On Li Hongzhang's influence on China's modern history, he strongly advocated the establishment of Westernization Movement, which promoted the development of China's modernization. He signed several important unequal treaties in China's modern history, which humiliated his power and country. He resolutely opposed Zuo's recovery of Xinjiang, which made China lose a large territory in the northwest ... He was Li Hongzhang, a big official of the A Qing court who was criticized for his merits and demerits in modern history. I don't want to excuse him, and I don't want to denigrate him. I just want to analyze his indelible influence on China's modern history, whether it is good or bad, from the standpoint of dialectical materialism. Key words: China, modern history, Li Hongzhang, an important official in the late Qing Dynasty, juvenile imperial examination, serving as a soldier in the prime of life, middle-aged frontier defense. In his later years, he set up the Westernization Movement, signed many unequal treaties, and finally died. From the beginning of his career, "in the past forty years, all the major events in China have been related to Li Hongzhang." The evaluation of such a complex figure has been "undecided" for more than 100 years after his coffin was built. Some people say that he is a traitor and collaborator, and that he is patriotic and enterprising. His merits and demerits are only fleeting, leaving them for later generations to comment on. I just want to talk about my personal opinion based on the influence of his personal affairs on modern history. After all, his name will never be engraved in modern history, so let's put it aside for the time being. According to the historical order, I selected some important events to express my humble opinion. First, Li Hongzhang, a "mature soldier", joined the army after becoming famous. At that time, he was still a rookie and was appreciated by Zeng Guofan. Zeng Guofan ordered him to rectify Yingyong and recruit new soldiers to train Huai Army. 1864, led the troops to conquer Changzhou, and then captured Nanjing, the capital of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. 1865 served as governor of the two rivers. Xuan mobilized 60,000 Huai troops to go to Henan to suppress the twisting army, replacing Zeng Guofan as the "imperial minister of the twisting army". It can be said that he has been a soldier for ten years. 1. The movement to suppress the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was criticized by later historians and people as the executioner to suppress the peasant uprising. In fact, this is unfair not only to Li, but also to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. People flatter it too much! In fact, since the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom made Nanjing its capital, it has lost the essence of the peasant army, which originally represented the peasant class, and the decadent ideas of the feudal landlord class have increasingly eroded into the revolutionary ranks. Large-scale construction of the palace, pampered and luxurious life prove that there is no difference between the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the Qing court in essence. Moreover, Li Hongzhang was not the protagonist of suppressing the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom at that time. As a young writer who just started his career, he is only a supporting role. From this point of view, Li Hongzhang's contribution to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement is only a one-on-one historical relationship. According to the viewpoint of historical development, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, as a peasant regime with its own limitations, will always come to an end, and Li Hongzhang has just become the person who has just ended it. Other than that, nothing else. 2. Li Hongzhang deeply realized the power of "foreign guns and guns" when he trained the Huai army during the suppression of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. He selected excellent officers for different positions, appointed their abilities, equipped troops with western weapons, and insisted on new law training to improve the combat effectiveness of the Huai army. With such an army, Li Lien Chan won victories. In the battle with the Taiping Army, he not only saved Shanghai, but also contained many elite divisions of the Taiping Army, which made great contributions to the Qing court's final victory over the Taiping Army. At the same time, the first truly modern army was established after Li arrived in Shanghai. He realized that the world is made up of competitors of different forces, and the West has greatly surpassed China in weapons and technology. So militarily, he began to adopt westernized management and equipped with western-style equipment, which was of great significance to China's military modernization. China's military modernization has begun. Second, Li Hongzhang, a "middle-aged government official", has been in power for three dynasties. At that time, Russia occupied Ili, and Britain was eyeing it, intending to carve up the northwest. Xinjiang, with an area of 1.6 thousand square kilometers, is actually invisible on the map of the Qing Dynasty, and Xinjiang has disappeared from the "actual territory" of the Qing Dynasty. But he said to Cixi: "Xinjiang is a place outside China, with vast desert and thousands of miles of bare land. The land is barren and the population is sparse. During the Qianlong period, Xinjiang was pacified and the whole country devoted itself to it. Thousands of miles of land have been collected in vain, and millions of expenses have been increased. It is really not worth the loss. In my opinion, Xinjiang no longer exists, and it has not been hurt by the vitality of its limbs. It is better not to recover Ili. " He used the more important reason of "coastal defense" than "blocking defense" to prevaricate and let it go, just hoping not to hurt his vitality. This is his indifference to the rivers and mountains of his motherland. Although at the insistence of Zuo, Xinjiang was finally recovered by the whole country one year later, it is an indisputable fact that Li Hongzhang's failure in rendering this matter made China lose Xinjiang like losing Outer Mongolia. Third, "Westernization in his later years" Indeed, Li Hongzhang was a key figure in his time. At the end of Qing dynasty, there were internal troubles and foreign invasion. In the process of communicating with foreign countries, he deeply realized the importance of "learning from foreign countries". Therefore, he "learned from foreigners" and sought China's "wealth" and "strength" with a clear mind and the spirit of exploring and practicing. In the later period of Westernization Movement, as one of the representatives of Westernization School, he led and founded the first batch of military and civilian enterprises in modern history of China. Established a powerful modern navy in China; Send international students to train talents. All these have had a far-reaching impact on China, and made backward China begin the process of modernization. His military, educational, economic and diplomatic thoughts had a far-reaching impact on China's modern history, and its influence still exists today. All these indicate that Li Hongzhang promoted the all-round modernization of China's modern military, education, economy and diplomacy. However, Li Hongzhang's proposition that "if China wants to strengthen itself, it is better to learn from foreign sharp weapons, and if it wants to learn from foreign sharp weapons, it is better to find tools to make tools" has never touched on deeper institutional issues. He believed in the superstructure and thoroughly implemented the guiding ideology of "taking middle school as the body and western learning as the service", so even though Li Hongzhang had indelible achievements in all aspects of modernization, he was forgotten as an important historical figure in modern history. So in the end, the Westernization Movement failed, because of his loyalty to feudal forces and the feudal system that he would never violate. Even though it promoted the modernization of China in many aspects, in the end, the Westernization Movement had to stop at the weakness of the system and failed. Four. Signing Unequal Treaties Li Hongzhang handled foreign negotiations on behalf of the Qing court many times before his death, and signed such unequal treaties as Yantai Treaty, New Law of China and France, treaty of shimonoseki, Sino-Russian Secret Treaty, Xin Chou Treaty and so on, which humiliated China and Britain. In his later years, Li Hongzhang entered the value center, presided over diplomacy, and was active in the political arena of the late Qing Dynasty. He believes that "external harmony, internal self-improvement", in foreign exchanges, he is responsible for specific negotiations, specific signatures, and specific handling of many treaties. As a loyal guardian of the feudal system, starting from safeguarding the ruling class and its own vested interests, all its thoughts and actions are branded with the times and classes. In order to win a draw, he lost his perseverance and compromised in the negotiation. 1, "The New Law of China and France" Because Li Hongzhang has always adhered to the diplomatic thought of striving for a peaceful game and has a clear understanding of the current situation, his peaceful game thought itself is reasonable and enthusiastic, but his thought has great limitations objectively, which directly led to China's unbeaten in the Sino-French war. You know, at that time, China was not weaker than the Japanese. A British authority once commented: "Asia is now in the hands of three great powers-Russia, Britain and China." It can be seen that the historical environment is quite conducive to China's self-improvement. As for the failure of the Sino-French war and the signing of the new Sino-French law, Li Hongzhang delayed the development of China. I dare not say that history has changed, but its negative influence on modern history has emerged from here. 2. The treaty of shimonoseki Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 was a war of aggression deliberately provoked by Japan. However, the Qing government had no intention of resisting Japan's wanton provocation and made peace again and again. Finally, as the governor of Zhili, Li Hongzhang was sent to Shimonoseki, Japan, to make peace with Japanese plenipotentiary, Prime Minister Ito Bowen and Foreign Minister Luo Ozong. At this time, Li Hongzhang was still fighting for a draw according to his consistent proposition, which directly led to the failure of the Sino-Japanese War. And then what? Disagreement? This is a question that determines whether China will sign the treaty. Of course, he asked for peace, and the whole corrupt Qing dynasty asked for peace. From this point of view, Li Hongzhang, who conforms to the current situation and the trend of the Qing Dynasty, is doomed to fail. However, later people called him a traitor, I beg to differ. Take our Comrade Li Hongzhang for example. As a loyal guardian of the feudal system, he devoted himself to safeguarding the ruling class and his vested interests. Even if he was killed, he would not betray the country. After all, the deep-rooted feudal ideology did not allow him to do so. During the negotiations, the Japanese side was demanding, and he tried to beg for lower conditions. Finally, under the Japanese coercion and the compromise of the Qing court, Li Hongzhang signed the most vicious treaty of shimonoseki in history. Sad, Li Hongzhang! Destined historical chess pieces. Li Hongzhang, who summed up the political arena in the late Qing Dynasty for more than half a century, was appraised by Liang Qichao as "a hero made for the times, not a hero made for the times". In his decades-long career, he has involved almost all major historical events in the late Qing Dynasty, and his deeds of promoting modernization show his innovative blood. He insisted that China was in the hands of the invaders, which showed his class nature, and his excessive opposition to the recovery of Xinjiang during his government period was an inescapable crime. In that particular historical period, Li Hongzhang made some innovations and made some compromises. He is a transitional figure in the transitional period of China, and his characteristics exist in the historical transformation of China. As an important figure in history, he was the pioneer of China's modernization, and China lost its sovereignty and territory because of the compromise and concession of foreign invaders. To sum up, Li Hongzhang's influence on China's modern history has both positive and negative aspects, and no one can tell which is more important. However, how can the merits and demerits offset each other? The old man who encounters right and wrong is just a chess piece played by history in applause.