In the First Sino-Japanese War, the Qing army was defeated one after another, almost never fought a decent victory, and was finally forced to sign the "Treaty of Shimonoseki", which humiliated the country. Why? As the commander of the Qing army in the early stage, Li Hongzhang attributed the main reason for the defeat to the backwardness of weapons and equipment, saying: "To win on the march, naval battles are only won by ships and guns, and land battles are only won by guns and artillery. In the past ten years,...... The ship's armament is getting better and better. China is limited by financial resources and confined to ministerial discussions, and does not dare to let go of the organization, so it feels dwarfed." Therefore, the defeat of the war is "due to the outnumberedness of the enemy, and also by the hanging of the equipment, not the ineffectiveness of the battle array." Front-line generals Song Qing, Yi Ketanga and others also repeatedly talked about the small quantity and poor quality of weapons, so that they were defeated. Later historians often regarded the backwardness of weapons and equipment as one of the main reasons for China's defeat in the war.
Before the Opium War, the Qing army was mainly equipped with cold weapons such as knives, spears, bows and arrows, supplemented by a small number of guns, cannons, and shotguns. Although the Qing government was defeated by the British army in the Opium War with modern guns, the Qing government did not learn a lesson, and there was still no major improvement in the equipment of the troops. The modernization of the equipment of the Qing army began with the Huai army. In 1862, Li Hongzhang led the Huai Army to Shanghai, and in the process of suppressing the Taiping Army together with the Western army and the foreign gun team (Changsheng Army), he began to realize the importance of using foreign guns and foreign artillery to improve the equipment of the troops. Since then, with the development of the Westernization Movement, not only the Huai Army, the Hunan Army, the Lian Army, and some of the Green Battalion soldiers and Eight Banner Soldiers have been equipped with modern guns imported from Europe or imitated by Chinese military enterprises. What is particularly noteworthy is that the equipment of the Qing army can basically be constantly updated with the development of Western weapons, especially the Huai army, which is second to none among all units of the Qing army because of its speed of renewal and high degree of modernization.
The troops participating in the First Sino-Japanese War were mainly composed of the Huai Army in the early stage, supplemented by the Northeast Local Army and the Yi Army of the Song Qing Division. In the later period, a large number of reinforcements with the Hunan army as the main force were mobilized from all over the country.
Below, let's take a look at the equipment of these troops:
When the Huai army attacked the Soviet Union and Chang Taiping in June 1864, Guo Songlin, Yang Dingxun, Liu Shiqi, and Wang Yongsheng had more than 10,000 foreign guns, and Liu Ming's ministry had more than 7,000 people and 4,000 foreign guns. By the end of the following year, when fighting against the Twist Army, "more than 50,000 people from the province and the remaining defense army were counted, and about 30,000 or 40,000 foreign guns." Its artillery also had six flowering artillery units by 1864, armed with guns ranging from 12 to l08 pounds. Cold weapons, earthen guns, and earthen cannons have been basically eliminated. However, at this time, the Huai army was still equipped with breech guns. After the 70s, more advanced breech guns from the West began to be imported to the mainland, which led to another update of the Huai army's equipment. Britain's Martini and Snyder, France's Harbgar, Germany's Mauser Sr., and the United States' Limmington and Leyyi all entered the Huai Army.
On the eve of the First Sino-Japanese War, some units were also equipped with more advanced breech-loading repeating guns, the main types of guns were the Austrian Manlischa, the German New Mauser, and the fast rifles imitated by the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau in China. For example, Zhao Huaiye's department is "all a color fast gun". In the Battle of Pyongyang, according to Japanese records, the Qing army used seven and thirteen guns.
In terms of artillery equipment, the Huai army mainly had the British Armstrong and Grussen and the German Krupp breech guns. From 1871 to 1873 alone, Li Hongzhang purchased 141 German Krupp breech-loading four-pounder steel cannons, and by 1884, the Huai Army was equipped with more than 370 breech-loading steel cannons. Since 1886. Guangdong has successively allocated more than 100 Beiyang steel cannons, including "48 steel cannons in the 12th year of Guangxu (1886), 12 steel cannons in the 17th year of Guangdong and 7 steel cannons, and 30 steel cannons in the 18th year." During this period, Beiyang self-buyers were not included. In addition, by the time of the First Sino-Japanese War, the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau had produced a total of 145 breech cannons, most of which were used to equip the Huai army. Among the artillery of the Huai Army, some of the Armstrong and Grusen steel cannons were also fast guns (rapid-fire guns) invented in the West at the end of the 80s. It can be seen from this that the equipment of the Huai Army is first-class in terms of quality and quantity.
Compared with the Huai Army, there is a gap in the equipment of other units. On August 22, the 20th year of Guangxu (1894), the Northeast Army was trained to "find out that each team had a total of 1,784 large and small foreign guns, 648 rifles, 23 bird guns, 67 carrying guns, 217 Yunzhishide guns, 440 Marin guns, and 1,073 Haqikaisi guns." A total of 4,272 guns were received for these seven items, and no other firearms were received." According to Jilin General Changshun, when he took over in the 14th year of Guangxu, the 17 battalions and 3 posts of the headquarters only had more than 3,600 breech rifles and more than 1,600 breech horse rifles. Later, 2,000 breech guns were purchased in Shanghai, 1,000 rifles were drawn from the Shenji Battalion, and 1,000 rifles were allocated by the Navy Yamen to Haqikais. However, many of these firearms were damaged and eliminated during the exercise, so when the war broke out, the armies under his command "did not have many guns, such as Kaiss and Mauser, and most of them were rifles and fast guns, and the rest were filled with swords and spears." General Sheng Jing and General Heilongjiang also repeatedly complained about the lack of weapons and asked for guns and artillery from other provinces.
Looking at the Hunan army again, in 1892, the governor of Hunan, Wu Daxi, said: "The atmosphere in Hunan has not been opened, and the foreign guns used have been repaired and broken repeatedly, which is not enough to resist." In September 1894, Wei Guangtao, the political envoy of the country, was ordered to recruit new troops to go north to participate in the war, but "there were no breech guns in Hunan, and there were very few in Hubei, only a few hundred Lin Mingdun, and too few bullets." At the end of the year, Liu Kunyi, the general of the Hunan army, was appointed as the minister of the Qin Mission, and Wu Dayi was ordered to assist in military affairs, but the department "did not have all the guns and ammunition", "there was an infantry team but no artillery team", and there were only 4,600 guns of various kinds in 23 battalions and 3 posts under his jurisdiction.
Shandong was another major battlefield in the First Sino-Japanese War, and the Shandong troops were even poorly equipped. After the outbreak of the war, Li Bingheng, the governor of Shandong, said: "There were not many old ordnances, but now they have been requested by various battalions, and there is almost no response. And it's all old-fashioned foreign guns, which are difficult and far away." The coastal troops "have only more than 1,000 breech guns left, and the second most is unable to control the enemy." Many troops had no choice but to "use old earthen guns and old breech rifles." After the Japanese army landed in Rongcheng, Zhang Zhidong, the acting governor of Liangjiang, suggested that several troops originally scheduled to be sent outside the pass should be reinforced, but the supply of weapons could not be guaranteed. Zhang Guolin has hundreds of guns, 20 foreign guns, four car cannons, and dozens of mountain splitting guns; Chen Fenglou had to go to Tianjin to use the 1,000 horse pistols purchased by Jiangnan because there was no horse pistol in Jiangnan (Chen was the horse team - the introducer). …… Ding Huaijun did not have a single shot." In addition to Ding Huai's troops, the above-mentioned troops totaled 20 battalions and nearly 10,000 people, which shows the extent of their lack of weapons. As for the troops sent to the north in the hinterland, such as Shaanxi and Shanxi, their equipment is even more backward.
However, it would be too early for us to conclude from the above discussion that the armament and equipment of the Chinese troops, except for the more than 30,000 Huai troops, were not worthy of fighting the Japanese army. Because after the outbreak of the war, in addition to the military industrial enterprises in Chen to step up production, the governors of the coastal provinces also purchased a large number of foreign guns and artillery and allocated them to the front. Therefore, after the troops participating in the battle went to the front, their equipment was improved to varying degrees.
As for the Qing government's purchase of weapons, judging from the relevant data, the amount is very large. In 1894, Zhang Zhidong, the governor of Huguang, commissioned Xu Jingcheng, the minister to Germany, to purchase 3,000 new German small-caliber five-bead guns and 3 million bullets; purchased 1,250 ten-shot Lianzhu Mauser guns and 1.5 million bullets from Xinyi Foreign Company; 5,000 flat Mauser guns and 2.5 million bullets; 12 Grusen guns, 1,200 shells. Purchased six Krupp seven-and-a-half car cannons and 1,200 shells from Rui Kee & Co. Austria has 12 guns and 12,000 shells. By September 1894, Liu Kunyi, the governor of Liangjiang, had purchased 14,000 Martini guns, 1,000 Mauser horse guns, and 2.8 million bullets. In October, it is ready to purchase another 10,000 Belgian fast guns, each with 500 bullets. By September 1894, he had successively commissioned Gong Zhaoai, the minister in Britain, to purchase 7,000 Haqikaisi guns, and Xu Jingcheng, the minister to Germany, to purchase 12,000 Mauser guns, 8 Lianzhu guns, and four batches of 10,000 small-caliber Mauser five-tone guns, and 10 million bullets. In October, the newspaper had "ordered 56 Western guns, 28,000 guns, 320 guns, and more than 1,520,000 guns and bullets." In December, Xu Jingcheng was entrusted to purchase 10,000 Mauser guns, 4.12 million bullets, 300 large and small caliber fast guns, and 100,000 bullets; entrusted Yang Ru (Minister to the United States) to purchase 3,000 six-shot guns and 2 million bullets; entrusted Gong Zhaoai to purchase 10,000 Martini guns and several small guns. For example, Wu Dashi first purchased "10 war guns and hundreds of fine guns", and then purchased 8,000 Austrian small-caliber guns and 1 million bullets. Fujian Province purchased 5,000 German Mauser guns and 5 million bullets. Some generals tried to buy their own equipment to improve their equipment, such as Wu Hongluo, who was a merchant and "bought a quick cannon, 100 carbines, and tens of thousands of bullets to make up for the shortage."
There may be some overlap in the figures listed above, and there is no doubt that a considerable number of guns were equipped with front-line troops during the war, although weapons were ordered and not yet delivered by the end of the war. For example, the guns purchased by Beiyang have been shipped in large quantities. In September 1894, 1,200 Mauser guns were shipped from Shanghai to Tianjin. At the beginning of the 21st year of Guangxu, Li Hongzhang said, "Xu Jingcheng purchased 10,000 and 8 Mauser guns, and all of them have been allocated to various armies for use." Nanyang purchased 10,400 martinis and 1,000 carbines, agreed to divide half from the north and south, and 5,700 martini from the northern front; Those who remained in Nanyang were allocated 1,000 units each to Li Zhanchun, Wan Benhua, Yang Wenbiao, Zhu Hongzhang, and other troops, and these troops were also going to fight in the north. In addition, the stocks of guns and artillery in the coastal provinces were also sent to the front in large numbers. As of October 1894, Liu Kun, the minister of Nanyang, had 14,000 breech-loading foreign guns in various provinces. In August 1894, Guangdong received 2,000 new and old Mauser guns from Beiyang. By November, Li Hanzhang, the governor of Liangguang, had successively allocated 16,000 foreign guns from various places, and later 2,600 carbines, rifles, and 3.6 million bullets. At the end of the year, 30 steel cannons were also allocated to Wu Dashi's department. These weapons have undoubtedly played a significant role in improving the equipment of the troops. For example, Cheng Zhiwei's unit of the Shanxi army allocated 300 Mauser guns and 13 foreign guns from Beiyang, and planned to allocate another 300 guns. Originally, the Shaanxi troops did not have breech guns, and "all battalions used breech foreign guns and earthen guns in their daily drills to meet the enemy's difficulties", and then Liu Kun helped Lin Mingdun to use 1,000 guns to equip the northward reinforcements. Zhang Zhidong sent Wu Yuankai's troops to the north to participate in the war, "there are 32 mountain cannons, 12 new Krupp fast guns, 1,000 Lianzhu Liyi fast guns, 1 million bullets, and the arms can be the crown of all the armies outside the Guan." The Hunan army, which was originally backward in equipment, was greatly improved in the later stage of the war, for example, Chen Xiang's department was equipped with fast guns and new martini guns.
In addition, there are several points that should be specifically analyzed regarding the equipment of the Qing army:
First, some generals often exaggerate their reports about the lack of equipment in their units. For example, Heilongjiang General Yi Ketanga has repeatedly said that the troops are not well equipped, so please make a gun and use it. In fact, when he went out of the province to fight, he led a total of 3,000 horse infantry troops and carried more than 3,800 fast guns, and each person still had more than one gun. In October 1894, Zengqi, the acting general of Heilongjiang, allocated him 5,000 Mauser guns, 500 Mamasers, 200 Haqikesi guns, and 300 rifles, a total of 6,000 guns. By the end of the war, Heilongjiang had allocated a total of 4 Grusen fast guns, 4 steel cannons, and 4 bronze cannons, 2 Garsa cannons, 1 dragon cannon, 7 sub-mother cannons, 150 Changsheng cannons, 5,000 single-shot Mauser guns, 2,050 10-ring Mausers, 991 Habekais, 1,933 Mamasers, 300 rifles, 660 Tailai guns, 250 breech-loading carbines, and 80 lifting guns. A small number of them were allocated to other units, and some of the weapons were relatively backward, but most of them were imported firearms. After the expansion of the Iktang Asuo Department to more than 10,000 people, with so many guns, how can it be said that the equipment is insufficient? Iktanga's report was nothing more than a cover for his ineffectiveness in combat, and it was also related to the large number of abandoned and damaged weapons of his troops on the battlefield, which will be discussed below. Second, even if some areas are indeed underequipped and their guns are backward, they are not without their strengths; that is, taking Shandong as an example, its army is indeed poorly equipped, but the artillery batteries in strategic coastal areas such as Yantai and Weihai and Haikou are relatively advanced, and the number is quite considerable. Yantai has 27 guns of various calibers, all of which are breech-loading steel guns, of which 22 are fast guns. Since Weihaiwei was the station of the Admiral Yamen, the artillery equipped with each fort was not only large in quantity, but also of high quality. According to statistics, the 25 forts in the area are equipped with a total of 167 imported flat-firing guns, ground-sinking guns, barracks guns, and curved guns of various calibers. It can be seen from this that if the reason for the defeat in the battle of Weihaiwei was the backward equipment, I am afraid that it is difficult to be convincing in any case. Third, as pointed out above, compared with the Huai Army, there is a gap in the equipment of other units in different sizes, but it cannot be generalized, and the equipment of some units is still quite sophisticated. For example, the Zhili training army was equipped with foreign guns and foreign cannons, and around the 90s, it was also equipped with new Mauser guns and Krupp guns. Even some inland provinces such as Jiangxi, Guizhou, and Yunnan trained their troops in the 70s and 80s, equipped with modern guns.
In July 1894, Zeng Guangjun edited an article in which he systematically summarized the manufacturing and purchase of arms by the Qing army before the war. Judging from the submissions, even if the large number of weapons purchased after the outbreak of the First Sino-Japanese War is not counted, if they can be used in a coordinated manner, the Qing army should not be short of weapons. Zeng said: "There are many breech guns in China, which are the best in the world. The bureaus cannot be listed for purchases". He divided the guns used by the Chinese Army into three categories, including A, B, and C, and the first class was the Kuaili manufactured by the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau (this is not accurate), the German Mauser and Martini, the monophonic Haqikais, and the Li Yi (which could be delivered in a row by five sons), and said that Mauser and Martini "had a lot of storage in the Jiangnan Military Uniform Bureau, and there were also a lot of bullets." There are those who have been surrendered after being repatriated from the Eighth Battalion of the Songhu Army, and there are those who have not yet been unpacked." The second-class guns include the British Martini and the Thirteen-Tone Cloud Scholars, and "these two kinds of Chinese purchases have also been quite numerous." The third grade is Lin Mington of the United States, "it is the very old style of the United States, which was built in the 12th year of Tongzhi (1873) of the Shanghai Manufacturing Bureau, and ended in the 15th year of Guangxu (1889), and the number of rods made to more than 1 million rods, in addition to the battalions that have been issued, there are more than 600,000 rods, and the marbles are said to be." Although Lin Mington's guns "misfired, were prone to explosion, and were not very accurate," "there were quite a few Chinese armoured guns, which were sufficient for the army," and "the purchased bullets were still a mountain accumulation." Tsang's description does not include artillery, but the types and quantities of artillery listed above in this article are sufficient to make up for the shortcomings mentioned by Tsang.
On the other hand, the Japanese army at that time mainly used domestically produced bronze guns and Murata single-shot guns (only a small number of troops were equipped with Murata repeating guns), which were far inferior in performance to the new Western repeating guns and breech-loading steel guns imported from China, and its entire army had only 300 field guns, which was much less than that of the Qing army.
Of course, the Japanese army's equipment also has its advantages, that is, the model is unified, the artillery is light and agile, easy to move, and the rate of fire is fast. However, in any case, our above remarks are sufficient to show that Li Hongzhang's claim that Japan's "ships are becoming more and more sophisticated" and that China is "dwarfed" is not credible. As for statements such as "if you don't buy new weapons after the 14th year of Guangxu's decision, the arsenal will be empty," although it cannot be said that it is completely groundless, at least it is an exaggeration.
Since the equipment of the Qing army was superior to that of the Japanese army, why did it lose one after another on the battlefield? It is true that the outcome of a war does not depend entirely on weaponry, but is the result of the comprehensive effect of political, economic, and military factors, but weaponry is also an important factor after all. Therefore, it is necessary for us to explore and investigate some fatal weaknesses in the equipment of the Qing army and in its use, so as to sum up and accept this painful historical lesson. In other words, the weaknesses of the Qing army are mainly manifested in the following aspects:
(1) The troops are corrupt, demoralized, lack of training, and are unable to give full play to the effectiveness of the use of weapons when they encounter the enemy. Since the Qing army suppressed the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the Twist Army uprising, most of the troops have never fought again (the recovery of Xinjiang and the Sino-French War were only a small number of troops to participate in the war), and the peace has been maintained for a long time, and there are many drawbacks. The Huai Army was the most elite unit in the Qing army and the main force in the early stage of the battle, but except for a small number of troops such as Nie Shicheng and Xu Bangdao, none of the other units had decent achievements at all. As pointed out at the time: "The Huai army is unusable, the general has withered for a long time, and the successors are not his relatives, that is, his children, and they are not in battle." The military is bribed, and the salary is deducted early to harbor grievances,...... Arrogance comes first, and fighting comes last. Liu Shengxiu is one of the main forces of the Huai Army, "In peacetime, Weide is not good, the soldiers are not satisfied, the thieves are defeated, and they are captured when they encounter things, without scruples, and they are not only killed......." Song Qing, the commander-in-chief of the front, pointed out that such a situation is "not only prosperous in the army." The Huai Armament Department is all "once the team is in battle, the officers are panicked, and the brave are scattered and fleeing". Even the more courageous units in it have a very low combat effectiveness due to a lack of training in peacetime. Lei Zhenchun and Wang Defang, students of the Beiyang Military Preparedness School, pointed out that they "have seen the defeat of the garrison in the past against the enemy, but the fact is that the generals are not good at training, the soldiers are not often practiced, the firearms cannot be studied, the guns are not far away, the terrain is not carefully measured, and there are no barracks for dwelling." As for the level of corruption in the troops of other provinces, they are often inferior to those of the Huai army. The troops transferred to the northeast from Datong Town, Shanxi, "none of their officers and soldiers have no smoke fetish, and their military appearance is inferior, and few of them are out of the right." In addition to the military uniform, a smoking gun is obliquely inserted in the waist, and everyone who sees it is gimmicked." In the Northeast, "those who live in cities where most of the flag soldiers in the three provinces train the army at half-mast live in the city, live in smoking, drinking, gambling, and indulge in forgetting to return." How can such a unit, even if it is equipped with advanced weapons, play its due role? Taking the Pyongyang campaign as an example, most of the troops participating in the battle were the elite of the Qing army, and each gun carried 50 shells and 150 bullets for each gun, and later 2,400 shells were transported from the country, 50,000 Green cannons, and 500,000 bullets. However, the artillery "was very accurate," and the hit rate of the infantry was also extremely low, with each person firing three or four hundred rounds of ammunition, but only 180 Japanese soldiers were killed in the whole campaign. In the subsequent wars, the Qing army used guns indiscriminately in almost every battle, often firing hundreds of bullets per gun. As for the Japanese army, throughout the course of the war, its soldiers sent overseas used an average of only 8 rounds of bullets per person! In contrast, the low combat effectiveness of the Qing army is not shocking.
(2) Due to the low combat effectiveness of the Qing army, the Qing government had no choice but to recruit a large number of new soldiers and expand its troops, hoping to win by numerical superiority, and this produced two serious consequences: First, due to the excessive expansion of troops and the backwardness of the logistical support system, the supply of weapons could not keep up, so that "most of the newly recruited soldiers were armed with spears and had no firearms." According to the information obtained by the Japanese General Staff Headquarters, only three-fifths of the troops mobilized in China at that time were equipped with modern weapons, and the rest only carried broadswords and spears. For example, Song Qing planned to recruit 30 new battalions of the new army, but the Tianjin Ordnance Bureau only allocated 600 guns. Another example is the aforementioned 23 battalion and 3 outposts of Wu Dashi's department, which only had 4,600 guns at the beginning of the army, which are all typical cases. Second, the quality and combat skills of newly recruited soldiers are worse than those of veterans. Someone pointed out: "Recently, newly recruited soldiers are in a hurry to form an army, and they often have no time to select ...... Many of the classes are recruited from close by, mixed with the people of the market, and they are inert, and when they set out, there are those who weep and do not want to go." Worse still, due to the urgency of the war, new recruits often go to the front without training. For example, there are more than 12,000 defenders at Lushunkou, of which more than 9,000 are new troops. Later, even "the new recruits have not even seen their guns", that is, they are ready to move to the front line. With extremely poor quality of the market, rushed to the army, untrained, "suddenly give a shot, a strong cannon, and do not know how to cast, panic to hit?" Naturally, such a unit will not be able to play the role that a weapon should have. At the end of the war, when the defeat was decided, people of insight made many painful summaries about this, such as Li Benfang's letter to Xu Bangdao, saying: "The reason for investigating this is because the generals are unskilled and unskilled. With extremely expensive and exquisite guns, put into the unpracticed bravery, rush to the enemy, hurry, or out of the team and carry the wrong bullets, or temporarily forget to use, multiply by the strong enemy, what to do if you don't run? When it comes to military affairs in China, everyone says that the guns are not proficient, the ships are unfavorable, and the outnumbered are outnumbered. "Learning from the pain, Li Shisi said, it can be said that it hit the nail on the head.
(3) In the process of suppressing the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, the Xianghuai clique arose, forming a situation of dictatorship and supervision, which also had a great impact on the First Sino-Japanese War. The equipment of the Qing army was all self-governing by the province and each did its own thing, so the types and models of guns and artillery of the troops participating in the war in each province were extremely inconsistent, and even within the army, they were often different from each other. The weapons purchased by the above-mentioned provinces come from Germany, Britain, France, the United States, Britain, Belgium, and other countries, and it is said that there are as many as 30 or 40 types of imported guns. The calibers of various types of firearms are different, and "ammunition is uneven and cannot be used against each other," which makes it extremely difficult to replenish ammunition and equip firearms in warfare. "No matter how efficient and honest the baggage team is, it must not be equipped with suitable ammunition for the patchwork of weapons that the team carries." What's more, the Qing army did not have a logistical support organization that was adapted to modern warfare, which caused great confusion on the battlefield. The front-line troops either have guns but no ammunition, or the ammunition is not the right one. For example, there are four or five kinds of bullets in the Matini guns used by Song Qing's department, while the Tianjin Ordnance Bureau only has 100,000 old bullets from 20 years ago. Another example is that Shandong has 667,000 Mauser bullets, of which 475,000 are not fitted. A passage by Zhu Zhao of Anhui Province can be said to sum up this chaotic situation: "There are Green, Armstrong, Krupp, field chicken cannons, flowering cannons and other kinds of guns, and the guns have new and old Mauser, Lin Mington, and China's self-made fast guns. There is a kind of ammunition for guns, that is, a way to cast them. If the ammunition is wrong, it is incompatible with the gun, whether it is large or small, long or short, loose or tight, and it is not suitable for use, and there is no weapon, etc." "If a shell from this cannon is mistakenly inserted into another cannon, it will not be opened." All kinds of firearms, "when in battle, there are often disadvantages of guns and bullets not compatible." Most of the people who were enlisted by the regular soldiers were the husbands of Shiino, and they could not be identified one by one; Occasionally, there are one or two old soldiers, although they are recognized, but when they are in a hurry or they are carried by mistake, they are very harmful. There are many kinds of people, that is, there are still people who can't know everything about the battalion officers and sentinels? This is in stark contrast to the Japanese army's unified use of domestically produced guns.
(4) The guns used by the Qing army were also uneven in quality, and jade and stone were mixed. The mishandling of weapons by officers and men has further aggravated the seriousness of the problem. Among the domestically produced weapons, the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau produced "Lin Mingdun's needle gun has many drawbacks, so each battalion is willing to use it." Later, the transformation of fast guns was also due to backward technology and equipment, and "failed to seek refinement". The cannons produced by the Jinling Machinery Bureau have had many explosions. Although the performance of imported weapons is superior to that of domestic ones, due to the personal fraud of the handling personnel and the deliberate deception of foreign businessmen, there are many "old stocks that are disguised as new ones," with the result that "the prices are too high and the materials are not excellent." Even Hurd believes that the Chinese government does not have to "spend money on old things that may be half useless". As a result, front-line troops often receive old guns that cannot be used. For example, Xu Bangchi, the chief soldier, was ordered to recruit troops, and the 1,200 imported Mauser guns he received were all "old goods that could not be used". This kind of weapon, "used in battle, the medicine can not reach far, and it is weak, and it is opened several times, and the mechanism is damaged." As for the artillery shells and bullets used by the Qing army, most of them were produced by China itself, but due to equipment and technical problems, coupled with the fact that the management personnel cut corners, there were also serious quality problems. The Tianjin Machinery Bureau "is equipped with more or less the amount of medicine, or mixed with things that are not used, resulting in self-cracking and self-defeating, and useful guns turn into great troubles." The bullets made by the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau "often fire by mistake every time they are used in exercises, and once they blow the bomb, they cannot go far (sic--the introducer), and even blow up the copper shell, and block and injure people after boarding." The Jilin Machinery Bureau is even more waiting. Imported ammunition is better, but it is not without problems, such as the small-caliber quick-shot bullets purchased by Hannagan and others, "the upper layer of each box is good, and when used in the lower layer, there are often malfitting or insufficient medicinal power, and it is difficult to reach far." The front-line troops paid a heavy price due to the use of inferior ammunition. The bullets received by the Northeast troops "did not sound for more than half of them, and even if they did not sound far, the dismantling medicine had turned to ashes", and the Yi Army "probed the horses and fought with the Japanese, fired four shots in succession, but did not sound, and was killed by the Japanese." Shells are also often "made of sediment" and "mud and wax" and are not usable. According to Japanese records, the artillery shells fired by the Qing army batteries in the Battle of Lushunkou "were loud and roaring, but our soldiers suffered few casualties because of them, and the reason for this was that the coastal batteries fired the enemy's large-caliber artillery shells, and most of the shells were filled with soybeans or soil sand." The Qing army's poor storage of weapons and ammunition also greatly reduced the performance of high-quality guns. The defenders of Pyongyang "most of the high-quality Krupp cannons are so rusty that they can't even pull the bolts." Beijing's artillery "put a batch of artillery on the street in the continuous rain, leaving it stuck in the mud and left no one to care." When Liu Kunyi was stationed at Shanhaiguan, "40 machine cannons were transported from Tianjin to Shanhaiguan, with 100,000 ammunition, which were transported to Shanhaiguan by train, piled up in the sand, and read for ten days, and no one took care of them." After a teacher in Germany went to check, the predicate medicine was damp and unbearable. The forced test could only reach a distance of thirty yards, and less than one-twentieth of the original gun's power." This kind of situation is found everywhere in almost all armies, and it is painful to say.
(5) The Qing army lacked qualified commanders, and the power to command the army was still in the hands of the old officers who came from the army. These people are certainly not the same, but they have a common weakness. That is, they are confined to the old experience of the civil war, stick to the old ways, and do not understand the new military science. Yuan Shikai, who was involved in logistics affairs during the war, pointed out, "Today's recruitment of generals is also full of long-cherished hopes, but they may be well maintained for a long time, and their blood is lazy; or near old age, lust for profit; or the habit is too heavy, distracted to drill camp; Even if there are two or three self-lovers, and each teacher uses his own heart, he still wants to use the old method of 'striking and twisting' to resist the strong enemy, so the powerful ones cannot be counted. This refers to the so-called veteran generals who are "well-known for their prestige," and as for some of the personnel transferred from the newly formed units, "most of them are superficial teenagers, weak scholars, and ignorant of military affairs." Under the command of such an officer, even if the troops are equipped with advanced weapons, it is inevitable that they will end up in a rout. When attacking, they still follow the method of charging in the Cold Weapon Era, swarming up, and often "starting to shoot from a distance of 1,000 meters". The Japanese fired heavily at close range with intensive firepower, inflicting heavy casualties on the Qing troops. When defending, they only pay attention to frontal defense, ignoring the flanks, and even if they are frontal, they have no deep forces and firepower. The Japanese only had to attack from the flanks to force the Qing army to collapse on all fronts. "Almost every time the Chinese tried to hold their positions, they were forced to retreat because the enemy detoured back to their flank, and the Chinese simply did not know how to defend themselves." In the use of artillery, the problems are particularly serious: First, the various units participating in the war are not under the same unit, and the artillery belongs to the various units and cannot be used in a centralized manner. The Japanese army, regardless of the number of artillery, used it intensively to strengthen its firepower. Second, they do not understand the principle of coordinated infantry and artillery operations, and the artillery positions are always selected in or between the "first-line infantry positions." As a result, artillery became a significant target, and in the initial stages of the battle, it was repeatedly destroyed by Japanese artillery". Some of the commanders of the Qing army summed up lessons in the practice of war and put forward suggestions for improvement, such as Nie Tucheng, who pointed out many times: "...... The previous defeat was caused by the fact that our artillery did not gather in one place, and the battalions had lost their chances. There is no limit to the number of cannons, and they are used in one place." However, it did not attract the attention it deserved, and the former enemy generals still acted in their own way. On December 19, 1894, in the battle of Wagangzhai, Song Qingbu fought bravely, and the performance of the artillery was also excellent, but due to improper use, it was "targeted by the Japanese fast artillery", and the 5 artillery pieces were destroyed and 4 were destroyed, and they lost their combat capability. In the third counterattack on Haicheng, Iketang Abe repeated the mistake and was damaged by 5 artillery pieces. Therefore, some Western historians believe that "China's commanders have shown pathetic ignorance in terms of basic strategy and tactics and the use of weapons." Westerners who were in China at the time also pointed out; "If the military commander has some knowledge of modern military affairs, the Chinese army ...... It will also ...... Inflict useful damage on the enemy. But its officers denied it all the possibility of success."
(6) The corruption of the Qing army was not only manifested in the repeated defeats on the battlefield, but also in the fact that every time they retreated, they "abandoned the army and lost all their weapons." This not only weakened the overall strength of their own equipment, but, in turn, greatly strengthened the equipment of the Japanese army. According to relevant records, in the Battle of Pyongyang, the Qing army discarded 48 cannons and more than 10,000 rifles; In the battle of the Yalu River defense, 78 cannons and 4,400 guns were lost; Dalian Bay and Lushunkou fell, and the Japanese captured more than 270 cannons and 600 guns. In these places, millions of shells and more than 40 million bullets were abandoned by the Qing army. According to Japanese statistics, the Japanese army captured a total of 607 artillery pieces, 7,394 guns, more than 267.17 million shells, and 77.458 million rounds of ammunition in Asan, Pyongyang, Jiuliancheng, Phoenix, Jinzhou, Dalian Bay, and Lushunkou. Subsequently, the Qing army abandoned hundreds of artillery pieces in Niuzhuang, Yingkou, Weihaiwei, Penghu and other places, and countless guns and ammunition. In the whole course of the First Sino-Japanese War, the Japanese army only consumed 1,241,800 rounds of ammunition and 34,090 rounds of artillery shells. The comparison between the two is not shocking! Li Hongzhang once lamented that the Huai army abandoned the artillery, "It chills me, and I will abandon it again, what should it be!" By his own admission, he lost 7,807 guns and damaged more than 880 guns since the start of the war. As for artillery, by the beginning of 1895, only 4 fast guns remained. After these weapons are captured by the Japanese army, it will inevitably lead to the elimination of the equipment of the enemy and the enemy. The Japanese put captured weapons (especially artillery) into battle, significantly increasing their firepower. For example, in the Battle of Lushunkou, the Japanese army used the fast artillery of the Wei Rugui Department to "climb the mountain and attack" the Qing army battery. In the Battle of Weihaiwei, after the Japanese captured the coastal forts, they turned their guns and bombarded the Beiyang Fleet in the harbor, which is a well-known fact. The most typical example is the battle of Tianzhuangtai, which was a battle, "the large and small cannons of the battalion lost in the battle between the sea and the cover of the sea are not worried about a hundred people, all of them are the attack tools of the Japanese people, and the south bank of the Liao River is several times our artillery." Under the bombardment of the Japanese army's fierce artillery fire, the Qing army was unable to support it, and it was "a great rout and westward". It can be seen how much impact the changes in weaponry and equipment have had on the war.
To sum up, we believe that in the First Sino-Japanese War, the equipment of the Qing army was generally superior, but due to the corruption and incompetence of the Qing government, the corruption and lack of training of the Qing army, and the lack of qualified commanders who understand modern warfare, this advantage was largely offset in the early stage of the war. Later, as the war progressed, the Japanese army captured a large number of weapons of the Qing army, which reversed the equipment of both sides, the Qing army continued to weaken, and the Japanese army gradually strengthened, which finally led to the final defeat of the First Sino-Japanese War.