppet regime, and at the same time began to provoke the Qing defenders, opening the prelude to the Sino-Japanese War;
On the same day, Li Hongzhang did not write a letter on the strategy of dealing with the military conflict, but sent two telegrams to the Military Aircraft Department:
One is the false statement of Keisuke Otori, the Japanese minister to the DPRK: If China adds troops, it will kill the Uighurs;
Another is to say that Russia has ships with 10 diaphragms that can rush to Inchon (in fact, this is a fiction of Li Hongzhang himself;
Subsequently, Li Hongzhang carefully designed a plan:
In late July, he chartered British steamships to deliver reinforcements to Korea, believing that as long as he pulled Britain into war, he would gain support, but he did not think that Japan would directly sneak into the fleet, sinking the British steamship "Gaosheng", and more than 1,000 Qing troops died without a fight;
Since then, Japan has not declared World War II, and the war in the Korean stage has begun;
Li Hongzhang was forced to embark on the road of military confrontation, but he was still reluctant to send troops;
Therefore, he took out the prerequisites for soldiers and horses to go out on the expedition, grain and grass first, and declared: it is okay to prepare for war, but at least 3 million taels of silver are needed, to buy warships, and to recruit soldiers;
Therefore, Guangxu urged all ministries to raise 3 million taels of the Beiyang Fleet from the salt department, customs duties, provincial Ding yin, and border defense funds;
On July 24, Guangxu sent a telegram to Li Hongzhang: Send troops as soon as possible, do not delay the military aircraft;
On August 1, the Qing government issued an edict declaring war on Japan:
In this regard, the Sino-Japanese Sino-Japanese War began to develop in depth;
03
After the declaration of war: a good hand of cards to play badly?
The Heilongjiang general Yike Atang, first telegraphed: led the infantry to Korea;
However, the three eastern provinces were the land of Longxing, and the Guangxu Emperor ordered him to be stationed in Fengtian, which is today's Shenyang;
Wu Dazheng, the governor of Hunan, also sent a telegram to lead the Xiang army to the Korean army to supervise the war; at this time, he was already 60 years old;
At this time, Ye Zhichao's troops were the closest to the Japanese army, and the Four-Way Army was located in northern Korea, and was suppressed by Li Hongzhang's rhythm of advance;
On August 2, Guangxu sent a telegram to Li Hongzhang saying: If a war breaks out, Ye Zhichao will be ordered to deal with it, and then let the four-way northern Korean army go to support, and when it can be won; at the same time, let him order the four-way army to go south as soon as possible to Seoul, join forces with Ye Zhichao's troops, and send warships to reinforce the army from the sea;
At this point, the Guangxu Emperor's first strategic decision was correct, but Li Hongzhang's Yang Fengyin did not let the army go south, nor did he send the naval admiral Ding Ruchang to the sea to help;
Reinforcements on the North Road were slow to move and naval activities were restricted;
On August 9, more than 14,000 men of the main forces of Wei Rugui, Ma Yukun, Zuo Zhenguo, and Fengsheng Albanian army successively reached Pyongyang, and Ye Zhichao and Nie Shi thousands of people held back the Japanese army in southern Pyongyang;
At this time, the Japanese army was still in the assembly stage, and the rear was empty; we all know this favorable time, and it was not surprising to miss it;
The military strategy adopted by Li Hongzhang was: to fortify the stronghold, first to hold the situation, and then to try to forge ahead;
On August 21, Ye Zhichao led the remnants to Pyongyang, and on the 28th, Nie Shicheng joined the Pyongyang army, and the Pyongyang armies were still undecided;
On August 22, the Guangxu Emperor sent a telegram to Li Hongzhang, if he could not advance, he would take the crash plane and engage in military law;
At this time, the Japanese army completed the second assembly, and at the same time was about to complete the encirclement of Pyongyang;
On August 25, a joint meeting of the Military Aircraft Department and the Prime Minister Yamen Minister concluded that Pyongyang had a large garrison and needed a commander-in-chief, and finally proposed Ye Zhichao as commander-in-chief;
Let's take a look at the situation of the garrisons in Pyongyang on these roads, among them, the destruction of Wei Rugui's Sheng warships, coupled with the contradictions of various armies; the potential crisis of this force is also unfathomable;
On September 4, the Guangxu Emperor sent a telegram to Li Hongzhang asking him: Why did he command a unit several times that of the Japanese army but did not enter the army?
Show dissatisfaction with Li Hongzhang and Ye Zhichao;
On September 7, Zuo Gui sent a team of horses to the front line of Huangzhou to explore the camp, and then agreed with Wei Rugui, Ma Yukun, and Feng Sheng'a to send 7,000 elite people to the front line to meet the Japanese Kou;
On September 9, Li Hongzhang sent a telegram ordering Ye Zhichao to withdraw the 7,000-strong attacking force sent;
At this point, Li Hongzhang and Ye Zhichao, in the form of disobedience, gradually trapped this Qing army of nearly 20,000 people in the isolated city of Pyongyang;
Japanese reinforcements have landed successively from Busan, Wonsan, and Incheon. It quickly merged with the army that invaded Korea in the early stage, forming a joint siege of the Qing forces in Pyongyang;
On September 12, the Chinese and Japanese armies officially exchanged fire, and the fighting continued until September 15, of which the left precious part resisted the strongest; the left precious part was known for knowing the soldiers and fighting well;
In the entire support force, Zuo Precious fought the main battle, and Ye Zhichao retreated;
During the General Japanese Offensive on September 15, Zuo Precious's troops were attacked most fiercely for occupying the commanding heights north of the city, and in the end, Zuo Precious was wounded and killed;
The Guangxu Emperor personally wrote an altar text for Zuo Precious: This issue is a bitter drink from the Yellow Dragon Mansion, and it is not difficult to fall back to Rige.
After the death of the most warlike Zuo Precious, Ye Zhichao led the remnants to flee in a hurry, and Pyongyang fell!
Battle of Pyongyang
Two days later, the Battle of the Yellow Sea began;
Since the Battle of Toshima, the Japanese Navy began to reinforce the army from the sea in order to seize the power of the Yellow Sea and adopted an active offensive strategy, and the Qing army troops we said above, Li Hongzhang not only let the army retreat, but also did not implement the Guangxu Emperor's operational policy of sea and land cooperation;
When the Army defeated Pyongyang, the Navy gradually shrunk the area of activity;
For the sake of the Yellow Sea, Japan dispatched all the combat strength of the combined naval fleet, and the result can be imagined, most of the officers served with death;
Therefore, the defeat of the Beiyang Fleet, the author's opinion:
The first was to lose in an encounter and be attacked by surprise;
The second is to lose the strategy of shrinking and being annihilated in a small bay;
At this point, a good hand of cards has been completely destroyed by the internal friction and non-uniformity within the entire bureaucratic group;
The Qing government's war against Japan fell into a position of total passivity;
As a result, the war extended to the Qing Empire itself;
04
Guangxu's last stubbornness—the smoke cloud that turned the tide of battle
On September 17, the war report was transmitted to the palace;
The Guangxu Emperor and the Military Aircraft Department first sensed that the yalu River border and the Bohai Sea border suddenly became the front line of war;
Therefore, Guangxu dispatched troops at the first time to enrich the yalu River defense line;
The Heilongjiang general Yike Atang was ordered to rush to the front line of the Yalu River, and at the same time ordered Li Hongzhang to send the troops of Song Qing, a garrison in Lushun, and Liu Shengxiu's Ming army to join forces to strengthen the defense line along the depths of the Yalu River;
On September 29, Empress Dowager Xi finally agreed to the advice of the Minister of Military Aircraft and reinstated Prince Gong;
At the beginning of October, more than 70 battalions and more than 30,000 regular troops and regimental brave troops were gathered on the first line of the Yalu River, and a defensive line from left to Changdian and right to Andong was formed;
On October 25, the Japanese army sneaked around from the upper reaches of the Yalu River and quickly occupied the general base of the Qing army's defense line, Jiulian City; subsequently, the defensive line and other places fell one after another, and the Yalu River defense line collapsed like a piece of paper;
As a result, the Qing government's capital Shenyang and the land of the imperial tomb were directly threatened;
On November 2, Guangxu issued an edict:
Set up a military affairs office, Prince Gong Yixin supervised military affairs, Yi Li assisted in military affairs, and Weng Tonggong, Li Hongzao, and Rong Lushang handled military affairs;
Subsequently, Prince Gong summoned Russian, British, French, German, and American envoys to China and began to seek peace with Japan;
On November 7, empress dowager Cixi's birthday; subsequently, Cixi withdrew from the affairs of the great birthday and began her second reign;
On November 21, the Japanese captured Lushun;
On November 26, Empress Dowager Cixi unilaterally held a high-level meeting and forcibly announced the punishment of Guangxu's two favorite concubines, Zhenfei and Jinfei. Intended to suppress Guangxu's awareness of the main battle;
On December 5, Empress Dowager Cixi removed the Manchu Han Study in an attempt to remove the stronghold of the Guangxu Emperor and the Imperial Party planning a war of resistance;
Subsequently, Empress Dowager Cixi accelerated the process of peace with Japan in accordance with the established compromise policy;
Time went to January 5, 1895, after the war and struggle between the imperialist and post-party parties,
The Guangxu Emperor's decree was confirmed: Empress Dowager Cixi's appointment of Zhang Yinhuan and Shao Youlian's plenipotentiaries was confirmed, and he went to Japan to discuss peace;
On January 6, Zhang Yinhuan left the imperial capital and rushed to Shanghai to join Shao Youlian; after reaching Shanghai, Zhang Yin received a series of dissuasive letters from friends all over the country, dissuading him from rushing to Japan to negotiate peace, so as not to lose his reputation;
Therefore, after arriving in Shanghai, the two men did not move;
On January 14, 1895, the Guangxu Emperor ordered Song Qing, Yike Atang, and others to prepare to counterattack the Japanese at Liaoshen and Weihaiwei;
In order to find out the situation in Japan, zhang Yinhuan was ordered to rush to Japan, and on January 26, Zhang Yinhuan boarded a ship and crossed east to Japan;
At this time, Weihai's urgent telegram was sent to the palace; and Weihaiwei was the headquarters of the Beiyang Navy;
On February 1, the Japanese occupied the north and south batteries of Weihai WeijunGang and launched an attack on the Beiyang Fleet trapped on Liugong Island, and then the Beiyang Fleet collapsed in its entirety;
On 2 February, Ito Hirobumi and Mutsu Zongguang ignored Zhang Yinhuan's claims and resorted to expulsion, not allowing Zhang Yinhuan and Shao Youlian to stay in Japan;
On February 12, Ding Ruchang, who was in a desperate situation and vowed not to surrender, committed suicide under the siege of the generals and foreigners;
Since then, the Beiyang Fleet has been completely destroyed;
Throughout the war against Japan, the Daoist military instructions of the Guangxu Emperor's method and a series of strategies to resist the enemy changed shape and even refused to be carried out when they reached Li Hongzhang;
Shi Alan, then French minister to China, wrote a book "The Book of Envoys", which read: Governor Li should be directly responsible for the defeat of this war;
On the day of Ding Ruchang's suicide, Empress Dowager Cixi convened a separate high-level meeting after the Guangxu Military Aircraft Conference and forcibly appointed Li Hongzhang as the plenipotentiary representative to the Collegial Council against Japan;
On February 22, Li Hongzhang rushed to the imperial capital after watching;
However, after Li Hongzhang entered the dynasty, Empress Dowager Cixi also said that she was ill and missing, so she asked the Guangxu Emperor to meet Li Hongzhang, and Guangxu had completely become a defeated and discouraged emperor at this time, and did not dare to disobey his father's will;
Li Hongzhang did not dare to casually accept this errand, so he hoped to get the explicit authorization of the two empresses, but the empress dowager did not give him a clear authorization, that is, the bottom line of the peace;
On February 28, under the tripartite game of Empress Li Hongzhang, the Guangxu Emperor, who was politically weak, finally relaxed, and Prince Gong conveyed to Li Hongzhang that he would "grant the right to grant land to Shang";
On March 4, with the blessing of the later party officials, Li Hongzhang, after obtaining the authorization of Guangxu, finally rushed to Japan to negotiate peace;
On March 20, China and Japan formally began to negotiate peace at Maguan, and on the 23rd, the Japanese army invaded the Penghu Archipelago in preparation for the invasion of Taiwan;
On March 24, Li Hongzhang's third meeting at Maguan ended, which was clearly unfavorable to China due to Japan's refusal to budge. Li Hongzhang, surrounded by his entourage, withdrew from the venue with a straight face and was subsequently assassinated on the road;
On March 28, in order to ease the atmosphere, the Japanese side signed that Mutsu Zongguang was willing to cease hostilities, and three days later, the two sides signed the Armistice Agreement (only Fengtian, Zhili, Shandong, Penghu and Taiwan were excluded);
On April 1, the Japanese side revealed the list of extortion; Li Hongzhang was frightened, and then telegraphed the situation and kicked the ball out;
On April 3, there was an uproar in the government and the opposition, and most of the post-party believed that they could "abandon Taiwan to protect the feng";
On April 17, Li Hongzhang received a telegram and signed it; the final stipulation came into effect on May 8 in Yantai, China;
At this point, the Sino-Japanese Sino-Japanese War, which lasted for nine months, ended with the humiliation of China's signing of the contract;
Subsequently, a vigorous anti-signature movement was set off within the bureaucracy, with civilian subjects crying for the country and military generals wanting to die, but they were all middle-level bureaucrats and could not affect the overall situation;
On April 23, the three countries of Egypt, Germany, and France formally issued a diplomatic message to Japan, demanding that Japan abandon the Liaodong Peninsula and exclude the pressure exerted by the naval fleet, resulting in the "three-country intervention and return to Liao" incident;
On April 25, the Guangxu Emperor asked Liu Kun, the minister of Qincha, who had great military and political power at home and abroad, about the possibility of aborting the treaty and re-fighting;
On April 30, a call back from Liu Kunyi and Wang Wenshao was sent to the imperial palace;
The reply was to the effect that we first said that our army was invincible to Japan and repeatedly lost land, and then said that we as soldiers must not surrender, and we must fight a war;
On May 2, the core members of the Hou Party, Prince Gong Yixin, Yi Xi, and the military ministers Sun Yuwen and Xu Yongyi jointly forced the Guangxu Emperor to approve the contract;
Finally, the Guangxu Emperor hesitated a few times in the palace, after which he signed with tears;
On July 30, after the treaty officially entered into force, Li Hongzhang entered Beijing, and Guangxu said to his face:
"As a heavy minister, where to raise 20,000,000 yuan; a province in Taiwan sent to outsiders, losing the hearts of the people and hurting the national body"
Subsequently, Japan appointed The Minister of Naval Command, Tsuneki Kayama, as the governor of Taiwan and stationed himself in Taiwan;
On June 2, on the surface of the Taiwan Sea, Li Hongzhang's son Li Jingfang and Huashan Ziji completed the delivery of the transaction to Taiwan;
Six months later, it began to pay war reparations, the first 50 million taels, the annex ransom fee of 80 million taels, this amount is the total financial income of the Qing government for one year;
On July 6, Xu Jingcheng, Chinese Minister to Russia, signed the "Four Percent Loan Contract" with Russia and France in St. Petersburg.
Then the great powers set off a frenzy of division on the territory of the Qing Empire;
As a result, the wounds left by the Guangxu Emperor in the Sino-Japanese War added new wounds; the emperor, who originally wanted to rise up and strengthen himself, fell into a deep confusion.
He began to think, why can Japan's small country rise so quickly?
Subsequently, the vigorous Hundred Days Restoration began to appear on the stage of history;
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This article is from: column "Commentary on the Guangxu Emperor"
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