After studying Li Hongzhang, I found that Li Hongzhang basically did not have any surprise to me, or a place where I wanted to learn. Compared with the study of Zeng Guofan, it is simply not the same.
I know that there are often discussions about Li Hongzhang, which makes me always question where Li Hongzhang's point of contention is. So I thought about studying it, and as a result, I looked at the history books, or biographies, whether it was objectivism or whitewashing, and I couldn't see Li Hongzhang's shining point as a historical figure from these books. It's just a complete look at how a bureaucrat, in a not-so-good environment, is still constantly climbing upwards and constantly grabbing benefits.
Li Hongzhang's personal self-evaluation: juvenile and first, prime-aged rongma, middle-aged feudal frontier, late-life foreign affairs. All the way to the rock, encountered is not unfortunate. Ask yourself if there is any kind of transgression. It was the unprovoked Sino-Japanese negotiations that swept away the ground for a lifetime. That is to say, Li Hongzhang looked at himself, and his life was still smooth, until he finally met Japan, which eventually led to the collapse of his life in ten thousand years.
The "Draft History of the Qing Dynasty" commented: (Li) Zhongxing's famous ministers, beginning with military affairs, their honors were often hidden by martial arts. Hongzhang has been in charge of state affairs for decades, and has often borne the brunt of domestic and foreign affairs, and the country has relied on it as the most important, and its reputation is all over the world, and it is admired by China and foreign countries, which has never been seen in recent times. In his life, he takes the world as his own responsibility, endures humiliation and burdens, and is worthy of the ministers of the society; only he is proud of his talents, so that he can drive away the people with Lilu, and the people who are determined to be disciplined are not happy to use it, and they are anxious and impatient, and they are defeated and mistaken. Is there no cause for the rise of doubt?
<h1 class="pgc-h-decimal" data-index="01" > the limitations of Li Hongzhang - feudal landlords, against the trend of grabbing officials for profit</h1>
Because I look back at history, I can see a lot of things.
Li Hongzhang was born into a family of feudal eunuchs, and his father Li Wen'an and Zeng Guofan were jinshi in the same year. The four sons of the Li family, Li Hongzhang was the second eldest, and his elder brother Li Hanzhang was also a prominent figure in the Qing government, and finally became the governor of Liangjiang.
When Li Hongzhang was young, the most domineering Shu Zhishi was: Whoever wrote history for ten thousand years, three thousand miles away to find a marquis. Simply and directly, he said that his dream was to be crowned. Because he was born in a family of officials and eunuchs, he was a vested interest and did not have a deep understanding of the sufferings of the people, so there was no idea of changing the social structure.
A group of people later than Li Hongzhang, because of social changes, began to explore another possibility of society, so they embarked on another road to overthrow the Qing government and revolution.
Li Hongzhang jinshi and the first, was appointed as the Hanlin Yuan Shu Jishi, Shu JiShi is the emperor's close minister, responsible for drafting edicts, occasionally explaining some of the main points of the scriptures for the emperor, this position itself is to select the potential of the jinshi to take on, so Li Hongzhang is already the best of the best, waiting for him to graduate from the Hanlin Academy, because of his outstanding achievements, he was also appointed as the editor of the Hanlin Academy, and soon after it was also called the Wuying Temple, the National Embassy Assistant, and so on.
Later, because his father knew Zeng Guofan, he became a student of Zeng Guofan as a "Nian jiazi", and as an aide to Zeng Guofan, he advised on the murder of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom (here I mention Li Hongzhang's father Li Wen'an, although there are not many accounts of Li Wen'an, but from the perspective of being able to introduce his son to Zeng Guofan to know this matter, Li Wen'an should also be a master of communication, because at that time Zeng Guofan was still in the first stage of his life, he was not very polite to the people around him, the interpersonal relationship was not good, and Li Wen'an could have a good relationship with him. Obviously, there are considerable communicative skills and communication habits. Then he formed the Huai Army on the basis of the Xiang Army and established his own team. Subsequently, he won the defense of Shanghai, successfully twisted, and constantly promoted, and finally entered Beijing as the viceroy of Beiyang Trade and Commerce. Because he had also served as the governor of Liangjiang and the governor of Huguang before, it was equivalent to rising all the way from the financial stronghold of the Qing Dynasty, with the Huai Army as the bottom, and became the head of the Han Dynasty, and became the largest real power faction of the government when the Qing government was unable to do so. Later, Li Hongzhang handled foreign affairs, established the Beiyang Marine Division, went to war with Japan, and signed a contract, and all other major events were handled and participated in by Li Hongzhang. The so-called monopoly of state affairs for decades!
Li Hongzhang was born in a feudal bureaucratic family, from an early age aspired to be a marquis, from the private side of no problems, and he befriended powerful people, raised troops, calmed the opposition forces, straightened out the relationship with Cixi, became a powerful Han courtier, military and political diplomacy combined, and there were well-known businessmen Sheng Xuanhuai and other private financial management.
Li Hongzhang can take every step accurately, not only has his own power, but also does a good job after having power, and is undoubtedly the best among his peers. Being a bureaucrat is successful, and it is not the main place to be criticized by later generations.
Although Liang Qichao said, "Hongzhang knows that there is a government, does not know that there is a country, knows that there is an emperor, but does not know that there is a Li people." But the bureaucracy, as a group, cannot represent the interests of the bottom at all, and their basic mode of behavior is to adjust the possibilities through the existing mechanisms. But it definitely does not represent the interests of the bottom. All their skills and abilities end up being tossed around in a box.
<h1 class="pgc-h-decimal" data-index="02" > Li Hongzhang's historical label - Yuwai failed and signed a contract to sell the country</h1>
Li Hongzhang's life until the sino-Japanese War began was still rising to a certain extent.
When he strangled the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, he was zeng guofan's staff and deputy, and the most successful achievement was to create a Huai army, and together with the mercenaries trained by the foreigner Gordon in Shanghai, he fought a battle to defend Shanghai and repelled the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's attack on Shanghai. Later, when twisting, it was basically the strategy set by Zeng Guofan, with more fighting and less, economic support without worry, and it was only a matter of time before the twist army was destroyed.
The reason why Li Hongzhang shouldered this burden was because the Qing Eight Banner Army had been corrupted, the Xiang Army had been dismantling according to Zeng Guofan's ideas, and the Huai Army was an army that stood at the head and the Qing government could use, so Li Hongzhang was pushed out.
The reason for the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War was, of course, that Japan's ambitions were already evident at that time. However, the foreshadowing in front of it is indeed Li Hongzhang's misjudgment of Japan.
Korea has always been our vassal state in history, and in the course of two negotiations with Japan, Li Hongzhang first broke this tradition and said that Korea is an independent country; then he was seduced by Japan: After something happened to Korea and needed to send troops, the Qing government would have to send a note with Japan, and as a result, because of the sudden outbreak of the "Dongxue Party" in Korea, Yuan Shikai, who was staying in Korea at the time, gave Li Hongzhang the wrong signal, saying that Japan would not send troops, so Li Hongzhang sent troops to Korea and gave Japan a reasonable reason to send troops. Once the so-called knife is sheathed, it is already difficult for Japan to take it back.
After the Huai general Ye Zhichao brought the army back from Korea with the intention of preserving strength, the Qing government was defeated by Japan first in Korea, and then Japan launched the Sino-Japanese War, and the result is well known, the Beiyang Marine Division was defeated and the entire army was destroyed.
The paradox at the beginning of the war was that the Japanese warships were already looking at the tigers outside the Yellow Sea, but the Beiyang ships sent out to reconnoiter, because they were afraid of war, all went out for a turn, and returned, reporting that there was no Japanese army.
Everyone knows a little about the course of the war, and whenever I personally recall it, I am like a fool.
Looking at the process of Li Hongzhang's biography, you know that both the army and the navy have the same intention to preserve Li Zhongtang's strength and capital.
Judging from later points of view, the army that was pushed to the battlefield at that time was actually Li Hongzhang's landlord armed forces, and there was no clear purpose and demand for war, so it would emerge to preserve Li Hongzhang's strength and capital. Although there were bloody male children such as Deng Shichang and other martyrs, there were also cases of the previous Beiyang Marine Division using warships to carry opium that was suppressed, and the fly camp dogs among them could be imagined.
After the defeat in the war, Li Hongzhang went to Japan for peace talks and signed the "Maguan Treaty," the main content of which was that China recognized Japan's control over Korea, ceded the Liaodong Peninsula, the entire island of Taiwan, and all its affiliated islands, the Penghu Islands to Japan, compensated Japan for 200 million taels of military expenses, increased the opening of Shashi, Chongqing, Suzhou, and Hangzhou as treaty ports, allowed Japan to set up factories at China's treaty ports, and exempted the mainland from mainland taxes for the distribution and sale of products.
After hearing that the Maguan Treaty was signed, patriots in various localities scolded Li Hongzhang for betraying the country one after another, and the People of Taiwan also went on a gong and marched away to protest and swore an oath: I would rather everyone die in battle and lose Taiwan than give up Taiwan.
Our history textbooks commented that the Treaty of Maguan was the most serious treaty of loss of power and humiliation since the Treaty of Nanking, which caused great disasters to Chinese society and greatly deepened the degree of semi-colonization of China. After the Sino-Japanese War, imperialist aggression against China intensified, setting off a frenzy of dividing up China, and China's national crisis was unprecedentedly serious.
Later, in 1900, the Eight-Power Alliance, under the pretext of the Chinese Boxer Rebellion, endangered the interests of all countries, launched a war, and looted the city of Beijing, and Japan directly took away 3 million taels of silver from the national treasury, and the city of Beijing was publicly plundered for three days. (The author just read the "Ten Days of Yangzhou" written by the Qing Dynasty, describing what the Qing army did in the city when yangzhou was destroyed, and looked at these words after this open plunder, and my back was cold.) ）
In 1901, on behalf of the Qing government, Li Hongzhang and Yi Xi signed the Treaty of Xinugu with the 11 envoys of Britain, France, the United States, Russia, Germany, Germany, Italy, West, And Hollywood. It was stipulated that the Qing government should pay 450 million taels of indemnity to all countries, and in 39 years, it also requested that the minxiang in the eastern suburbs of Beijing be designated as the embassy district, allowing all countries to send troops to permanently, dismantling all forts along the Dagu and Beijing Tonghai routes, allowing countries to station troops at strategic points along the route, punishing the first scourge of the Boxer Rebellion, strictly prohibiting the establishment or joining of any organization of an anti-imperialist nature Chinese, and changing the prime minister Yamen to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, before the six ministries.
The Treaty of Xinugu was the abyss of China's complete descent into a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society.
Before, after the "Maguan Treaty", Russia was afraid that Japan's influence in the Jiaodong Peninsula was too large, and united with other countries to intervene, so that Japan spit out the Jiaodong Peninsula, causing the Qing government to misjudge, thinking that it could unite with Russia to restrain Japan, and designated Li Hongzhang to go to Russia on the day of the coronation of the Russian Emperor, and as a result, Li Hongzhang was rumored to have accepted bribes and signed the "Sino-Russian Secret Treaty" with Russia, which seemed to be to balance Japan, but the result was that the Russian military forces could choose the opportunity to enter China's territory. The logic of this kind of thing is the same as japan's entanglement with North Korea), and Li Hongzhang thought that this secret agreement would not be known to the world was published in the domestic newspaper a few hours after the signing. Li Er's name of betraying the country once again made a big public uproar. After signing the contract, Li Hongzhang then circled around the European countries before returning.
In the days when Li Hongzhang was solely in charge of state affairs, he personally won one victory after another, but in state affairs, he won one defeat after another, and the signing of three treaties was even more fiercely nailed to the history of humiliation.
In a similar situation, after we later learned that Gu Weijun refused to sign an unreasonable treaty at the Paris Peace Conference, the mood was completely different.
If you don't want to, no one can make you sell your country.
If we send one person to represent a country, Li Hongzhang will sell a country if he goes alone. After selling publicly three times, not only did he not dare to take the lead in the battle at home, but he was also afraid that because he did not perform the contract, he would be regarded by various countries as not keeping the contract, and this kind of traitor was self-justified, and the traitor was afraid that the process of fulfilling the contract was not perfect, and people simply did not know how to evaluate it.
<h1 class="pgc-h-decimal" data-index="03" > Li Hongzhang's bureaucratic position – the ability of the number two person has the power and reputation of the number one person</h1>
Our leader has a saying about Li Hongzhang: Shallow water is big. It is said that Li Hongzhang's (water) ability is average, and he cannot pull the big ship of the Qing Dynasty government. It is not that some comments are written that Li Hongzhang's ability is too great, and the Qing government cannot tolerate his play.
I have personally investigated why the configuration of the chairman and the general manager in an organization, and why it is a combination of monarchs and ministers in a government, and the final investigation is that the chairman is equivalent to dividing a part of the power to the general manager, in most cases, the basic need of this part of the power is to allocate coordination resources, and some people are born suitable for this kind of thing.
Constantly dealing with people and constantly coordinating resources with people, but what this kind of person lacks is the depth of vertical understanding of things, that is, basically a person who does horizontal things, and the chairman is basically a person who understands the vertical development of the company or the industry, and the two people cooperate with each other to ensure the more effective operation of an organization.
In the draft history of the Qing Dynasty, Li Hongzhang was evaluated as "good enough to drive away the masses", saying that Li Hongzhang often drove this person to use for himself by giving benefits to others, which is specifically put forward in the history books, that is, Li Hongzhang's ability was actually clearly seen, and Li Hongzhang was good at turning others and himself into a community of interests and becoming a grasshopper on a line.
There is no problem with this ability, Li Hongzhang was also the pursuit of the marquis, so it is exactly the position and space that this ability can use, the problem is because in this special historical period, Li Hongzhang established the army, established the navy, became the head of the government, and then also became the person who dealt with foreigners the most, became the actual foreign minister, plus Jiangnan is his hometown and birthplace, the main source of finance and taxation of the Qing government is also his base area, so it has become a collection of financial power, military power, foreign administration, and administration. Became the actual first person.
The difference between the second person and the first person is mainly in the direction and principle, Li Hongzhang has the actual power of the first person, but he does not know where the principles and interests that the first person should safeguard are, only knows to grasp these powers in his hands and ensure that his position does not fall, which has become the biggest contradiction in him.
Therefore, he must ensure that he has the strength to become a chip for him to deal with Cixi, foreign governments, and hundreds of officials, he knows how to exchange chips, but he rarely knows the bottom line of state affairs, or he wants to ensure that the bottom line of chips exceeds the bottom line of state affairs, so you can roughly see that Zeng Guofan wants to jump into the river to commit suicide because of his defeat, and Li Hongzhang, even if he cuts thousands of miles of territory, he never thinks whether he should be responsible, to some extent, he feels that the signature of the representative is still a responsible act, so that the billion trillions of people are not ashamed in the water and fire. One of these things is already a hundred deaths, and Li Hongzhang has done it at least three times. ，
Politics is defined as a matter of governing the many.
Evaluate historical figures for valuing public morality over private morality.
The controversy that arose over Li Hongzhang was probably caused by the constant confusion between people about the public and private affairs he did.
Therefore, when we look at Li Hongzhang, we skip the level of chasing official positions, grabbing family wealth, and stirring up power, and pay attention to the significance of what he has done to the largest ethnic group, and the answer is that he has delayed the process of the country and the nation and harmed the interests of the nation.
Li Hongzhang's reputation is not good among the people, because historical things and the things of the common people can be almost equal, you really did things that benefited them, the people can still remember and give you a positive evaluation after all; you did things that were not conducive to them, they will not forget after all, there is no history books, but it is word of mouth to write down for you, calling you a traitor and traitor, and the so-called justice is in the hearts of the people.
Speaking of which, it suddenly saddens us that the people of this land are really tolerant and calm, or history is like this, the truth is not pretentious, black and white are presented to you, telling us that everything we have now is a bloody victory.