In the case of the leak of secrets to Taiwan's military aircraft more than a hundred years ago, in order to use the hidden power of public opinion to promote the system to protect the interests of businessmen, businessmen did not hesitate to leak secrets at a time of national crisis to enhance their influence.
On August 2, 1874, the Forbidden City was covered with dark clouds. The air in the East Warm Pavilion where Empress Dowager Cixi was hanging curtains and listening to the government was frozen. Empress Dowager Cixi angrily threw a newspaper to Prince Gong Yi?
abundant? Trembling, he took the newspaper and was immediately stunned. Originally, the "Report" published on July 11 published a full copy of the confidential document of the General Aircraft Department, which read roughly as follows: Japanese Army Lieutenant General Saigo Congdao led the Japanese army to occupy the Taiwan Peony Society (the Peony Society was an indigenous tribe in Taiwan at that time), and the chief of the Peony Society, Alugu, was killed in battle. The Military Aircraft Department ordered Shen Baozhen, minister of shipping affairs, to lead troops to properly handle the "Peony Society Incident" in Taiwan in the name of the parade. The newspaper not only published in full the Qing court's edict on the handling of the "Peony Society Incident", but also published important documents such as Shen Baozhen's strategy.
The "Peony Society Incident" made the Qing court anxious, and the leak of secrets by the Military Aircraft Department made the international situation even more volatile.
After the Opium War, the United States has been trying to insert a foot in China, but since the end of its Civil War, the United States has decided to focus its international strategy on Northeast Asia. They planted a deadly chess piece on the southeast coast of China, Li Xiande. Born in France and rising in the American Civil War, the young general retired as U.S. consul in Xiamen, China. His most important mission in China is to keep an eye on every move in and around Fujian and Zhejiang. Washington's strategic intentions are quite obvious: Taiwan is isolated overseas, the indigenous forces are complex, and it is in the same boat as Ryukyu and Japan, and as long as Taiwan changes, the American strategy in Asia can be perfectly implemented.
As early as 1870, Li Xiande, then consul of Xiamen, intercepted a secret military letter from Yinggui, the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang, which shocked the Qing court and made Washington quite passive, and US President Grant even prepared to transfer Li Xiande to the ambassador of Argentina. However, de long, a hawkish American politician and minister to Japan, urged Li Xiande to go to Japan and plotted to recommend Taiwan to the Meiji government through Li Xiande. Delong's wishful thinking was that since Li Xiande had a large amount of Taiwan intelligence on his hands and had made an alliance with many chiefs of the indigenous tribes, as long as the Japanese side was interested in the intelligence that Li Xiande had, then Japan would become a pawn for the United States to implement the Asian strategy.
In October 1872, Delon proudly wrote to the State Department in Washington, D.C., stating: "In the present circumstances I am convinced that an opportunity has been found to carry out these plans of mine, which may not require bloodshed, but which can be made a war in which the solemn territories of Taiwan and Korea are to be placed under the banner of a sympathetic Western power (japan). Delon wants President Grant to send another ambassador to Argentina because he believes Lee will be an important executor of the U.S. strategy in Asia.
At that time, the Washington government regarded the Meiji government as a juvenile hound, a "hunting dog" with arrogant genes, but temporarily without the ability to dominate. After the Meiji Restoration, meiji meritorious men set off a frenzied land reform. The land reform caused the daimyo, secretaries, and samurai who lived on the feudal land to lose their money, so the government compensated for the public debt and tried to smoothly transform the privileged class into industrial and commercial capitalists. Saigo Takamori, a Meiji courtier who had started his career with local armed forces, began to sympathize with the declining samurai class, proposed Japan's East Asia strategy, and implemented foreign expansion.
A group of Meiji tycoons, led by Saigo Takamori, began to wonder whether to attack North Korea or Taiwan. The Meiji government believed that Korea was only a vassal state of the Qing Empire, but Taiwan was included in the territory of the Qing Empire, so it was easier to fight Korea. Japanese political circles are worried that once Japan sends troops to Korea, In order to safeguard the interests of the three eastern provinces of Longxing, China will definitely send troops to help the dprk as a vassal state, and Japan's expansion will be seriously hit, Taiwan's life will be complicated, on the contrary, the Qing government's control is weaker, and the Japanese army will have a greater chance of winning the invasion of Taiwan. The Americans had heard that the Japanese were expanding in Northeast Asia, and Delon wanted the Washington government to support itself and allow itself to control the Japanese beagle.
In 1873, under Delon's arrangement, Li Xiande arrived in Japan with detailed information on Taiwan, which made the Meiji Xunchen of the main war faction, Vice Shima Shiji, overjoyed, and immediately proposed: If Japan can rule Taiwan, Li Xiande will be appointed as the governor to exercise the right to rule on behalf of Japan, and promised to give Li Xiande the same preferential treatment as the minister stationed in Japan - a high salary of twelve thousand US dollars per year. Soon after, the Meiji government awarded Li Xian the title of "Quasi-Second Class" and specially assisted the vice-island ministers in handling Taiwan affairs.
Vice-Island Tsubasa was well aware of the Washington Government's calculations and decided to put the Plan in order to drag the United States into the chariot of the Taiwan issue. On March 15, 1874, Lee sent a telegram to the U.S. government to negotiate with the U.S. government about Japan's hiring of U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Cassel and Army Lieutenant Watson, which was approved by the U.S. government. The decision of the US government is enough to prove to the world that the US military has tacitly accepted the japanese army's invasion of Taiwan. Japan also secretly ordered Li Xiande to contact the US East India Fleet, and made the captain of the warship "Monagasai" Contz promise that he would lead the US warship to follow the Japanese warship and cheer for the Japanese army in the Area of Lang Yue Bay in Taiwan, where the Japanese warship was planned to dock.
What is surprising is that the Japanese, with the help of the United States, have already decided to march troops into Taiwan, but Li Henian, the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang, The General Wen Yu of Fuzhou, Shen Baozhen, the minister of shipping, and Luo Dachun, the admiral of the Fujian Marine Division, did not report any situation to the Beijing imperial court. abundant? It was decided to report Japan's invasion of Taiwan to the Tongzhi Emperor. After discussion at the imperial meeting, the Military Aircraft Department immediately issued a military secret order to Li Henian, Wen Yu, Shen Baozhen, Luo Dachun, Li Zongxi, and Li Hongzhang, the governor directly under him, ordering Shen Baozhen to lead the fleet of sailors to visit the Shengfan area in Taiwan in the name of patrol and properly handle the shengfan matters. The Military Aircraft Department also issued an urgent order to Fuzhou General Wen Yu to transfer troops.
When the Military Aircraft Department issued a military secret order, the Meiji Emperor of Japan made careful plans at the Imperial Council and drew up a battle plan to take advantage of the Japanese army's capture of southern Taiwan to raise 10,000 troops to take Beijing directly, imprison the Qing Emperor, and cause the collapse of China's eighteen provinces. Beijing has intelligence that Japan has hired senior U.S. officials as advisers and military commanders. Li Hongzhang immediately recommended To Premier Yamen RongHong, a highly talented student at Yale, and suggested that Rong Hong be sent to Washington with the official letter from Prime Minister Yamen and go to Washington to discuss with the president of the US Congress, hoping that the United States would follow the Sino-US treaty of friendship, remain neutral, and withdraw mercenaries and military commanders.
While everything was proceeding according to the plans of both sides, the military secret orders of the Military Aircraft Department were unexpectedly exposed. What is even more embarrassing to the Beijing government is that the newspaper also published such a diplomatic secret as the British Embassy's secret letter to Prime Minister Yamen informing Japan of its invasion of Taiwan, which immediately put Britain into a passive situation. For a time, international public opinion was in an uproar, and the Japanese side was even more fearless in Taiwan, and the bloodbath of Taiwan, the Peony Society, and other places had become its own things.
abundant? It soon became clear that the "Report" was only one of the leaked newspapers, and that the Shanghai New Daily and the Huazi Daily both published military secret letters. Empress Dowager Cixi's wrath? This is the second military leak in the fujian and Zhejiang regions in four years, and the political and military circles in Fujian and Zhejiang have no secrets to speak of. The ministers of the Military Aircraft immediately convened a meeting of the military aircraft, and the ministers of the military aircraft determined that there was a huge interest group behind the newspaper leak, and it was necessary to thoroughly investigate the military aircraft leak case.
The Military Aircraft Division, headed by Yi, set up a task force to investigate where military secrets were leaked. On August 2, a six-hundred-mile secret edict was issued from the military plane, requiring that all ministers, governors, and generals related to the leak must conduct self-examination and submit a detailed investigation report as soon as they receive the investigation order. Shen Baozhen, Li Hongzhang, Wen Yu, Li Zongxi, Li Henian, Pan Wei and others were all the subjects of investigation. Naturally, Shen Baozhen, as a party, has become the focus of the investigation.
After receiving the secret message, Shen Baozhen "read it under the ambush, and felt and frightened." How exactly did the newspaper get the military secret letter, Shen Baozhen was still in the clouds. However, both the secret letter of the Military Aircraft Department and the report of Shen Baozhen's court have been leaked. Shen Baozhen knew that he could not be blamed, so he immediately made a very sincere review to the Tongzhi Emperor, and even proposed that he was willing to accept the handling of the imperial council.
After the Tongzhi Emperor received Shen Baozhen's report, he only approved a sentence on the report: "Shen Baozhen submitted to the Ministry of Deliberation." At the same time, the Tongzhi Emperor warned officials in a sternly worded edict that "it is advisable to cause a mistake, and only the generals and governors involved in the case are asked." The Tongzhi Emperor decided to expand the investigation and handling of the case of military aircraft leaks, and in addition to the extensive investigation of the southeast official field, he asked Li Zongxi, the governor of Liangjiang, to strictly investigate the case of the secret message of the Shanghai newsprint.
Li Zongxi was frightened, the "Report" and "Shanghai New News" were within the scope of his jurisdiction, as the governor of Liangjiang, he had not given the emperor a clear statement, in the eyes of the emperor is a problem with the ability to govern. After receiving the edict, Li Zongxi immediately sent personnel to Shanghai to investigate. After investigation, behind the Shanghai New Daily is a group of European and American foreigners who support it, and their report is quoting Hong Kong's "Chinese Character Daily". The "Report" was founded by a group of Guangdong businessmen, and the report also quoted the "Huazi Daily". However, the "Report" made Li Zongxi's head bigger.
The shareholders of the "Report" are Tang Tingshu, Zheng Guanying, Rong Hong and Xu Run. These people were all the pioneers of Li Hongzhang in the implementation of reforms, especially Tang Tingshu and Rong Hong, and they were Li Hongzhang's right and left arms. Shen Baozhen and Li Hongzhang were originally in the same department, but when Zuo Zongtang went north, Zuo Zongtang took care of the Shen family and invited Shen Baozhen, who was worried about Ding,500, to serve as the minister of shipping, and Shen Baozhen became Zuo Zongtang's pawn in clamping down on Li Hongzhang, so there must be a big article behind this incident.
Li Zongxi quickly wrote an investigation report to Beijing, and from the very beginning he stressed that his vigilance in secrecy was very high: "All secret public documents are handled by the Internal Bureau, and the internal signatures are stored in the internal signatures, and they dare not divulge a little." Li Zongxi also said in the report that the contents of the "Shanghai New News" and the "Report" were copied from Hong Kong's "Huazi Daily," and both Shanghai newspapers specifically noted that the news from Hong Kong came from Fuzhou when they copied it, which shows that the problem lies in the military and political circles in Fujian and Zhejiang.
Therefore, Li Henian, the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang, sent Tongzhi Wen Shaorong to Hong Kong to check the "Chinese Character Daily". Wen Shaorong quickly found out the details of the "Huazi Daily". The newspaper, which began to be published independently in 1872, was the Chinese edition of the English-run English newspaper Dechen, which was presided over by Chen Yan, the chief writer of the Dechen Newspaper, who had embraced Catholicism since childhood and was good in Both Chinese and English. The content of "Huazi Daily" is nothing more than the translation of Western Daily and the reprinting of Beijing Daily, as well as local news.
During the secret investigation in Hong Kong, Wen Shaorong found that Chen Yan had left Hong Kong, and his colleagues said that he had gone to Fuzhou. However, after Wen Shaorong returned to Fuzhou to investigate secretly, he found that Chen Yan had already arrived in Taiwan. Why did Chen Yan go to Taiwan? Who did he collude with in the political and military circles of Fujian and Zhejiang? It's all a mystery. After hearing this investigation, Li Henian immediately wrote to Shen Baozhen, hoping that Shen Baozhen would find out whether Chen Yan was in the Taiwan government and then investigate the true purpose of Chen Yan's visit to Taiwan.
Li Henian excused himself in his report to the Tongzhi Emperor, saying that after he arrived in Fuzhou, all foreign affairs were exchanged by letter, not by scrivener. Li Henian also made a detailed report on Wen Shaorong's secret investigation results to the emperor, and the report mentioned that Chen Yan had passed through Fuzhou to Taiwan, and the true purpose of his visit to Taiwan could not be confirmed, and now he could only inquire with Fuchen in Guangdong, and ordered that Taiwan's Provinces and Fuzhou Prefecture be thoroughly investigated.
After Shen Baozhen received Li Henian's letter, he immediately conducted a detailed investigation of Chen Yan. To Shen Baozhen's surprise, Chen Yan was now employed by Taiwan's governor, Li Zhaotang. Li Zhaotang, a native of Shunde, Guangdong Province, acted as an agent for Taiwan Daotai in 1867 and had a close personal relationship with Shen Baozhen. On the issue of Japan's invasion of Taiwan, Shen Baozhen's first assistant was Li Zhaotang. Because Li Zhaotang was in Beijing in his early years with Yi? Wen Xiang and a large number of other imperial relatives and nobles were closely related, and they dealt with European and American envoys in China every day, and they knew foreigners quite well. During his time in charge of Taiwan, Lai Siu-tong had frequent contacts with Taiwanese gentry and businessmen, and had insight into the intricacies of raw interests.
After investigation, Li Zhaotang heard that Chen Yan's English was very good and he was very familiar with the situation of foreigners, so he borrowed him for three months. Mr. Li insisted that he had never read the important document when he was at home, that there was no possibility of leaking it to Chen Yan, and that the newspaper had published the military secret before he invited Him to Taiwan.
Who leaked the military secrets to Chen Yan?
During Wen Shaorong's secret investigation in Hong Kong, although he dug up Chen Yan, the general manager of Huazi Daily, unfortunately, he did not investigate the huge Guangdong political and business network behind Chen Yan. There are three real contributors to Huazi Daily: Huang Sheng, He Qi, and Wu Tingfang. While hiring Chen Yan, who is also a Cantonese, as the general manager, Huazi Daily also hired Wang Tao as the chief writer of Huazi Daily. Wang Tao was very talented, and his influence among the Chinese and foreigners, especially the Guangdong merchant gang led by Tang Tingshu, who was close to Li Hongzhang. In June 1874, when Tang Tingshu founded the "Report", he and the "Huazi Daily" carried out strategic cooperation in content, and agreed that the content of the report could be excerpted and published by each other.
History always likes to joke, who ever thought that a telegram sent by Tang Tingshu to Li Hongzhang would leak clues about military secret cases. On May 13, 1874, Tang Tingshu traveled from Shanghai to Tianjin to meet Li Hongzhang. Tang Tingshu told Li Hongzhang that he had received a Japanese telegram that day, saying that Japan had ordered two steamships from British merchants, and had also entrusted people to buy ships in Shanghai, recruiting European and American rogues wandering in Shanghai, and planning to let these people take the newly purchased ships to Nagasaki as mercenaries.
Li Hongzhang and Tang Tingshu analyzed in detail the situation of Japan's troops, and they believed that if Japan really wanted to send troops to Korea, then the Japanese army should cross the Tsushima Island in northwest japan, and should not be sent by Nagasaki in the southwest. Li Hongzhang agreed with Tang Tingshu that Japan would send troops to Taiwan, because Nagasaki was facing east of Taiwan, and Japanese politicians revealed false news of the conquest of Korea to the press, with the intention of attacking the east and the west, paralyzing the Qing government, and dissolving China's war readiness.
After some analysis with Tang Tingshu, Li Hongzhang immediately wrote a report to the Tongzhi Emperor, reporting the Japanese telegram and the situation in Taiwan to the emperor. He suggested to the emperor that it was necessary to quickly convey the movements of the Japanese military circles to the Fuzhou side. Fuzhou's military and political circles must carry out military and diplomatic planning, and if Japanese warships arrive, the Taiwan troops of the Fuzhou Military Region should snipe the Japanese army at the first time, leaving more time for Fuzhou and Beijing to plan.
Li Hongzhang's report arrived in Beijing in an urgent six-hundred-li-plus rate. The next day, the Tongzhi Emperor held a pre-imperial meeting, and a cadre of central leading cadres from the Military Aircraft Department and the Prime Minister Yamen participated in the discussion. On the same day, the Tongzhi Emperor issued an edict to the Military Aircraft Department, ordering Shen Baozhen to lead troops to Taiwan in the name of patrolling. At that time, Tang Tingshu was still in Tianjin, and he could learn more about Li Hongzhang's report and the content of the May 14 Imperial Council in Beijing. More importantly, Li Hongzhang and Shen Baozhen repeatedly discussed in their letters the use of steamships to transport the Huai army into Taiwan. Tang Tingshu stood in the perspective of a businessman and constantly bargained with Shen Baozhen, naturally gaining insight into Shen Baozhen's deployment to Taiwan.
The reports published by the Huazi Daily and the Wei Bao not only included what was discussed at the May 14 imperial meeting, but also Shen Baozhen's detailed deployment to defend Taiwan, especially the plan to purchase an ironclad ship. Li Hongzhang and Shen Baozhen discussed the idea of purchasing ironclad ships many times in their letters, and even proposed plans to borrow money from The Anglo-French Bank to buy ships. Shen Baozhen sent a special envoy to Shanghai to negotiate with British and German merchants on the purchase of ships. Tang Tingshu, who was also a director of a number of foreign-funded companies, was also a director of a number of foreign-funded companies, and he knew the intelligence of foreign businessmen very well, so Li Hongzhang naturally entrusted him to assist shen Baozhen's envoys in purchasing ships.
Did Tang Tingshu really leak the military plane?
Whether it was the political and military circles in Fujian and Zhejiang or the two rivers, no one turned their attention to the Guangdong Shang Gang headed by Tang Tingshu. However, there is an indisputable fact that in order to compete with the boss of the Shanghai newspaper at that time, "Declaration", after excerpting the "Huazi Daily" military aircraft leak article, in Shanghai for a while Luoyang paper was expensive, and the limelight overshadowed the "Declaration". Politicians and businessmen, both at home and abroad, regard the "Report" as a guideline, and the "Report" has become a window for Shanghai Beach to understand the Beijing government.
The Guangdong Merchant Gang founded the "Report", on the one hand, to fight for the right to speak for businessmen, and more importantly, to influence the government through the public opinion position. Through the openness and transparency of public opinion, the administration is sunny, and the government's credit can be supervised. From the Han armed group headed by Li Hongzhang exploring the reform of state-owned capital to the reform of private capital represented by the Steamship Merchants Bureau, capital has become a vassal of power, and businessmen are like beggars begging for food with their tails wagging their tails. The military plane leak case is just a knock on the mountain by businessmen, intended to warn the Beijing government that public opinion controlled by businessmen can influence the government and even trigger war.
The businessmen's plans gradually became a reality. The Beijing imperial court and local governors are also constantly learning about the war through the press and grasping the changes in the world situation. After Japan invaded Taiwan, the emperor's edicts, the secret orders of the Military Aircraft Department, the report of the prime minister Yamen, and the six-hundred-mile rush of the feudal officials often quoted newsprint. The hidden power of public opinion began to infiltrate the central and local governments, which in turn affected the political, military, and diplomatic power ecosystems, and eventually promoted the reform of political clarity and ensured the interests of businessmen in the system.
The "Report" controlled by the Guangdong Shang Gang leaked a military plane, and this Lou Zi stabbed too big. Empress Dowager Cixi's outrage, the investigation of the task force, and the reports of the overseers all meant that the Ai Xin Jue Luo Dynasty had realized the power of public opinion, and once this hidden power expanded uncontrollably, the sunshine supervision would constrain the authority of the imperial family and even shake the imperial system. The real purpose of the emperor's thorough investigation of the military aircraft leak case is to suppress public opinion and conceal power through imperial power.
The Guangdong Shang Gang was fortunate because when the Military Aircraft Department set up an investigation task force, the Tongzhi Emperor Long took the guests. abundant? Busy with peace talks with the Japanese, Shen Baozhen planned Taiwan's coastal defense and economic construction, and Empress Dowager Cixi delegated the task of capturing Chen Yan to the governor of Liangguang. Zhang Zhaodong, the new governor of Liangguang, feared that once Chen Yan was caught, the Han clique headed by Shen Baozhen would be implicated, and even Li Hongzhang, the backstage of the Guangdong Shang Gang, would be found. Zhang Zhaodong has been delayed in investigating, and with Shen Baozhen's transfer to the governor of Liangjiang, the military aircraft leak case has not been solved.
Author: Li Delin
EDIT: Wei Zhong
*Excerpt from "Reform Scene", Beijing United Publishing Company, June 2014 edition