1864, the Qing Dynasty Hunan Army generals Zeng Guoquan captured the heart of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Tianjing (Nanjing). The vigorous Taiping Heavenly Kingdom movement that lasted for 14 years was suppressed, and the Qing Dynasty ushered in his "Zhongxing" time. Since then, the Qing Dynasty has accelerated the pace of the Westernization Movement and has successively created military projects such as Beiyang Navy, Hanyang Arsenal , and Jiangnan Manufacturing General Administration. Especially in the recovery of Xinjiang in 1878 (behind it is the proxy war in which Tsarist Russia supported Aguber ), and the victory of the Sino-French War in 1885 ( Zhennanguan Victory , Taiwan Victory), which significantly improved the international status of the Qing Dynasty, becoming the largest power in Asia, and the Westernization Movement achieved significant results. The road to "revival" of the Qing Dynasty seemed to be smoother and smoother.
Almost at the same time as the Qing Dynasty "revived strongly", Japan, the eastern neighbor of the Qing Dynasty and the island country in the Western Pacific, also embarked on the journey of modernization. In 1868, Japan's Meiji Emperor regained its national power. In the same year, Japan began to " Meiji Restoration ", comprehensively learning from the Western powers and taking the path of enriching the country and strengthening the army. Japan's reforms were more thorough than those of the Qing Dynasty. Not only did they reform at the military and technical level, but they made comprehensive reforms to the political system, economic system, and diplomatic strategies, so the results were more obvious. Japan rose rapidly from an unknown island country. After the rise of
, Japan targeted the expansion target of the Eurasian continent. They formulated a three-step strategy, which is the mainland expansion policy of conquering the Korean Peninsula-Manchuria (Northeast China)-Guannei (within Shanhaiguan). The most core and most important thing in these three-step strategy is to conquer the Korean Peninsula. Japan must occupy the Korean Peninsula, the most important bridgehead in the eastern Eurasian continent. At that time, the Korean Peninsula was in the era of Li's North Korea. Li's North Korea was the most loyal vassal state of the Qing Dynasty, and the Qing Dynasty had a certain number of troops in the territory of Li's North Korea. So, Japan began to brew a big conspiracy.
1894 In the early morning of July 23, 1894, the Japanese army raided the palace of Seoul, the capital of Li's Korean, defeated the Korean defenders and Chinese garrisons, and occupied Seoul . He also took the North Korean king Lee Hee (Gozong of North Korea), dissolved the North Korean pro-China government, and supported the king's biological father Xingxuan Daewonjun and Lee Ei Ying ming took office to regent. On July 25, the Japanese army undeclared warships "Jiyuan" and "Guangyi" that reinforced North Korea on the sea of Fengdao, North Korea, and sunk the Qing army's troops transport ship " Gaosheng ", 1,500 Qing army troops were killed, and the Sino-Japanese War between 1895 and 1895 was officially kicked off.
After the Battle of Toyoshima , China and Japan declared war against each other, but because the Japanese army had been planning for a long time, the Qing Dynasty was tired of responding. In addition, the Qing Dynasty was preparing to celebrate the birthday of Empress Dowager Cixi, the actual ruler of the empire, which led to a large amount of national defense funds, especially the naval military expenditure, being misappropriated, which led to the normal renewal and artillery shells in the Beiyang Navy, which indirectly led to the later failure of the Battle of the Yellow Sea. After the defeat of the Battle of the Yellow Sea, the Japanese army fully controlled the sea control power on the surface of the Yellow Sea, so it invested more army forces on the Korean Peninsula, and the balance of strength of the Chinese and Japanese armies on the Korean Peninsula was also tilted towards Japan. In the subsequent battle of Pyongyang, due to logistics issues, the Qing army had to take the initiative to retreat. During the retreat, they were pursued by the Japanese army, which led to the defeat of the Qing army. The famous general Zuo Baogui died in battle. The Japanese army followed and chased to the banks of the Yalu River. Fortunately, in the Yalu River defense line, the Huai Army was defended by the generals of Nie Shicheng , which stopped the Japanese offensive. However, due to the loss of sea control, the Japanese army was able to open up a second battlefield behind Nie Shicheng. On November 22, the Japanese army captured Lushun, the home port of the Beiyang Navy, forcing the remnants of the Beiyang Navy to retreat to Liugong Island in Weihai, Shandong. After that, the Japanese army advanced together by sea and land. The army attacked from Lushun to the east and headed towards Shanhaiguan, while the navy pursued the remnants of the Beiyang Navy to the south. On February 17, 1895, the Japanese army landed on Liugong Island, the Weihaiwei Naval Base fell, and the Beiyang Navy was wiped out.Since then, the Qing army, which completely lost control of the sea, struggled to support the Japanese naval and land offensive at Shanhaiguan, and the Qing authorities lost the courage and determination to continue fighting.
1895 On April 17, 1895, the Qing Dynasty's National Assembly and plenipotentiary representative Li Hongzhang signed a humiliating treaty with Japan on behalf of the Qing government. The Qing Dynasty compensated Japan for military expenditure of 230 million taels of silver, ceded Taiwan and Penghu Islands, and recognized the "independence" of Li's North Korea (actually recognized the fact that North Korea was occupied by Japan). The Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 tore the last fig leaf of the Qing Dynasty to pieces, and the 30-year Westernization Movement failed. After the war, China's international status plummeted, while Japan jumped into the camp of the great powers. Western powers began a frenzy of dividing China, and China's first attempt to rise was cut off by Japan. Sixteen years later, a gunshot from the top of the city wall of Wuchang , the Qing Dynasty, which ruled China for 267 years, was destroyed, and history entered the Republic of China era.
