Last time, I said that because the Qing government did not attach importance to Japan as an opponent, it was held down by the other side and rubbed hard, which not only lost the fortunes of the country, but also accelerated the demise of the country.

From the point of view of the army, there is a view that although the total number of the Qing Dynasty army is estimated to be about one million, this number obviously contains a lot of water, excluding the non-combat units and the Green Battalion and the Eight Banners that have actually lost their combat capability, and the actual combat capability of the Qing Dynasty is about 300,000.

In addition, the Qing court also counted the number of defense troops and training warriors in various provinces in the 24th year of Guangxu (1898), a total of about 360,000 people, even if the two combined, there are not millions. In the course of the First Sino-Japanese War, the number of troops mobilized by the Qing court was, according to scholar Liao Zonglin's estimate, about 500 battalions.

According to the scale of 500 soldiers in each battalion at that time, it can be seen that in the "First Sino-Japanese War", the Qing Dynasty army participated in about 250,000 people.

As for the actual number of Qing troops on the battlefield, it may not be as good as the Japanese army, because before the "First Sino-Japanese War", the Japanese army had seven divisions and regiments, about 70,000 people, and after the war, the "reserves" were mobilized, and a total of 240,000 troops were mobilized, in addition to more than 150,000 soldiers!

The Qing Dynasty Army was also inferior to the Japanese Army in terms of military quality, weapons and equipment. At that time, the Japanese army was generally equipped with "rifled guns" and "Gatling machine guns", and some units in the Qing army were still using weapons from the Ming Dynasty such as "bird guns" and "Japanese guns" in the "smoothbore guns" and cold weapons such as broadswords, bows and arrows, spears, etc., which became the reason why the Qing army's casualties in the war were several times that of the Japanese army, but the specific casualty statistics are controversial!

In the late Qing Dynasty, the relationship between the "Qing School" headed by the "Guangxu Emperor" mentor, Weng Tongyi, and the "Westernization School" headed by Li Hongzhang deteriorated day by day. Although Li Hongzhang had the honorific title of "Prime Minister", the Qing government at that time did not set up a "Prime Minister", because the highest administrative body under the emperor was the "Military Aircraft Department".

Therefore, Li Hongzhang has the false name of "prime minister", but he is only a "minister of Beiyang" and a "governor of Zhili", and his long-term residences are "Tianjin" and "Baoding". This makes local powerful figures like "Li Hongzhang" very unhappy, but they can only be aggrieved.

The "Qing School" was a very powerful force in the political arena at the end of the Qing Dynasty, headed by Weng Tongyi, the "Hubu Shangshu", and was in charge of the "Military Aircraft Department" and the "Hanlin Academy", so it was also called the "Imperial Party", and its strength was huge. The princes of the "Military Aircraft Department" have great respect for Weng Tonggong, and the "Guangxu Emperor" is even more "Weng Tonggong must be asked about everything, and he is especially dependent". Before declaring war on Japan, Zhang Jian, an important member of the "Imperial Party" who was then the editor of the Hanlin Academy, suggested to Weng Tongyi that Li Hongzhang be transferred to the Weihai front.

The minister of the "Hunan system" took over Li Hongzhang as the acting governor of Zhili, "so as to divide the Huai system and restrain him". Out of suspicion of Li Hongzhang and the Huai army, the Hunan army was transferred to the north to divide the Huai army, so as to consolidate Gyeonggi and prevent internal changes, which became the unanimous view of the "imperial party", and "suppressing Huai and Chongxiang" became the consistent proposition of the "imperial party".

This directly led to the confrontation between the Qing Dynasty and Japan in the early stage of the "First Sino-Japanese War", which turned into a phenomenon in which the "Huai Army" fought against the entire Japanese army alone. Therefore, it is normal for Li Hongzhang to have a certain amount of resistance to this. However, as Weng Tongyi's "proud protégé", the "Guangxu Emperor" emperor was deeply influenced by his thoughts, and took the opinions of the "gossip official" as the opinion. Therefore, Emperor Guangxu thought that Li Hongzhang was cowardly and that he was too cautious in the war against Japan.

So, on July 16, 1894, Emperor Guangxu issued an order to send Li Hongzhang to the front line to prepare for the war against the Japanese invaders...... If you hesitate to move forward, procrastinate in your actions, and delay the fighter plane, the minister must be asking!"

From the "Korean Battlefield" to the "Battle of Toshima", the "Huai Army" and the "Beiyang Naval Division" won fewer and lost more, so they attracted wave after wave of scolding from the "Qing School" in the Qing court, and reprimanded Ye Zhichao, the "commander of the Huai Army" and Ding Ruchang, the "Admiral of the Beiyang Naval Division" in Korea, calling them "remnants of Ding and defeated leaves", which can be seen!

At the same time, the "Qing School" once again accused Li Hongzhang of being "greedy for life and afraid of death". However, ironically, on August 23, 1894, when the "Qing School" heard that a Japanese ship had appeared in the Bohai Sea, they immediately panicked, fearing that the Japanese army would land in Tianjin and attack Beijing directly, threatening their lives!

Therefore, Emperor Guangxu ordered: "Beiyang to pass, Dagu gateway, all ships of the navy should patrol back and forth here, strictly guard, not far away, do not order a ship (Japanese ship) to break in, if there is negligence, Ding Ruchang will be severely punished!" Originally, the "Beiyang Naval Division", which was still patrolling the Bohai Sea, was locked in the "Bohai Bay" in this way, waiting for the Japanese Navy to harvest its fate. After such a "divine operation", how can the "Beiyang Navy" be undefeated?

In order to attack the "Beiyang Military Group," the "Qing School" officials of the "Imperial Party" did not hesitate to attack Li Hongzhang and his subordinate "Beiyang generals" by exaggerating the facts and even spreading rumors and slandering them, so as to cover up the fact that they were even more incompetent. In fact, this is similar to the "party struggle" that has existed in all dynasties.

On the ninth day of August 1894 (September 8), Zhang Zhongxi, the "Imperial History of Jiangnan Province", played Chen "all kinds of suspicious acts in Beiyang", which pointed out that Li Jingfang, the son of Li Hongzhang, was still in Shanghai after the naval conflict had occurred, and was still handled by Zhang Honglu, the "alternate road", to sell 3,000 stone of rice to Japan, and Rishang ordered 30,000 stone of Kaiping coal to be prosperous in the war, and the handling personnel did not intend to sell it.

In particular, Zhang Yufu pointed out that Li Jingfang made a trip to Japan in the past, and he had a close relationship with the palace family, and once recognized the daughter of the Meiji Emperor as a "righteous daughter" and negotiated to be a daughter-in-law; In addition, he opened a "foreign bank" with a capital of 8 million in Japan, and Sheng Xuanhuai, who was then the "Tianjin Customs Road", also had a shareholding, and it was still trading as usual; If the front and back are mirrored, then the crime of the enemy seems to be not delusional." This shows that in the late Qing Dynasty, like the end of the Ming Dynasty, the party struggle in the imperial court greatly consumed the limited national strength and brought disaster to the country and the people.

In order to attack Li Hongzhang, officials of the "Qing School" were able to write even the "story" of Li Hongzhang's son, Li Jingfang, who made his son a Japanese "concubine", so much so that even Weng Tongyong, the leader of the "Imperial Party," had to comment after reading this recital: "The language is amazing." This shows that the political struggle is all-encompassing!

In order to limit Li Hongzhang's rights during the "First Sino-Japanese War", the "Qing School" invited Emperor Guangxu to transfer Li Bingheng, who had contradictions with Li Hongzhang, to serve as the governor of Shandong. Li Bingheng, a native of Liaoning, is close friends with Weng Tongyi, and also belongs to the "clear rumor". During the "First Sino-Japanese War", he opposed Li Hongzhang everywhere, and did not send reinforcements under various strange excuses, so that Liugong Island became an isolated island, and finally fell after the Qing army experienced tragic resistance.

The outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1894 was a major event in the modern history of China and the world, but the Sino-Japanese War was an unjust war launched by Japanese "militarists".

The nine years from the end of the Sino-French War to the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War were the most cherished period of peace in the second half of the 19th century in China. During this period, there was no major domestic turmoil in the Qing Dynasty, the international environment in the Far East eased, and the countries of the West were in a state of peace, which was conducive to economic development.

The Westernization Movement with the goal of "enriching the country and strengthening the army" has achieved remarkable results after 30 years, which is manifested in Zuo Zongtang's victory in recovering the "Battle of Xinjiang in the Western Regions"; Feng Zicai defeated the French army in the "Zhennan Pass" and the "Battle of Langshan"; The "Black Flag Army" led by Liu Yongfu repeatedly hit the French army; and the coup d'état carried out by the Japanese soldiers in cooperation with the Korean "Enlightenment Party" was also defeated. At that time, China's Qing Dynasty was no weaker than Japan's, and even stabilized Japan.

At the time, British pundits commented: "Asia is now in the hands of the three great powers – Russia, Britain and China. In the second half of the 19th century, the Qing Dynasty fought five foreign wars and signed a number of "unequal treaties", and the "Sino-French New Treaty" of 1885 was the only peace treaty among all the "unequal treaties" that did not cede land and pay reparations. Therefore, the environment at that time should be said to be quite favorable to the self-improvement of the Qing Dynasty.

Before the First Sino-Japanese War, Russia and Britain were basically vying for hegemony in the Far East, because although the situation of China and Japan was different, they were also bound by "unequal treaties." However, the victory in the First Sino-Japanese War made Japan a "great power in Asia" and completely got rid of its embarrassing position as a semi-colony.

On the contrary, China's Qing Dynasty's international status plummeted, wealth flowed out in large numbers, and the country's power became even more diminished. The defeat of the First Sino-Japanese War shook Chinese society unprecedentedly, and even interrupted the process of China's modernization, that is, it lost the opportunity for rejuvenation!

At that time, the "Japanese Invaders" of the "small country" who had always been looked down upon by China were able to completely annihilate the "Beiyang Naval Division" and demanded a huge amount of money and cut off a large amount of national territory.

As a result, the government and the opposition lost their self-confidence, and the independent finances of the Qing Dynasty went bankrupt and could only rely on borrowing from the Western powers to survive, and since then it has become a "broken settlement" in Asia. In contrast, the First Sino-Japanese War made Japan an "upstart" in Asia and strengthened its "financial system."

The war reparations were 230 million taels of silver, and the value of the war trophies such as ships was also more than 100 million yen (silver coins). At that time, the annual revenue of the Japanese government was only 80 million yen (silver coins). Before the Meiji Restoration, the daimyo in various parts of Japan had the right to issue their own banknotes, called "feudal clans", but they could not be circulated throughout the country, so they were abolished after the Meiji Restoration, and the "yen" with the "gold standard" issued by the "Bank of Japan" was used for circulation.

At that time, the Meiji government stipulated that the new "yen" banknotes should be on the "gold standard", that is, 1 yen was equivalent to 1.5 grams of gold. However, due to the fact that Japan was extremely short of gold and silver as "reserves" at this time, the paper money issued by Japan could not really be exchanged for "gold coins" or "silver coins".

By the end of the 19th century, all Western countries had switched to the "gold standard", and in order to integrate with Western countries in trade, Japan had to change its "gold standard" accordingly. The Currency Law of 1897 stipulated that 0.75 grams of gold was equivalent to 1 yen, and although it depreciated by 50% compared to the beginning of the Meiji Restoration, it still succeeded in establishing its own "gold reserves" on the "gold standard", all thanks to indemnities from the Sino-Japanese War.

It can be said that Japan's first "gamble on national fortunes" and won the gamble not only enabled Japan's monetary economy to consolidate its fragile financial system due to the plundering of China's massive silver in the most critical period, but also planted the seeds for Japan's "big gamble on national fortunes" again and again in the future, until the defeat in World War II.

At that time, Japan's foreign minister Mutsu Munemitsu said happily: "Before this indemnity, I did not expect that there would be hundreds of millions, and I thought that the total income was only 80 million yen." Therefore, when I think that there are now 350 million yuan rolling in, both the government and the private sector suddenly feel extremely rich! "After Japan occupied Korea and Taiwan, it strategically posed a direct threat to northeast and east China, forming a "springboard" for attacking Chinese mainland.

The first time Japan tasted the sweetness of large-scale aggression against China, it greatly stimulated its desire to continue to expand its aggression against China's territory. Although two "Jiazi" have passed since the First Sino-Japanese War, in the past 128 years, people of insight in China have been reflecting on this war of aggression that has had a tremendous impact on China's politics, economy, ideology, culture, national sentiment and many other aspects, and there are countless relevant research results.

These related studies provide some useful enlightenment for contemporary Chinese from multiple levels. However, 2014 coincided with the "First Sino-Japanese Year", and the diplomatic relations between the three "parties" in the war, namely China, North Korea and Japan, were inexplicably tense and complicated.

Although the "First Sino-Japanese War" was a war between China and Japan, this war was triggered by the "Korean issue", and the "Battle of Chenghuanyi" and "Pyongyang Campaign" were all fought on the territory of Korea, not to mention that after the outbreak of the war, Japan also forced the Korean government to sign an "offensive and defensive alliance" and provided war support to it, so that Korea also passively became one of the "parties to the war" and was forcibly tied to the "chariot" of aggression against China by Japan.

This has brought diplomatic exchanges between China and Japan and North Korea to a halt. However, some Japanese right-wing politicians even continued to make "belligerent remarks," and for a time the dark clouds of war seemed to hang over East Asia. In this context, reflecting on the war more than a hundred years ago is undoubtedly of urgent relevance.

This is also the reason why Zhu Youzhen, the "Chongzhen Emperor" in different time and space, decided to send troops to the Japanese archipelago in a big way after obtaining all the memories of the "Nobel" and forever know the troubles. Of course, it is not difficult to defeat the military power of the Japanese mortal world, but it is even more difficult to defeat the entire "Oriental Island Country Xiuzhen Realm" led by the "Fuso Shintoism", unless the "Xiuzhen Alliance" entrenched in the Ming Dynasty, the so-called "Zhengdao Alliance", also sends an army of "Xiuzhen" to participate in the war!

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