Volume 1: The Battleship Yitian Changes into the Sino-Japanese War of 1894 Chapter 90: The Awl That Stabs People
Time flies, and 1895 is about to pass. So many unexpected things happened in this year.
Because of the last incident, Sun Gang was worried that the court would have objections to the navy's "revenue-generating" actions, so he had been paying close attention to the news in the court. As expected, not long after, Master Weng instructed the censors to report to the emperor, saying that the navy's "ships were carrying contraband, using the name of training and escort to engage in smuggling and corruption", and that "whenever they arrived at the ports of other countries, the captains of the ships led the crowd to engage in fornication and gambling on the shore, and half of the people who left the ships did not return until nightfall", and that "because there were huge profits to be made, all the ships left the seaports, and there was not a single ship guarding the military ports in various places". No one knew where they got the news from, which made Sun Gang extremely "admire" the imagination of these censors.
Of course, the Lord Zhongtang could not allow them to talk nonsense, so he refuted with reason and evidence, "It is natural for the navy to escort merchants and civilians. All countries in the world do this, not for profit, but to comfort the people and spread the country's prestige to the world." He took out the "Umbrella of Ten Thousand People" and "Flag of Ten Thousand People" given by local Chinese in Cuba and Peru brought back by the Beiyang ships, and said, "When the Chinese workers in Cuba, Peru and other countries heard that our navy was coming, they all cheered and hugged each other and cried as if they saw their relatives. Why? They were grateful for the court's kindness. When they saw our navy coming, they were afraid of our military power and dared not oppress our people, so that tens of thousands of people in the water and fire were The Chinese were about to die but were saved. They knew that the imperial court could not bear to see a single man lost on a remote island, let alone the people of the Qing Dynasty!" He pointed out the great political significance of naval escort and comforting overseas Chinese in stabilizing social development, and said, "The expenses of the navy's escort are all put into the navy's special fund for the maintenance of the ships, which saves a lot of money." He pointed out that the purpose of doing so was to ease the financial pressure on the court, and then said, "The escort ships are mostly fast boats and submarines, and the main ships of each army are guarding the port and the shore, and no one has left without permission." He pointed out that the censors' unwarranted accusations were groundless. In this way, this time, Lord Zhongtang won the "debate".
But later, Li Hongzhang said to Sun Gang: "The censor system is the most harmful. The Ming Dynasty fell because of the censors. They are all young and new, and they have no experience in the world. They don't care about the facts, the gains and losses, and the interests of the country. They just pick a topic and talk about it. They use this to show off their talents, but they have hindered many national affairs."
Every time China moves forward towards modernization, there will always be various stubborn forces standing in the way!
"I asked the Military Intelligence Department's Beijing Office to compile a list of all the stubborn people who might be holding us back." Ma Yue once said to him seriously, "There are only a few hundred Beijing officials and local officials combined. With just one order from you, I can make them all disappear within a month."
Sun Gang burst into tears again, and all the "lagging" officials escaped.
"The key lies in the current system of this country." In order to prevent his beloved wife, who "held a large number of troops", from making any "extreme" moves, Sun Gang "patiently" explained to her: "It doesn't matter if we kill this group of people. A large number of people will be promoted through the imperial examination. Can you kill them all?"
"I was wondering, didn't the imperial court dismiss a bunch of people last time? Where did all these people come from this time?" Ma Yue suddenly realized and nodded, saying, "You mean the problem lies in the system."
"You can say that," Sun Gang said, "the main problem is still in ideology. Some institutional reforms can promote changes in ideology."
"How can we quickly promote the awakening of ideology from top to bottom?" My beloved wife asked seriously, "The current situation is really annoying."
"Then there is only one way." A strange smile appeared on Sun Gang's lips.
"What is it?" she asked, staring at him.
"That's it." Sun Gang said word by word.
"war."
"I think you are showing signs of becoming Hitler-like now." Ma Yue was shocked when she heard what Sun Gang said and said.
"We said this between us in private. I have never told anyone else." Sun Gang looked at her and smiled, "If the Opium War had not shattered the dream of the Celestial Empire, how long would the Chinese have continued to sleep? If the Sino-Japanese War made the Chinese realize the importance of the navy and sea power, would China have slipped into the abyss?"
"I understand. It's like a sleeping person. You can't wake him up, so you can only poke him with an awl, right?" Ma Yue immediately used a "figurative" metaphor to show that she understood what he meant. "But there are too many awls around the Qing Dynasty."
"So, how to stab someone awake without stabbing them to death is a very difficult problem to solve." Sun Gang said, "What I am trying to do now is to prevent the two big spikes around me from stabbing me so quickly. Give me some time to prepare my weapons."
"Russia and Japan, either one of them is enough to make you drink a pot." Ma Yue said: "By the way, the information obtained by the Military Intelligence Department in Japan is that the Japanese seem to be making their own warships and are also buying them. It's just that I don't know how big they are, and I don't know if it violates the treaty."
"Master Zhongtang is now negotiating with Japan about the two battleships that have been resold." Sun Gang said, "He knows that I am worried about this."
"It's also because the Qing army is too disappointing." Ma Yue said: "If they were a little stronger, could we have defeated them now?"
"There are also good men in the army, like General Nie (Shicheng), General Zuo (Baogui), and General Ma (Yukun), but they lack modern military thinking. This time the court wants to organize a Wuwei Army and invite the Germans to help with training. There should be some progress." Sun Gang said. He had known a few days ago that the court would transfer Nie Shicheng, Song Qing and other troops back to form the Wuwei Three Armies together with the Beiyang Army and part of the Huai Army. They would be trained according to German military law, their organization would imitate the German system, and their weapons and equipment would also be those of the German Army. In Sun Gang's view, it was the poor performance of the Qing Army in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 that stung the court (the current situation of the Qing Army showed that it was not only unable to fight against foreign invaders, but could not ), so the court wanted to establish a real national defense army.
After suppressing the Taiping Rebellion and the Nian Rebellion, most of the Qing Army's units had not experienced any major battles (only a few units participated in Zuo Zongtang's campaign to recover Xinjiang and the Sino-French War). The prolonged peace made the Qing Army, which had originally had low combat effectiveness, even more corrupt. "Half of the soldiers were in name only, and their operations were just perfunctory." "The veteran generals have long since passed away, and those who succeeded them are either their relatives or their children, all of whom have never fought in the battlefield. The recruits were all bribed, and they have long harbored grievances due to the withholding of pay. They are arrogant and extravagant, but lag behind in fighting." Sichuan Governor Song Qing pointed out that the army generals "do not have enough prestige and virtue on a daily basis, and the soldiers are not obedient. They flee when they see the enemy and capture anything they come across without any scruples and keep killing." "Once a battle occurs, the officers panic and the brave ones flee in all directions." This was true for all armies. After the war, students from the Military Academy who followed the army to help pointed out that they "had been to the front line and witnessed the defeat of the military. It was all because of the generals' poor training, the soldiers' lack of regular exercises, their inability to study firearms, their inability to measure the distance of guns and artillery, their inability to measure the terrain carefully, and their lack of camps." "Most of the soldiers from the three provinces who are trained live in cities. They indulge in smoking, drinking, and gambling. All their officers and soldiers are addicted to smoking. Their military appearance is poor, and few can surpass them. In addition to their military uniforms, they all have a pipe inserted diagonally on their waists, which makes everyone who sees them laugh." Such troops, even if equipped with the most advanced weapons, cannot play their due role.
Even troops with good morale and military equipment were greatly reduced in combat effectiveness due to the lack of experienced commanders who understood modern military theories. In the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, the commanders of the Qing army who dared to compete with the Japanese army had all the "old experience" from the domestic war in their minds. When attacking, they still used the tactics of group charge in the cold weapon era (many military-themed movies in later generations were also shot in this way. I wonder if the directors didn't understand or thought that war should be like this?), rushing forward, and often starting to shoot randomly at a distance of 1,000 meters. The Japanese army fired fiercely at close range with dense firepower (it seems that each person can only use 8 bullets!), causing heavy casualties to the Qing army. When defending, the officers of the Qing army only paid attention to frontal defense and ignored the flanks. Even on the front, there was no depth of troops and firepower. The Japanese army only needed to attack from the flanks to force the Qing army to collapse across the board. According to foreigners who watched the war, "Almost every time the Chinese tried to hold their positions, they were forced to retreat because the enemy detoured to their flanks. The Chinese simply didn't know how to defend themselves." The problem was particularly serious in the use of artillery. First, the participating units were not under the same command, and the artillery was assigned to each unit and could not be used in a centralized manner. The Japanese army, regardless of the number of artillery, concentrated all artillery to strengthen firepower. Second, they did not understand the principle of coordinated combat between infantry and artillery, and always chose to place artillery positions "inside or in the gaps between the front-line infantry positions . Therefore, artillery became a prominent target and was repeatedly destroyed by Japanese artillery in the early stages of the battle." Some of the Qing army commanders also summed up lessons learned from the war practice and put forward suggestions for improvement. For example, Nie Shicheng pointed out many times: "The previous defeat was all because our artillery was not concentrated in one place, and each camp had lost the opportunity. The Japanese artillery, regardless of the number, fired at the same time." However, it did not attract due attention, and the generals on the front line continued to do what they did. Song Qing's Qing army fought bravely, and the artillery performed quite well, but due to improper use, it was "aimed and fired in clusters" by the Japanese rapid artillery, and 4 of the 5 artillery pieces were destroyed, and it soon lost its combat capability. Yiktang'a's border garrison troops made the same mistake again, with five artillery pieces destroyed and the entire army retreating. Fortunately, these Qing army generals finally woke up from the bloody lesson. When counterattacking Haicheng, the Qing army concentrated all the more than 100 artillery pieces of various types and used them. As a result, they exerted great power, recaptured Haicheng, and regained some "ground". At that time, some Western military observers said: "The commanders of the Chinese Army showed a sad ignorance in basic strategies and tactics and the use of weapons." "If the military commanders had some knowledge of modern military affairs, the Chinese Army might have caused useful damage to the Japanese side, but its officers almost denied all possibilities of its success."
If this country does not change its attitude towards Western technology from top to bottom, even if the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 is won because of this little butterfly, it will still fail in the next war that may break out!
So, can he change all that now?
Thinking of the setbacks Li Hongzhang and those pragmatic officials encountered in every action they took, Sun Gang couldn't help but feel a chill in his heart.
Forget it, let’s pay more attention to the battleships that are under construction.
