On April 16, 1874, when the Taiwan Strait was stormy, a 50-meter-long wooden merchant ship with white sails swayed in the wind and waves, heading for Pingtung in Tainan. Next to this merchant ship was also a wooden merchant ship, and Vice Admiral Saigo stood at the bow of the ship, his eyes firmly looking ahead, and the sea breeze cut his face like a knife, blowing the corners of his kimono. The two merchant ships were also home to 3,000 heavily armed samurai who were nominally on their way to avenge the 54 Ryukyu Islanders killed by Taiwan's natives in 1871, but in fact wanted to establish a colony in Taiwan. As a result, the first war in modern history was on the verge of breaking out.

The origin of the incident is that in 1871, the fleet of the Ryukyus Kingdom to China to pay the annual tribute encountered a strong typhoon on the way back and drifted to the southeast of Taiwan, due to the language barrier, there was a misunderstanding, and 54 of the 69 people on board were killed by the aborigines of Taiwan. At that time, Ryukyu and Taiwan were both Chinese territory, and it was normal for bloody conflicts between the aborigines to occur, and the fact that the Ryukyu fleet was clearly going to China to pay annual tribute shows that Ryukyu recognized China as the suzerain. He said that he didn't know which nerve was deranged, so he jumped out and shouted: "To kill the Ryukyu people is to kill himself", and Saigo led 3,000 people from the province to attack Taiwan with great vigour.

Saigo Congdao, a fanatical militant who is known as the "last samurai" Saigo Takamori, went to fight Taiwan this time, and did not get the permission of the political axe of Saigo, so it can be said that his 3,000 people are considered standard Japanese cowards. Saigo had the same idea as his elder brother Saigo Takamori, believing that in order for a small country like Saimoto to develop, it was necessary for low-ranking samurai to invade other countries and plunder resources from new territories. Before setting out from the port of Nagasaki, he painted the shells of the two merchant ships with new paint, installed four cannons bought from the West, and posed as warships, hoping to occupy Taiwan.

At that time, he was also in Nagasaki, and he advised Saigo to say, "You better not go, isn't this a joke about the lives of three thousand samurai?" Just your two broken ships, as soon as you fire Western artillery in the Taiwan Strait, the recoil of the cannons can overturn the ship. ”

Saigo laughed loudly: "It's okay, no one in China will know that this warship is fake, and when they understand, Taiwan will already be in my hands." ”

Sure enough, until now, it is still recorded in the Chinese history books: in 1874, the two warships led 3,000 soldiers to invade Taiwan, which is known as the "Peony Society Incident". Erroneous history books have always hinted to future generations that the Qing court's Westernization movement was very unsuccessful, and that the Ming Dynasty was very strong after several years of the Meiji Restoration, so China was defeated, and the Qing court compensated the Qing court with 500,000 taels of silver.

In fact, this is completely slandering the Westernization Movement, and the incompetence of the bureaucrats of the Qing Dynasty's political axe, their backward thinking, and their lack of coastal defense concept are the reasons why China was undefeated in the first war.

In 1874, there was not even a navy. It was Lieutenant General Saigo Congdao who went to attack Taiwan, two merchant ships, and it was not until 1883 that there were two decent iron warships. Emperor Meiji established the Shinsho in 1868, and after that, there were several civil strife until 1877, when the Southwest War broke out.

On the other hand, the Westernization Movement of the Qing Dynasty was in full swing after the pacification of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and a large number of state-owned military enterprises absolutely reached the first-class level in Asia. As early as 1865, Li Hongzhang opened the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau, Rong Hong went to the United States to purchase manufacturing machines, and successively built a machine factory, a foreign gun building, a steam furnace factory, a copper and iron casting factory, a wrought iron factory, and a shipyard, and the factory building was extended to the Huangpu River, and began to build military ships. In 1870, the Jinling Machinery Bureau was able to manufacture cannons, gun wagons, and guns and shells of various calibers. After Li Hongzhang was transferred to the governor of Zhili, he took over the Tianjin Machinery Bureau, expanded the scale of production, and said that the grinding of black gunpowder could reach 900 kilograms. Founded by Zuo Zongtang in 1866, the Fuzhou Ship Administration Bureau, from 1866 to 1874, caused 15 gunboats, the combat effectiveness of these gunboats is not weak, taking the "Mae Yun" gunboat as an example, the length of 54.03 meters, the width of 7.8 meters, the displacement of 550 tons, the use of foreign purchases of 2 cylinder steam engine, the speed of 9 knots, equipped with 16 cm caliber guns, 12 cm guns 2, than the 1875 invasion of Korea "Yunyang" warship is more advanced. In 1872, after Zuo Zongtang led his division into Lanzhou, he also established the "Lanzhou Manufacturing Bureau", and transferred experts and skilled workers from Guangzhou, Zhejiang and other places to imitate German screw guns and breech seven-shot guns for the Western Expeditionary Army, laying a solid foundation for dealing with the foreign guns and foreign guns of the Agubai Army. Therefore, in 1874, the military hardware equipment of the Qing Dynasty was much more than that of the original Niucha.

The most important thing is that the Qing Dynasty was not short of money at that time, Western countries at that time advocated free trade, and did not impose an arms embargo on China, as long as there was silver, not to mention advanced warships, even the entire fleet could be bought. In 1863, the Qing Zheng Axe almost spent 800,000 taels of silver to buy the Aspen fleet, that is, the British-Chinese combined fleet, the fleet has three intermediate warships, four small warships, 600 officers and sailors on board are recruited in the British, the entire fleet in 1863 sailed to the port of Tianjin, but the officials of the Qing Zheng Axe have a stuck head, because the command of the warship quarreled with the British Navy Captain Aspen and terminated the contract. Otherwise, this hired navy would have destroyed the navy in 1875, and it would probably have changed China's modern history.

It can be seen that China's backwardness at that time was mainly due to the rotten bureaucracy of the Qing Dynasty, the bureaucracy was mediocre, clinging to the inadequate, not knowing how to open its eyes to the world, and not being familiar with the rules of world trade and diplomacy. What the officials of the Qing Dynasty are good at is that they claim to be the superior kingdom of the Celestial Empire, refuse to learn advanced foreign ideas and concepts on the grounds that they are not suitable for the national conditions, and like to take the power and scheming of the nest as wisdom, and try every means to fool the people, and over time, directly pull the intelligence of the nation down to the level of the lower body.

Taking the "Atlas of the Sea Kingdom" as an example, we can see why China was completely defeated in the late Qing Dynasty. As early as 1842, Wei Yuan compiled a fifty-volume "Atlas of the Sea Kingdom" on the basis of the "Chronicles of the Four Continents" compiled by Lin Zexu, introducing the "sea power" to the Chinese people for the first time, but the princes and ministers of the Qing Dynasty were basically only interested in beauty and food books. By 1852, the Atlas of the Sea Kingdom had expanded to 100 volumes, but no one cared about it. As a result, the "Atlas of the Sea Kingdom" crossed the ocean and reached the hands of the scholar himself, and became very popular, promoting the Meiji Restoration.

To get back to the point, the 1874 version is not the same as China's strength. But he dared to challenge China, not because of a strong ship and a sharp cannon, but because of Saigo's courage not to be afraid of death. At that time, when Saigo Shomichi's troops were on standby in Nagasaki Port, Britain and the United States opposed the military action of Saigo and did not rent warships to him, so he ordered to suspend the dispatch of troops, but Saigo Shomichi actually said: "Delaying the dispatch of troops will damage morale, and if the political axe forcibly stops it, I am willing to return the Emperor's letter of full authority and go straight to the lair of Shengbo as a thief, and it will definitely not affect the country!" "I'd rather be a bandit than fight for the country, the late Qing Dynasty didn't lack such generals, but there was none.

As a result, Saigo landed in Taiwan with 3,000 troops from the province, but was fiercely attacked by the aborigines of Taiwan. On the side of the Qing political axe, Li Hongzhang saw clearly his wolf ambitions, and vigorously supported Shen Baozhen to lead the fleet to Taiwan as the minister of the Qin Mission, and transferred 6,500 people from Tang Dingkui's department of the Huai Army stationed in Xuzhou to Taiwan in batches.

Xixiang didn't expect that the Great Qing Kingdom would still be supported by Li Hongzhang, so he was dumbfounded all of a sudden, and hurriedly contacted Yuben Zhengaxe, wanting to make some benefits through diplomatic channels. Later, under the mediation of the British Minister Wei Tuma, Saigo began to withdraw from Taiwan in December 1874, and the Qing court promised to pay 500,000 taels of silver.

Just a few days later, Emperor Tongzhi died, and Emperor Guangxu ascended the throne. Although it is a drop in the bucket to give 500,000 taels of silver to the Qing Empire, after all, it costs four million taels of silver to build a mausoleum for Emperor Tongzhi. However, Song Xiaofei, as a patriotic young man who understands the history of humiliation in modern China, felt that it was a waste to give a copper plate to a big-tailed wolf like Xiao Yueben, so he fulfilled the responsibility of a staff member and suggested when Li Hongzhang talked about this: "A small country like Yueben has too few resources, and if it wants to develop modern industry, it will inevitably take the road of militarism of foreign expansion, and we have to guard against it." If it is not contained, it is said that the association will first occupy the Ryukyus, and then plot against Taiwan and Korea, and then the entire northeast will be in danger. In the end, it is difficult to say whether Ben will swallow an elephant with a snake and invade the whole of China. ”

These words also hit Li Hongzhang's heart, so he admonished the queen mother of the two palaces above the court: "It is said that this is close to the elbow and armpit, and it will always be the trouble of Middle-earth!" He proposed that attention should be paid to "coastal defense", and the imperial court should spend a lot of money to buy Western warships to strengthen the defense of the southeast coast. Before the words fell, two people jumped out of the Heart Cultivation Hall and said, "I am against it", and they openly quarreled with Li Hongzhang in the court.

The first old man was Zuo Zongtang, who was the governor of Shaanxi and Gansu at the time, who was 63 years old at the time. The second person is Emperor Guangxu's teacher and co-organizer of the university.