Japan is a country located in the Pacific Rim Seismic Zone, and there are about 1,500 earthquakes every year, with an average of 3~4 earthquakes per day. For a country with just over 300,000 square kilometers of land, that's enough for most people in the country to experience multiple earthquakes in a year.
For the Japanese who live in this land, the vast and fertile East Asian continent is a place where "milk and honey flow".
Therefore, since Japan largely unified the Japanese archipelago more than 1,000 years ago, it has tried to extend its influence to the East Asian continent.
Historically, Japan has taken the initiative to launch four large-scale wars of aggression in this direction.
4 large-scale wars of aggression.
The first was the struggle for hegemony on the Korean Peninsula during the reign of Emperor Gaozong of the Tang Dynasty. At this time, a partial division of the Tang Dynasty army was stationed in the southern part of the Korean Peninsula. In the name of Baekje's restoration, Japan used its main force to fight the Tang garrison at the mouth of the Baekchon River.
The second time was during the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, after Toyotomi Hideyoshi unified the Japanese archipelago, he attempted to use the Korean Peninsula as a springboard to invade the Ming Dynasty and even conquer the world. The conquest of the world was a brag of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, but his plan to invade the Ming Dynasty was real. At that time, after conquering the Ming Dynasty according to his ideas, the emperor moved to Jingshi, and he himself moved to Ningbo to retire.
The third time was during the Guangxu period of the Qing Dynasty, after the Meiji Restoration, Japan initially completed modernization, and also used the Korean Peninsula as a springboard to break out the Sino-Japanese War with the Qing Dynasty. The initial plan of Japan during this period was to take the Korean Peninsula and Liaodong, and use them as a base to gradually encroach on the Qing Dynasty.
The fourth was the famous War of Resistance Against Japan, and the idea of the Japanese side was to take all of China and even the entire eastern part of Asia, which can be said to be very ambitious. Moreover, the Japanese side believed that it would take only three months to conquer China.
The results of four wars.
In the first time, under the powerful blow of the Tang Dynasty army, the main force was severely damaged in the first battle, and Japan was also subdued. For more than 100 years after that, Japan humbly learned from the Tang Dynasty, and to this day, the Tang Dynasty is still a unique existence in the hearts of the Japanese.
The second time, it was divided into two wars, both of which ended in the victory of the Ming Dynasty. The scale of the war was also far greater than that of the Tang Dynasty, and the Japanese army organized hundreds of thousands of troops before and after, but under the attack of the elite of the Ming army, it was still not an opponent, which deepened Japan's impression of the invincibility of the Central Plains Dynasty. Even in 1644, the Ming Dynasty was still considered the most powerful country in the world at that time.
The third time, after the outbreak of the war, the Qing Dynasty passively avoided the war, whether it was a naval battle or a land battle, it was a mess, and finally had to sign an alliance under the city to pay an indemnity of 200 million taels of silver. The key is to break the defense of the whole Qing Dynasty, and I used to look down on small Japan, and since then I have taken Japan as a teacher. For the first time, Little Japan also looked at the Central Plains Dynasty and its subjects with a bird's-eye mentality.
For the fourth time, Japan has completed its initial industrialization and has the ability to independently build aircraft carriers, aircraft, and tanks. At that time, China was still an agricultural country, and it was not as good as small Japan in terms of comprehensive national strength. However, despite the resistance of the whole country, little Japan was still victorious.
Why did only Daqing lose?
To be honest, the loss of these four wars is quite unsatisfactory. In terms of comprehensive national strength, the Qing Dynasty still had a great advantage in the face of initial industrialization, at least much better than the comparison between China and Japan during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.
If you want to understand why the Qing Dynasty lost, you must first know why the Tang Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty and the Anti-Japanese War were able to win.
These three won the war of Little Japan, and the Tang Dynasty and Ming Dynasty were strong, far surpassing Little Japan. During the Anti-Japanese War, the national strength was weakened, far inferior to that of small Japan, and they were able to win for a common reason, that is, the whole country dared to fight against Japan.
During the reign of Emperor Gaozong of the Tang Dynasty, the state was strong, and after sweeping away the Gogoli in Northeast Asia, the prestige of the Tang Dynasty reached a new peak. In the face of the small Japan that came from the country, he didn't pay attention to it at all, and he defeated the small Japan with just one partial division.
During the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, the national strength was not as strong as that of the Tang Dynasty, but the national strength of the Ming Dynasty was still beyond the reach of small Japan. However, the cross-sea expedition to the Korean Peninsula to fight small Japan had many problems to overcome. At that time, almost the entire Korean Peninsula was occupied by small Japan, and the Ming Dynasty needed to transport grain from the rear to the Korean Peninsula, and the cost was astronomical, so the Ming Dynasty army lost tens of thousands of horses in the first winter. Even so, the Wanli Emperor still declared war on Japan at all costs, and those who jumped off the beam would be killed even if they were strong!
During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the national strength was simply weakened, and in the face of small Japan, which was armed to the teeth, our side did not have the ability to build large warships, aircraft, and tanks, and many advanced weapons and equipment were imported from overseas at almost 100% high prices. In this way, after the outbreak of the all-out war, the whole country was united, and although it was almost defeated again and again in large-scale battles, it was defeated again and again. Behind enemy lines, our army established a large area of base areas, launched guerrilla warfare, and cooperated with each other to plunge small Japan into the vast sea of the people's war, and finally won the war, but also paid the price of tens of millions of casualties.
Compared with the Tang Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty and the Anti-Japanese War period, what is the difference between the Qing Dynasty?
The Qing Dynasty was so bad that it didn't dare to fight.
Both Li Hongzhang of the main peace faction and Guangxu of the main battle faction have this problem.
As early as 20 years before the First Sino-Japanese War, that is, at the time of the "Ganghwado Incident", in the face of Japan's military threat to the Korean Kingdom, Li Hongzhang's idea was to calm things down.
At that time, the Kingdom of Korea thought that since he had been bullied by Little Japan and came to the Qing Dynasty to complain, the Qing Dynasty should administer justice to him like the Ming Dynasty back then. Unexpectedly, Li Hongzhang was afraid of irritating little Japan and breaking out a big war with Japan, so he chose to compromise with little Japan and conveyed half of the interests of the Korean Peninsula to little Japan.
Hirobumi Ito, when he saw it, there was still such a good thing?
From this moment on, it was decided that sooner or later a war would break out between the Qing Dynasty and Japan.
On the eve of the outbreak of the First Sino-Japanese War, Yuan Shikai suggested that Li Hongzhang annex the Korean Peninsula and establish a province, so that he could curb the expansion of Japanese power on the Korean Peninsula.
But Li Hongzhang did not agree.
Yuan Shikai looked at it, since you don't agree, then I will also say goodbye.
Fled from the Chaoyang Peninsula to the Qing Dynasty overnight.
Soon after, the Sino-Japanese War broke out.
Emperor Guangxu was a main battle faction at the beginning, but after the war began, Guangxu was worried that he would not be able to defeat Little Japan, so he issued a lot of contradictory instructions back and forth, and the front-line officers and soldiers did not know what to do.
After Japan's successive victories, Emperor Guangxu was frightened and agreed to make peace with Japan.
As a result, the offensive capability of the Japanese army on the battlefield has been decreasing day by day, and if it continues to fight, Little Japan will undoubtedly lose, because of the compromise of the imperial court, the Qing Dynasty will definitely lose.
200 million taels of silver allowed Japan to accelerate industrialization and military modernization, and 10 years later, in the Russo-Japanese War, it was able to defeat the European power Russia, which was indispensable for the blood transfusion of the Qing Dynasty.
At the same time, the expansion of Japan's influence on the East Asian continent also determined that the full-scale outbreak of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression would happen sooner or later.
Therefore, the defeat of the Qing Dynasty has nothing to do with national strength, but with their attitude.
Not daring to fight, he became the only one to lose in the four wars of aggression against Japan.
The reason why the other three wars were won was not because of national strength, but because of the attitude of daring to fight and confidence in Japan's victory.