1. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement dealt a great blow to the Qing government. Although the military capability of the Taiping Army was not at all, although their training was very ordinary and their weapons were not as good as those of the loyalists, at that time, the loyalists were decadent, with low pay, no discipline, no training and deep suspicion, so they were "simply corrupt and failed to form an army" (Modern History of China P47). 1860, Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang expressed the feeling that "firearms alone can't match" because they witnessed the foreign powers' "ships are strong and guns are profitable", so they successively wrote to learn foreign skills and build processing ships. Hey? 6? 0 also said in the memorial that "governing the country should be self-reliant, self-reliance is based on training, and training is based on pre-emptive tools." I think these are the origins of the Westernization Movement and should also be the origins of modern military development.
2. The influence of military construction during the Westernization Movement on military modernization and the Sino-Japanese War.
1. I studied artifacts in middle school history class. Li Hongzhang established China Merchants Bureau, armored ships and Beiyang Navy. I think these are very valuable. China's ancient military strategy was "emphasizing the land but neglecting the sea", and the Westernization Movement gradually changed its strategic policy. Until now, there is no aircraft carrier in our country, which shows how deep the influence of this ancient strategy is!
In the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, China was able to mobilize and organize a navy with modern equipment-Beiyang Navy, which replaced the old navy to fight against Japanese invaders. Smashed Japan's arrogant plan of "gathering ships in the Yellow Sea" and insisted on defending Weihai for nearly a month. This is a great progress.
Although many people criticized the Westernization Movement for being incomplete, the modernization of military equipment was the material condition for military modernization, so the Westernization Movement laid the material foundation for China's military.
2. Ideologically, during the Westernization Movement, western military theories and works were translated into China, and the translation of western military works spread the modern military thoughts of western countries.
3. In terms of talents, Beiyang Naval Academy and Military Equipment Academy were established in Tianjin, and Westernization Academy founded the first batch of new schools in China, which introduced western scientific knowledge vigorously, created a precedent for modern military education, and trained Yan Fu, Deng Shichang and Liu, making great contributions to national defense. The naval and army schools established in the Westernization Movement brought up a batch of new military talents and became the backbone of resisting Japanese aggression in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895. When the Beiyang Navy was founded, all the officials except the prefect were graduates of the Naval Academy. Most of Beiyang ships were selected from the graduates of Fuzhou Ship Administration School and Tianjin Naval Academy. These officers, who have undergone rigorous training, are familiar with naval operations and are patriotic, constitute the backbone of the Beiyang Navy. After the Sino-Japanese War broke out, the ships they managed, such as Dingyuan and Zhenyuan, were the main ships for China to fight and escort at sea. Graduates from naval academies will always be commanders and important backbones in naval battles.
In the modern military, the military scientific and technological talents trained by the Westernization Movement have prepared certain conditions for military modernization.
Generally speaking, the Westernization School established a number of military factories characterized by large-scale machine production by introducing advanced science and technology and advanced modern production methods from western countries, which made China's military industry grow from scratch; The Westernization Movement took the development of military industry as an opportunity to open some military schools and cultivate a group of modern military talents. Through the use of western new guns, modern western military systems and training methods began to enter China; At the same time, under the new situation of "three thousand years unchanged", with the continuous introduction of western modern war prevention thoughts, China's ancient military thoughts have been continuously injected into modern content. For China itself, the Westernization Movement made the modern advanced firearms technology continuously rise, and the gap between China and the great powers gradually narrowed.
3. Obstacles encountered in (military) reform
1. The vision of leaders is limited. Zeng Guofan and other westernization leaders have never been abroad, and Li Hongzhang only went abroad after his defeat in the Sino-Japanese War. They don't have mechanical knowledge and admire western machinery in time, but they don't have a deep understanding of western culture and system, so they can't carry out the movement thoroughly. The military will certainly be affected. When the Beiyang Navy was first established, Li invited an experienced British officer to take command. Later, he misheard someone and used Ding Wei, who knew nothing about the Navy.
The teacher said some very interesting things in class. Guangxu's father and son were afraid that Cixi would not hand over the political power and let Cixi indulge in entertainment by building the Summer Palace. However, the funds for repairing the garden were very large, so Li Hongzhang had to misappropriate the funds for building the navy to repair the garden. Therefore, in the seven years before the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, the China Navy did not have a new ship, and Japanese ships were updated every year.
3. The old ideas of the old school that blocked the scholar-officials hindered the progress of science. Views such as "people's hearts are not in skills" and "why should we learn from others" are all that the scholar-officials have never attended science classes. Enlightened Guo Song? Ceng Jize advocated learning from the western system, but he was called a traitor, a recluse and an angry youth. Superstitious people also hinder development.
4. The Sino-Japanese War exposed the military problems in the Westernization Movement.
The failure of Beiyang Navy lies not only in the inferior weapons and equipment caused by improper employment and military quality, but also in the fact that the comprehensive strength and combat capability of China's army are far lower than those of the invaders. It also lies in the strategic and tactical mistakes of the Qing government.
The goal of military self-improvement is to realize the modernization of China's army. From the perspective of military modernization, the military self-improvement of Westernization Movement before the Sino-Japanese War was still at a low level. Its biggest shortcoming is that it basically stays in the stage of realizing the modernization of weapons and equipment, and has not pushed it to a higher level of realizing the modernization of the military system. (Not completely! In this way, there is a serious contradiction between advanced equipment and backward old military system. This situation was fully exposed in the Sino-Japanese War. In the Westernization Movement, the Qing army did not establish a centralized and unified command system to adapt to modern wars. Since the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War, there has never been a command system with clear hierarchy and clear responsibilities, and diversified command can be seen everywhere. This is an important reason for the fall of Pyongyang, the collapse of the Yalu River defense line, the fall of Dalian Lushun, the failure of five counter-attacks against Haicheng, the failure of defending Weihai and the collapse of Beiyang Navy.
The failure of China in the Sino-Japanese War tells us that optical artifacts are not enough, and we should also pay attention to fundamentally innovating the outdated and backward military system.