After Fang Shan left, Li Hongzhang lost his temper, smashed the precious vases in the room, and pushed them to the screen. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

But as soon as he calmed down, he began to be afraid.

It is not surprising that the Ming Dynasty's intention to annex the Qing Dynasty has been revealed, but it is strange that they only have the intention of annexation at this time, not ten years ago, not twenty years ago.

Li Hongzhang compared, the Ming Dynasty has millions of soldiers, if they want to go on the Northern Expedition, who can stop it?

Hunan Army?

Huai Army?

Chu Jun?

Or the Eight Flags Green Battalion?

He even assumed that Japan would form an alliance with the Qing Dynasty, and it seemed that he would not be able to defeat the Ming Dynasty, as for the foreigners, would anyone go to war with millions of lions of the Ming Dynasty for the sake of the Qing Dynasty? When the Ming Dynasty fought France, he didn't see anyone helping, and when the Ming Dynasty fought the United States, he also didn't see anyone helping, and Western countries put profit first and couldn't see the long-term, this is Li Hongzhang's understanding, so he thinks that no one will help the Qing Dynasty, even Britain just pays lip service to the good, and Li Hongzhang is the least trusting of the British.

Once the Ming Northern Expedition seized the world, if he Li Hongzhang did not cooperate at this time, even if he died and his Li family was beheaded all over the house, he would not be able to accept it. Under the patriarchal system, the courtiers don't care who is the emperor, but they attach great importance to their own clan.

But Li Hongzhang couldn't do Wei Daming's orders, thinking that his dignified minister of Beiyang and the governor of Zhili wanted to be reluctant to the enemy country, he couldn't bear this breath, so he was furious. How could anyone have dared to threaten him like this, so many people in the court slandered him, and they didn't dare to threaten to kill him. But now that he is threatened, he is still a person who is very likely to do it, the emperor of the Ming Kingdom.

He didn't dare to ignore it, and went to see the Empress Dowager Cixi and Emperor Guangxu overnight.

Emperor Guangxu did not have a good impression of Li Hongzhang, and under the influence of Weng Tongshu, he always thought that Li Hongzhang was a traitor and a posterior party on Cixi's side, which was different from Weng Tongshu and other imperial parties standing beside him.

However, Li Hongzhang's assertion was quite in line with Guangxu's appetite, that is, the main battle to the end, the Hunan army and the Chu army were transferred to participate in the war, and the New Army of the Eight Banners was transferred to the war.

Cixi was in an awkward position at this time, facing the emperor who was about to take over the government, she used the construction of the Summer Palace to make it difficult, saying that she was repairing the garden to support herself, but she actually wanted to wait and see for a while, and she was not worried about the political situation after she handed over power.

So she has always secretly supported Li Hongzhang and other lords and factions, and at the previous court, Li Hongzhang and other lords and factions had obviously reached an agreement on peace talks with Japan, why did they suddenly change their views to the main battle.

She didn't understand what was going on, and she didn't dare to say it easily, lest trouble come out of her mouth.

The First Sino-Japanese War was actually a key battle in the power struggle between Cixi and Guangxu, after the defeat of this battle, on the one hand, the black pot was carried by Li Hongzhang, and on the other hand, it greatly dealt a blow to the imperial party in the main battle, providing a reason for Cixi to continue to be in power.

After that, Emperor Guangxu used the Wuxu change method to fight to the death, but continued to be used by Cixi to completely strangle the imperial party, and then no one objected to her curtain to listen to the government, because of two failures, Guangxu's prestige fell to the valley, and the Manchu Dynasty civil and military felt that this emperor was unreliable.

Now Li Hongzhang's alliance suddenly turned against the water, which really caught the Empress Dowager Cixi off guard, so she didn't say anything, saying that everything was up to the emperor, saying that the emperor had grown up and she was old.

Guangxu was happy, as long as Li Hongzhang could help him win this battle, he would be able to govern himself, so he temporarily put aside his dislike for Li Hongzhang and strongly supported Li Hongzhang's opinion.

After gaining the support of the emperor, Li Hongzhang's position was stable, whether he won or lost this battle, the emperor took the blame, he Li Hongzhang did not offend the court, and he did not offend the Ming Dynasty, he found a stable way back for himself.

The Manchu government immediately became more assertive, rejecting British mediation and determined to fight to the death. The Chu army in Shaanxi and Gansu, and the Hunan army in the south of the Yangtze River, quickly mobilized and at the same time moved to the north.

At this time, it was Japan panicked, in order to fight this war, Japan has accumulated 30 years of national strength, but Japan is too small, with a population of 30 million, perennial expansion of armament warfare, the people are extremely poor, and the people are poor and there is no internal market, all relying on foreign markets, but there are no products that can be used in the world, and the only raw silk has to face the strong competition of the Ming Dynasty.

The wages of the Japanese are indeed low, but they cannot be too low, at least they can make ends meet, and the price of food in Japan is not low, so Japan's raw silk is completely uncompetitive compared with Daming raw silk.

Compared with the low-end, the raw silk standard of Liangguang is eight silk per year, Japan has made some small innovations, through the method of fertilizing mulberry trees with honey locusts, so that Japan's mulberry trees can still grow leaves in autumn, but it is impossible to compare with the Ming mulberry tree is almost evergreen, the Japanese mulberry silkworm spits four silk every year, and the Ming is eight, which makes Japan how to compete at the low end; Compared with the high-end, no matter how good Japan's raw silk is, it can't fight Jiangnan's raw silk, Jiangnan's raw silk production is insufficient, but where is the quality, and it is famous all over the world, even if it is the same low-grade white silk as Japan, it is more expensive than Japan.

Without the sharp weapon of raw silk, Japan's industrialization level is not even as good as in history, in history they still have 3,000 factories, but now there are only about 2,000 really competitive, but it is only some coal mines of the Mitsui family, but they can only be sold domestically, and exports are subject to the competition of coal mines such as Shanxi and Tangshan, Vietnam, etc., and there is no market for the same.

Therefore, Japan's finances are even more difficult than in history, and in the past, they could still have 80 million yen in fiscal revenue, but now it is only 60 million, which is a quarter less. However, because of the coal mines in Shanxi and other provinces, as well as the early development of land in Northeast China, the Manchu Qing Dynasty had sufficient fiscal revenue, as high as more than 100 million taels, twice that of Japan.

Under these circumstances, once the Manchus insisted on a protracted war, Japan could not support it financially alone.

Since the beginning of the war, Japan has relied heavily on borrowing from Britain for military spending, and has issued a debt of one billion yen in the London market.

Faced with this situation, Japan had no choice but to hope that they would continue to coerce the Manchus into peace talks as soon as possible through military victories, so they endured the collapse of the people's livelihood at home and continued to launch large-scale attacks.

The Japanese army marched into Liaodong again, and the Huai army was still about to collapse at the touch of a button, and continued to rout towards Shanhaiguan.

The Chu army and the Hunan army began to enter Shanhaiguan, they held the weapons and equipment of the Ming Dynasty, and they were also better than the Huai army in terms of spiritual will, at least the old Hunan army was in the position of holding machine guns and artillery defense, and would not easily escape, and drank the northwest wind in the northwest for more than ten years, and the Chu army of the Russian army was always on guard against the Russian army, and would not let the leaders go first.

As a result, the Japanese front-line troops pursued to the front of Shanhaiguan and ran headlong into the city wall built by Zhu Yuanzhang, and the head was bleeding, so they could only stop the pace of marching, and the good days of attacking the city and plundering the land without a single shot were over.

The Qing army won its first victory since the beginning of the war, and the civilian officials whitewashed it as a great victory at Shanhaiguan.

At this time, they began to underestimate the enemy, and the magnates of the Eight Banners, who had been silent before, actually began to ask for battle, saying that they would take the initiative to attack, cross the Shanhaiguan, and recover the ancestral land of Manchuria.

They saw that the Hunan army and the Chu army easily repelled the Japanese army, thinking that the Japanese army was nothing more than that, before Li Hongzhang was too cowardly, and then thought about it, isn't it just the Japanese Kou, what is terrible, and the mentality of despising the Japanese has risen, so the Eight Banners have asked for battle.

The equipment level of the 200,000 Eighth Banner New Army was much better than that of the Hunan Army and the Chu Army, and only Li Hongzhang's elite Huai Army could compare, and they asked to go out of Zhangjiakou to meet the Japanese flank.

Emperor Guangxu was very pleased, seeing this momentum, thinking that the military heart was available, and the battle would be won, and once again felt that his military talent was bursting, and he waved his pen to meet the plan of the Eight Banners, and he even wanted to conquer in person for a while, giving himself enough prestige, but he regretfully gave up this plan under the persuasion of Weng Tongshu and other officials.

The 200,000 Eight Banners New Army, the mighty slaughter to Zhangjiakou, was to take the train, but did not talk to the people along the way about trouble, but it harmed a large number of Jin merchants in Zhangjiakou, they went to ask for food, money and women, and if they were not satisfied, they collaborated with the enemy, and they blackmailed the Jin merchants.

made a fortune before the war, which made the children of Eight Flags feel that this trip has a great future.

The commander of the new army is nominally Fu Zhuli, but there are too many red and yellow belts in it, and he can't afford to provoke them at all, so he can only let these people mess around.

There are trains from Zhangjiakou to Huludao, which were built by the Russians, I don't know for what purpose, the Russians let the Eight Banners requisition their trains, and at the same time informed the Japanese army of the whereabouts of these masters, in fact, they did not need to be announced, the Japanese spies had already mastered the every move of these people.

The Japanese spared the Eight Banners on the trains, and when they began to assemble in Jinzhou, they suddenly sent troops to surround Jinzhou.

Then, after a modest battle and the collapse of the city wall of Jinzhou, the children of the Eight Banners in the encirclement surrendered, and 200,000 people surrendered, while the Japanese army surrounding them was only 100,000, or 100,000 people who lacked food and ammunition.

The 200,000 Eight Banners New Army was completely annihilated, which shook the Qing court, and they immediately beheaded Fu Zhuli, the general of the unified army, at the strong request of the excited adults.

Then the Eight Banners magnates and the Han people began to pass the buck to each other, the Eight Banners magnates said that Li Hongzhang sat back and watched the Eight Banners New Army was besieged in Jinzhou and did not go to the rescue, resulting in the destruction of the 200,000 army, Li Hongzhang said that he heard that the Eight Banners New Army was surrounded, he had already set out to rescue, but he had not had time to repel the Japanese army in the front, who knew that the Eight Banners New Army surrendered, from they arrived in Jinzhou to be surrounded, the time was less than ten days, from they were surrounded to surrender, the time was only five days, half a month, not to mention that there were Japanese troops on the front to intercept, even if it was a horse Pingchuan, The army could not catch up.

The quarrel was fruitless, but it only made people realize a reality, the most pampered Eight Banners were the worst, the second pampered Huai Army was the second worst, but the Chu army, which suffered in the west, and the Hunan army, which was poorly equipped, were better.

This made the Qing court decide to change the commander, remove Li Hongzhang from his position, and replace Weng Tongshu, the leader of the main battle faction, as the commander, to lead the Xiangchu army and defend Gyeonggi.

However, at this time, Japan, which had the right to control the sea, no longer shook the Shanhaiguan Pass, but landed in Shandong from the sea and marched towards Weihai.

Shandong governor Li Bingheng was at odds with Li Hongzhang and sat back and watched the Japanese attack on Weihaiwei without rescue, resulting in the fall of Weihai Fort.

The main force of the Beiyang Naval Division, the four ironclad ships, had been fighting fiercely with the Japanese Combined Fleet in the military port, and the Japanese Navy had no choice but to take these four warships, and as a result, the four warships were sunk with the fortress guns on the Qing army's own batteries.

The Japanese Navy has been persuading Admiral Ding Ruchang to surrender, but Ding Ruchang has always refused to surrender, before the destruction of the Navy, committed suicide, and was dying, "Even if you sink one, it's good", with the regret of not sinking a Japanese warship, he committed suicide, but his death did not wash away his shame, and the surrendered Beiyang Navy Division generals put the responsibility of surrender on his head, knowing that it took more than ten years to be rehabilitated.

The Japanese occupied Weihai, completely annihilated the Beiyang Naval Division, and completely controlled the sea dominance of the Bohai Sea, and now they can land anywhere in the Bohai Bay.

Li Hongzhang, who had already lost power, handed over everything to Weng Tongshu, did not ask about the world, and was sick at home. At this time, the emperor was in a hurry, although Weng Tongshu insisted on continuing to fight, but what if the Japanese army landed in Tianjin? The little emperor repeatedly sent important ministers to ask Li Hongzhang to come forward to preside over the peace talks, but Li Hongzhang could not come out of his illness. And the Japanese army really landed from Tianjin.