Backwardness is to be beaten, after the Opium War, the Qing government no longer prides itself on being a heavenly kingdom, the Foreign Affairs faction headed by Li Hongzhang and Zhang Zhidong began to put forward the strategy of "mastering yi long skills to control yi", and in order to learn Western technology, Li Hongzhang once visited various countries and won a piece of praise in the world, Japanese Prime Minister Itō Hirobumi bluntly said that Li Hongzhang was "the only person in the Qing Empire who has the ability to compete with the world powers", German Navy Minister Konad praised Li Hongzhang as "Bismarck of the East", Li Hongzhang visited various countries. In addition to seeing the system of Western countries, during his visit to Germany, he also bought a large number of arms, one of which was completely like scrap iron, but he did not care to plant willows, which became a sharp weapon on the anti-Japanese battlefield after improvement.
At that time, Li Hongzhang invested a lot of money in the Beiyang Army, even more than the Japanese Navy in the same period. Moreover, from 1868 until the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War, the Funds smashed by the Qing government on the Beiyang Marine Division were close to 30 million silver. But why did the Beiyang Water Army shatter as soon as it touched it? Originally, for his appearance, Li Hongzhang thought of finding the British army to buy warships, but the attitude of the foreigners was too arrogant, and they were only willing to sell Li Hongzhang some impractical defective products.
At that time, Germany developed two rifles, one mauser and one commission gun. Among them, the Mauser gun was a good gun that was later known, and the commission gun was a gun that Germany spent a lot of money to develop. However, in the end, it was developed, although the performance was good, but it was easy to explode, so in fact this gun became a waste. Germany is also preparing to stop its research and development, and the production line is abandoned. However, what is not willing is that after all, it has spent so much money and wants to find a wronged head to fill this hole.
Earlier, German Chancellor Bismarck had instilled in him the idea that "truth is only within the range of the cannon" and tried to sell him the newly produced Krupp cannon from Germany. In order to make Li Hongzhang pay the bill, Bismarck threw in his favor, and when Li Hongzhang visited Germany, he specially prepared a grand welcome ceremony, and also accompanied the reception throughout the whole process. Li Hongzhang, out of helplessness, actually spent 6 million taels of silver to buy back 328 Krupp guns for the Qing government.
You know, at that time, the Beiyang Admiralty bought two warships and only 3.4 million taels of silver, and Li Hongzhang could make the Germans lame this time. What he didn't know was that this pile of "broken copper and rotten iron" could not come in handy until the qing government perished. In fact, the Krupp cannon cannot be blamed. This cannon was indeed the most advanced cannon in the world at that time, not only powerful, but also long enough to penetrate 66 mm steel plates within 3 kilometers. But with all german weapons, the tone is extremely bulky and complex to operate. Moreover, the erection of these cannons also requires special turrets and the training of professional operators, which can be described as quite troublesome.
Fast forward to September 1937, when the Japanese Navy invaded Xiamen. At that time, the commander in charge of coastal defense, He Rongguan, ordered a return fire, and only one shell was fired, hitting the Japanese Navy destroyer "Wakatake", and the other two warships saw the situation and did not dare to act rashly, so they had to escape with the Wakabku in ashes. At that time, the battery that fired the cannon was the "Hulishan Fort", which was left over from the Qing government's foreign affairs campaign. During his visit to Germany, Li Hongzhang purchased more than three hundred Krupp cannons, but only two were allocated to the Hulishan Fort.
The same Krupp cannon, after being controlled by a group of officers and soldiers, even if it was an era behind, still beat the Japanese Wakatake to escape. I have to say that whether the battle is fought with weapons, the final victory or defeat is determined by people.