1894 After the defeat of the Sino-Japanese War, how did the ministers change their names and scold Li Hongzhang?

Compared with the public opinion that the main battle was one-sided before the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, the officials in the great hall of the Qing Dynasty were relatively restrained. Because at this time, many talents discovered that Li Hongzhang had been passively avoiding war before, not to raise his troops and respect himself, but to beat Japan, a "small country".

Before the war, everyone in the world denounced Li Hongzhang, calling him afraid of war, associating with the Japanese, and being a traitor and traitor. After the war, people all over the world still lambasted Li Hongzhang, only in a different way.

For example, Chen Baozhen, the grandfather of Chen Yinque, a master of modern Chinese studies, was later promoted to the governor of Hunan Province, and was extremely dissatisfied with Li Hongzhang's signing of treaty of shimonoseki. After Li Hongzhang returned from Japan, it is said that the Queen Mother may restore Li Hongzhang as the governor of Zhili. Chen Baozhen listened and said, "When Li arrives at his post, I will hang my crown at night." It means that if he is reinstated, I will resign immediately.

This actually represented the mainstream view of ministers at that time, so even if Cixi defended Li Hongzhang, she didn't dare to make public anger and could only let Li Hongzhang idle for a few years.

When talking about why he hated Li Hongzhang so much, Chen Baozhen said: "To respect an old minister like Gong Li is the first to bear the brunt of the war. When he spilled his blood on Chen, he fought for life and death, so he must listen to the saints. Today, I sue you for slander, attracting the greatness of China. In the clan, I put all my eggs in one basket, and the ministers share joys and sorrows. Gong Li's sin was covered up by the world, and I didn't cover up for Gong Li's sin. "

Chen Baozhen has talked a lot here. His central idea is: Li Hongzhang knows that you can't beat him. Why didn't you say so earlier?

If Li Hongzhang hears this, he will probably feel very wronged: I have always told you that I can't beat you, but you insist that I fight, or I will be labeled as a traitor. what can I do? I'm desperate, too

Of course, Chen Baozhen has also thought about his future, and Li Hongzhang may use this reason to "blame the blame" and shirk his responsibility. So he thought that Li Hongzhang should have worked hard from the beginning. If he said a few more words, maybe the emperor would listen and not go to war with Japan.

If there is no history, we can't know if Chen Baozhen was sitting in Li Hongzhang's seat at that time, as he himself said, he would "spill his blood on himself and fight to the death." But what about Li Hongzhang's former Weng Tong? It is also appropriate to say a word in response to Chen Baozhen's question.

"The government thinks I'm overbearing, and Taiwan Province remonstrates my greed. I'm still embarrassed. Is there still Li Hongzhang today? "

Among those who impeached Li Hongzhang was Zhang Jian, a scholar in the late Qing Dynasty and a famous industrialist later. Zhang Jian is different from Chen Baozhen. Chen Baozhen is basically an outsider in the debate about whether to go to war with Japan, while Zhang Jian and his teacher Weng Tong? He was the most determined hawk in North Korea at that time.

The warring factions that humiliated the country and encouraged Guangxu to fight this war are hard to blame. Therefore, after the defeat of the Qing Dynasty, the hawks either wanted to clean themselves up or gave the biggest pot to Li Hongzhang.

However, if Zhang Jian scolds Li Hongzhang here, he can no longer attack Li Hongzhang's main peace, because facts have proved that this war really shouldn't be fought. Therefore, Zhang Jian turned out the old Huang Li calendar of Emperor Guangxu, avoided talking about the battle between the main battle and the peace talks before the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, and instead elaborated on Li Hongzhang's two major crimes over the years. "The war was unprepared and the bureau lost."

1894- 1895 The Sino-Japanese Sino-Japanese Sino-Japanese War of 1895 was caused by the Korean dispute. For a long time in history, North Korea was a subordinate country of China. However, since modern times, the national strength of the Qing Dynasty has been declining and that of Japan has been growing, and the competition between the two countries for North Korea has become increasingly fierce. At the same time, Britain, the United States, Russia and other countries are eyeing North Korea.

According to Mr. Tang Degang's description, the Qing government had "three strategies to deal with the North Korean issue". One is to "county-level" North Korea and turn it into a province of China. The second is to make North Korea independent and completely open, so that the interests of all countries can be shared and the balance of power can be maintained. The third is to maintain the status quo and wait for the natural development of the situation.

As the first of the "three northeastern provinces", the Qing Dynasty lost its existing territory, and it was obviously impossible to turn North Korea into a province of China. At that time, the strategy considered by the Qing government was between Article 2 and Article 3. On the one hand, under the pressure of the great powers, North Korea had to be partially opened; On the other hand, it retains part of suzerainty, which makes China and Japan basically equal in power in North Korea.

We know that if a company has only two major shareholders, and both of them hold equal shares, the following disputes are inevitable.

In his briefing on impeaching Li Hongzhang, Zhang Jian said that Li's fault lies in his improper handling of North Korean affairs for more than a decade. First, it failed to fulfill its obligations to North Korea, a sovereign country, allowing foreign forces to take advantage of it; Second, after foreign forces infiltrated into North Korea, they did not diligently repair weapons, but withdrew their troops stationed in North Korea. Third, when Japan sent troops to North Korea in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, it did not make good preparations and let the situation deteriorate.

Because of Li Hongzhang's inaction or chaos, it laid the groundwork for the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, which eventually led to the confrontation between war and peace.

The meaning of "li hongzhang, but the old easy, not as good as north Korea? Entrusted to the bird's mouth of various countries, I hope they can't stand each other, and I have to sneak in with my hand. The interests of North Korea about China are too numerous to mention. "

Zhang Jian accused Li Hongzhang of throwing North Korea as a piece of meat to a hungry wolf to fight, while he stood by and watched. I didn't expect it to catch fire in the end, which led to "where you can fight, no one can stand."

Compared with Chen Baozhen, Zhang Jian's criticism of Li Hongzhang is more in place. After all, Zhang Jian is not the kind of scholar who can only talk. In his early years, he served as the chief of staff of the Huai army, went to North Korea to quell the Renwu mutiny and crossed the battlefield with live ammunition. Therefore, what Zhang Jian said in the paper hit the nail on the head, and even Li Hongzhang himself applauded.

However, Zhang Jian entered the Huai army and participated in the counter-insurgency in the Sino-Japanese War more than ten years ago. For more than ten years, Zhang Jian didn't know that Japan's military strength was developing with each passing day, nor could he see the decline of Huai Army and Beiyang Navy. It is very inappropriate to use the comparison of military strength between China and Japan more than ten years ago as the reason for his resolute main battle.

In addition, Zhang Jian blamed Li Hongzhang's "sense of security for the elderly" for the Qing government's relaxation of control over North Korea, which was also too subjective. Indeed, western powers are like hungry eagles, while China is like a helpless dying old man. At this moment, there is a piece of meat from North Korea at hand. Will you throw it away or let them eat it?

In the process of impeaching Li Hongzhang, some people even proposed to kill Li Hongzhang to thank the world. But most of them are accusing Li Hongzhang of what he should have done at the beginning, and there is no practical way to deal with it. So they just aggravated Li Hongzhang's sin, or they could find an outlet for Chinese people to vent their anger, but it was useless to save the nation from extinction.