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introduction
Let Zuo Zongtang replace Li Hongzhang to fight the "First Sino-Japanese Naval Battle", which is a very interesting idea, because Zuo Zongtang died as early as 9 years before the outbreak of the war, and this does not affect people's discussion of this issue at all, after all, Guan Gong can also fight Qin Qiong in the sky.
Zuo Zongtang and Li Hongzhang are both influential figures in modern Chinese history, ranking among the four famous ministers of the late Qing Dynasty, they have a lot in common, but the differences are also obvious, especially in military thought, the two ideas are also very different.
If you want to summarize the military achievements of the two in one sentence, that is: the Yellow Sea hooked and sank the Beiyang ship, and Xinjiang planted Zuogong willow all over the place!
(First Sino-Japanese Naval Battle)
1. The Beiyang Naval Division was completely annihilated, and Li Hongzhang could not escape the blame
First of all, for this conjecture that cannot come true, my personal answer is: with Zuo Zongtang as the commander of the Qing army in the First Sino-Japanese Naval Battle, then the probability of victory of the Qing Dynasty will definitely increase several times.
Before the outbreak of the First Sino-Japanese Naval War, the military power balance between China and Japan was still between the middle and the middle, and the disparity did not widen to the extent that it did in the future, especially the Beiyang Fleet of the Qing Dynasty, which was equipped with ironclad ships that were ahead of the Japanese contemporaries.
(Beiyang Naval Division Zhiyuan Ship)
In addition, the battle took place on the Chinese mainland, and the Qing army retained the advantage of fighting on its own, while the Japanese army came from afar, and the Qing court from top to bottom believed that Japan was a small country and there was nothing to fear.
In fact, if the Qing army could get sufficient logistical support, it was not impossible to defeat the Japanese army on paper alone.
However, it was precisely under such favorable circumstances that the Beiyang Naval Division was completely annihilated in the First Sino-Japanese Naval Battle, and the defeat was so complete that Li Hongzhang, the supreme commander of the Beiyang Naval Division, had an unshirkable responsibility.
(Li Hongzhang)
As we all know, Li Hongzhang is a representative of the Westernization Movement, and he single-handedly founded the Beiyang Naval Division, for this China's first Western-style navy in the actual sense, Li Hongzhang devoted his life's work, therefore, he regarded the Beiyang Naval Division as his own private property.
In the face of the provocation of the Japanese army, Li Hongzhang chose to preserve the strength of the Huai Army and the Beiyang Naval Division, and forbade the Beiyang Naval Division to go to sea to fight at a critical moment, thus losing a good opportunity to stifle the signs of the war in advance.
After the Battle of the Yellow Sea, Li Hongzhang ordered all the Beiyang Fleet to shrink into the harbor, allowing the Japanese army to seize the right to control the sea, so that it lost Lushunkou and Weihaiwei in succession, and all the Beiyang Naval Divisions that Li Hongzhang had operated for many years became the trophies of the Japanese, and it can also be said that Li Hongzhang's selfish selfishness cut off the Beiyang Naval Division.
(The Beiyang Naval Division was completely annihilated)
Second, Zuo Zongtang "carried the coffin and went out" to collect Xinjiang, and Li Hongzhang was afraid to lose the Beiyang
On the other hand, Zuo Zongtang, who is also a Westernist, is in stark contrast to Li Hongzhang, Zuo Zongtang is one of the famous "Three Heroes of the Hunan Army", who showed great power when he quelled the rebellion against the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, but what really made him shine in the annals of history was the recovery of Xinjiang.
People often say: "If you have made great contributions to the Chinese nation, there will be no one who is on the right side of the left Zongtang", this is not false at all, it is he who overcame public opinion, personally led 60,000 Hunan army soldiers, and carried the coffin out to fight in exchange for the integrity of our China's territory today.
(抬棺出征)
What kind of spirit is this?
This is a kind of death-bound belief that "if you don't break Loulan, you will never return it"!
And where was Li Hongzhang during the First Sino-Japanese Naval War?
The supreme leader of the Beiyang Naval Division has always stayed in the yamen of the Governor of Zhili in Baoding, of course, this is because Li Hongzhang, who is the Minister of Beiyang, is also on the errand of the Governor of Zhili, although he can remotely control Ding Ruchang and others thousands of miles away, but compared to Zuo Zongtang's "carrying the coffin to go on the expedition", it is really too inferior!
(Zhili Governor Yamen)
In Xinjiang, Zuo Zongtang sacrificed his life to fight for every inch of land, even if he sacrificed the life of the last Hunan soldier. But Li Hongzhang is afraid to preserve his strength, can he win the battle with such a mentality?
Looking at the logistics support, since 1888, the Beiyang Naval Division has not even updated a single shell, let alone added new warships, and the naval military expenses were also diverted to Ouchi by Li Hongzhang, which was actually to celebrate the birthday of the Empress Dowager Cixi and build the Summer Palace!
But there is also no money, look at what Zuo Zongtang did, a 63-year-old man begged his grandfather and grandmother everywhere to take out loans from foreign banks, but he really couldn't pay out of his own pocket, and finally got together the 8 million taels of start-up capital needed to send troops.
But in such a difficult predicament, Zuo Zongtang swept the north and south of the Tianshan Mountains and recovered the entire Xinjiang.
（慈禧太后）
It can be seen from this that attitude is the key factor that determines the success or failure of a matter, and if Li Hongzhang had Zuo Zongtang's confidence in "carrying the coffin and going out to fight", Zuo Zongtang's determination to fight to the last soldier, and Zuo Zongtang's perseverance in borrowing money to recover the country's territory, the First Sino-Japanese Naval Battle would certainly not have been so unbearable.
Third, Li Hongzhang is an official and sleek, and Zuo Zongtang is upright and unclean
Looking at the essence through the phenomenon, the fundamental difference between Li Hongzhang and Zuo Zongtang's concept of being an official is the reason for all this, people often compare these two people with another important minister of the late Qing Dynasty, Zeng Guofan, and have the following evaluation, that is, "Zeng Guofan is a man, Zuo Zongtang is a man, and Li Hongzhang is an official", which is more pertinent.
(Zeng Guofan, Zuo Zongtang, Li Hongzhang)
Li Hongzhang is an official eunuch, born in Jinshi, born with a sense of superiority, and he is more tactful, and when he fought with the Taiping Army, he was defeated by Li Xiucheng, also for the reason of preserving his strength, he actually ran away, which became a shame in his military career.
In comparison, Zuo Zongtang's road to officialdom is much more bumpy, he is just a person from a person's background, for which Li Hongzhang once ridiculed Zuo Zongtang, saying that he was not born as a Jinshi, and he can't use the word "Wen" in his nickname after a hundred years.
Although this is just a joke, it also reflects the inevitable difference in the philosophies of the two people.
(Zuo Zongtang)
Li Hongzhang is old and sophisticated, left and right, especially good at excluding dissidents in the officialdom, filling his own pockets, the construction and operation of the Beiyang Navy Division and the "Brigade Defense Line", behind which you can see Li Hongzhang's cronies, and even the shadow of relatives, according to legend, Li Hongzhang's family property after his death is "40 million taels"!
Zuo Zongtang, who is also a member of the first grade, was born in a cloth cloth, but this does not affect his talent, although he has repeatedly failed the exam, but he has still been favored by Zhang Liangji, Tao Shu and many other feudal officials.
Lin Zexu, a generation of celebrities, even more admired Zuo Zongtang, and the two talked all night in Changsha, Lin called Zuo a "peerless genius", and recognized him as the best candidate to pacify Xinjiang, and gave Zuo Zongtang all the materials he had compiled during his tenure in Xinjiang.
(Lin Zexu and Zuo Zongtang)
What is even more commendable is that although Zuo Zongtang is in a high position, he is "upright and unclean", and it is said that the savings behind him are only 25,000 taels of silver, which is a world of difference compared with Li Hongzhang.
epilogue
To sum up, Zuo Zongtang, who was born in cloth, took the lead, and was upright and unclean, is obviously more suitable than Li Hongzhang to lead the troops to fight, and the more important thing is that Zuo is more fierce than Li.
Before recovering Xinjiang, Zuo refuted Li's view that Xinjiang was vast and sparsely populated, far from the inland, and it was not impossible to give up. Xinjiang has been reclaimed unswervingly, otherwise the situation in China today will be very dangerous.
(Li Hongzhang and Zuo Zongtang)
Therefore, we believe that if Zuo Zongtang could have been born 10 years later, it would have been a different scene to replace Li Hongzhang in commanding the "First Sino-Japanese Naval Battle", and China's modern history would be rewritten again, but unfortunately there was no if.
Resources:
[1] Xu Bingbo. "Reading History", Zuo Gong, 2017, published by Xinhua Publishing House
[2] Xu Zhipin. National New Bibliography,2022,(05):103-104.
[3] Wang Congyan. A brief discussion on the idea of attaching equal importance to "coastal defense" and "coastal defense" in modern times: A case study of Zuo Zongtang and Li Hongzhang[J].Frontier Economy and Culture,2015,(04):59-60.)
[4] Zhou Beibei. Zeng Guofan, Zuo Zongtang, Li Hongzhang Jianjun Thought Comparative Study[J].Journal of Mudanjiang Normal University(Philosophy and Social Science),2013,(03):60-63.)