Few friends know that the problem of party strife in the late Qing Dynasty was more serious than that in the late Ming Dynasty. It can be said that the complete defeat of the Sino-Japanese War was caused by party struggle. In the party struggle in the late Qing Dynasty, the Xianghuai party struggle was the most serious, and Li Hongzhang and Zuo Zongtang devoted all their energies to the open struggle and secret struggle in spite of the invasion of foreign prisoners, which enabled Ding Ruchang and Ye Zhichao to take up their posts and mislead the country and the people.
This meaningless party struggle not only consumed the limited energy of Li Hongzhang and Zuo Zongtang, but also blinded them during the selection of talents. As long as it is not my race, you are only eight buckets high, and you will not use it. In the Sino-Japanese War, Admiral Ding Ruchang and Army General Ye Zhichao, who were promoted by Li Hongzhang, were all mediocre talents.
Although Ding Ruchang was deeply trusted by Li Hongzhang, his ability was really limited, and his old thinking could not be in line with the new era. Ding Ruchang participated in the Taiping Rebellion in his early years, and after seeing that Hong Xiuquan's general power had gone, he switched to the Qing army, first serving the Xiang army, and later switching to the Huai army.
Ding Ruchang did not come from a naval class, nor did he undergo formal naval combat training, but because he was a henchman of Li Hongzhang, he was given the important position of commander of the Beiyang Marine Division. All the decisions made by Ding Ruchang were made by Li Hongzhang, and he had no opinions of his own, just like Li Hongzhang's lackeys.
In Ding Ruchang's twenty-year career in the army, although he had been mixed in the Yangtze River Marine Division for a period of time, he knew very little about modern naval operations and was an out-and-out "dry duck". Ding Ruchang even had limited experience in water warfare, let alone naval warfare? After being transferred to Beiyang, how did Ding Ruchang exert his ability? That is, to be self-respecting internally, to please Li Hongzhang's eyeballs, and to engage in formalism. Taking the shooting training of the Beiyang Marine Division as an example, the target ship did not move in the process of shooting. After the warship was measured, the firing range was adjusted, and the natural hit rate was extremely high.
However, on the battlefield, what enemy ship would stop there like a target ship and let people shoot? Usually, when practicing, the Beiyang Marine Division knows what formation to rehearse today, and everyone will prepare in advance. However, in the rapidly changing battlefield, the order issued by Shangfeng was only a banner, requiring the soldiers to quickly change their formations in a short period of time. How can a casual training method like the usual way allow soldiers to change positions conveniently on the battlefield? Therefore, the Beiyang Marine Division under the auspices of Ding Ruchang had already fallen into the inferior ranks in training and had no actual combat capability at all.
In general, Ding Ruchang is a layman, no wonder Deng Shichang and other pipe belts have issued such an exclamation: "Does Britain have generals who do not understand naval warfare?" Having such a general would not only ruin the navy, but would also take his own life. ”
Sure enough, at the last moment of the Sino-Japanese Naval Battle, Ding Ruchang, who faced the total annihilation of the army, committed suicide by taking poison and scribbled his life. Even if Ding Ruchang had a backbone in his act of apologizing for his sins with death, it would be difficult to change his useless nature. At that time, the Beiyang Marine Division wanted a general who could win the battle, not a waste that died in case of trouble.
Ding Ruchang himself had a black eye for naval affairs, but most of the pipe belts under his hands were graduates of the Mawei Ship Administration School. Although these people have a certain degree of strength, they are only the leader of the "Ding Junmen". This group of pipe belts that are also moving step by step, every day is not thinking about how to win the battle, but how to stand in line, where is the capital to defeat the Japanese Navy?
Endless party strife and infighting are accompanied by corruption that breeds to the bone, but it is a pity that those warships that have been imported at great expense can only be reduced to scrap iron in the hands of this group of mediocre people!
The choice of Ding Ruchang led to the total annihilation of the Beiyang Marine Division;
Choosing Ye Zhichao allowed the Qing Dynasty to ruin the northeast.
Before the Sino-Japanese War began, Li Hongzhang really put a lot of thought into selecting army generals. In the Huai Army at that time, there were many available talents, but Li Hongzhang's final candidate was Ye Zhichao. How could Ye Zhichao get the favor of Li Hongzhang? This is a master of talking on paper, relying on lies and absolute obedience to Li Hongzhang, winning the favor of the master and gaining military power.
Ye Zhichao was a typical mediocre official in the official field of the late Qing Dynasty, timid and afraid of things, who loved money as if he were destined, but did not accumulate the slightest prestige. It is only because he was born in the Huai clan that he was deeply favored by Li Hongzhang and was constantly entrusted with heavy responsibilities. Unfortunately, Ye Zhichao's officials were getting bigger and bigger, but his talent had not improved by a star and a half.
The subordinates led by Ye Zhichao are all bureaucratic billets carved out of a mold with him, in addition to liking to take drugs, the fox dog party sets up banquets all day to drink and celebrate. At the time of the Battle of Pyongyang, Ye Zhichao's concubine wrote a letter to her husband, advising him to save his life. As a result, Ye Zhichao, who was already timid and afraid of things, fled from the battlefield and abandoned the city at a critical moment, resulting in the fall of Korea.
It can be said that all these faults are attributed to Li Hongzhang, who did not check the employment of people.
Resources:
【Modern and Contemporary Chinese History" and "Anhui Historiography"】