劉正教授學術演講録第51講北洋水師提督丁汝昌和中日黃海大決戰的失敗

Today we are going to talk about why the Sino-Japanese War of the Yellow Sea failed and what kind of responsibility Ding Luchang has in it. As we all know, there are many films about the Sino-Japanese War of the Yellow Sea. In these films, Ding Luchang is a national hero with a positive image. He is a positive energy. On the contrary, he also created the so-called rebels, such as Fang Boqian and Liu Buchan. These works have a deep impression on people. But today we need to restore the truth of history, especially to show that what is described in the film is not historical facts. Let's start with Ding Luchang. Ding Luchang joined the Peaceful People's Republic of China in the early years. He was a general of the Peaceful People's Army. Later, he was summoned and rebelled. Then he joined the Chinese army and joined the Chinese army. From then on, he became Li Hongzhang's backer. Because he used to serve in the Peaceful People's Army, he knew the internal structure of the Peaceful People's Army very well. Therefore, when he joined the Chinese army, he was able to make great contributions. Please remember that he was a land army. In the end, he should be regarded as a land army. The Peaceful People's Republic of China was a rebel. At that time, he was not a land army. There is no doubt that he did not belong to the Chinese army. He was a land army. Later, after suppressing the Peaceful People's Republic of China, including the remnants of the Peaceful People's Republic of China, Ding Wuchang also participated in the suppression of the Peaceful People's Republic of China. Therefore, he was deeply trusted by Li Hongzhang. Gradually, he became a military general under Li Hongzhang. Although he did not have any naval knowledge, but because he was a close friend of Li Hongzhang, and he must have made great contributions, so Li Hongzhang set up his own people without exception to promote him to be the commander-in-chief of the Beiyang Fleet. At this time, he was already 43 years old. The so-called commander-in-chief means the naval commander. And his opponent, the Japanese naval marshal at that time, was the commander-in-chief of the joint fleet, but when he graduated from high school, he enrolled in the Shenhu Naval Training Institute to study. Then, in 1871, he began to serve in the Japanese Navy. He made great contributions from a young age. Gradually, he rose to the top. He was a Japanese senior general who was proficient in naval warfare. This is the difference between Ding Wuchang and Yidong Youheng, which is the background difference between the Japanese and Chinese naval commanders. Because Li Hongzhang chose Ding Wuchang to serve as the commander-in-chief of the Beiyang Fleet, he was completely at the mercy of others. As a result, he did not have any exceptions, and those who really went to the United Kingdom, the United States, and Germany at that time to study naval warfare, those who returned home to study overseas, those who were ready to return home to study overseas, were put into the cold palace and were not promoted. For example, Fang Boqian. He studied at Greenwich Naval School in the UK for four years. He was the most professional in naval warfare. He should be the one to be compared with Yidong Youheng, the Japanese naval commander. But in the Qing Dynasty, there was no place for him. Because the entire Beiyang Fleet was Li Hongzhang's private fleet. So he was not Li Hongzhang's enemy. Therefore, he was not used heavily. Liu Guochan was the same. But because Fang Boqian and Liu Guochan were not used heavily, they returned home to study overseas and studied naval warfare professionally. So naturally, Ding Wuchang did not like it, and he became Ding Wuchang's rival. We can find that from the Qing Dynasty to today, he is still an outsider. At that time, Li Hongzhang was Li Hongzhang's rival. So he did not like Ding Wuchang in Li Hongzhang's eyes. He impeached him many times, and even asked to execute him. So Ding Wuchang could only live under Li Hongzhang's reign. He had no chance to be promoted online. But the main reason is that Ding Wuchang himself is not innocent. We need to explain this today. In the modern history of China, there is a book called the Oriental Military Records. In this book, it is written in detail that when the Beiyang Fleet and the U.S. Navy broke up to search for the South China Sea, they led a silver bet in Hong Kong and Shanghai. That is to say, in Hong Kong and Shanghai, the generals and soldiers of the Beiyang Fleet had to make a silver bet every year. They had no intention of training at all. And Ding Wuchang himself was arrogant and magnanimous. Ding Wuchang used the silver bet to buy his own property. Then he raised his family, his wife and his concubines. Then he used the excess property for his own gain. In order to suppress his enemies, Fang Boqian and Liu Buchan, these three people competed to see who had more real estate. Now we have evidence that the history of the Qing Dynasty records that Fang Boqian had as many as 28 real estate properties. It's a whole book of real estate. 28 real estate properties. Every real estate was built in the four courtyards. So you can imagine how much property he had. At the same time, they competed for the silver. Fang Boqian had 28 real estate properties. You can imagine that no matter how much Ding Wuchang had, he would have 14 real estate properties. He would have at least 20 real estate properties. Fang Boqian, Liu Buchan and Ding Wuchang, these three people competed to see who had more real estate. In the end, they all paid a high price and let the concubines choose. In the end, the concubines chose Fang Boqian. Because they thought Fang Boqian was handsome, young and beautiful. He could speak English. He came back from a foreign country. He was a doctor. He was a high-level intellectual. Ding Wuchang was short and ugly. He didn't speak English. He was so stupid. He was an old man. After he said that, he hated Ding Wuchang very much. He transferred his hatred to Fang Boqian. So on September 24, 1894, in the battle between China and Japan, which lasted for about half a year, there was a decisive battle. One of the decisive battles was the Battle of Fenghai. Ding Wuchang accused Fang Boqian of running away and executed him on the spot for this crime. He took the opportunity to vent his hatred. I'll make your concubines look down on me again. I'll make them like this handsome and high-level intellectual. But Fang Boqian's excuse for running away was as follows. He wrote, At 11 o'clock in the morning, my army and 11 warships were docked on the outskirts of Dadonggou. We fired at each other. First, the Japanese fleet was dispersed. By 3 or 4 o'clock in the afternoon, my fleet was dispersed by the Japanese fleet. But the enemy's warships were scattered. My Dingyuan warship was cut off. Zhiyuan warship was sunk. Laiyuan, Pingyuan, Chaoyong, Yangwei and other warships were all gone. Only my warship was still there. But it was also killed. There were many casualties. There was no ammunition. I had to go back and repair it. This is the most authentic record of Fang Boqian's excuse for running away. He didn't run away. He recorded it truthfully. On the contrary, the person who really ran away was called Lin Jingrong. He was Ding Luchang's hometown. What punishment did Ding Luchang give him? He was fired. His salary was paid every month. And Fang Boqian was beheaded in public. If you kill a captain, hundreds of soldiers are his subordinates. The same crime, different punishment. The whole Beiyang Navy was infuriated. Fang Boqian's subordinates, all the flagships and auxiliary warships were all killed. So at the critical moment, at the most critical moment, Fang Boqian's subordinates surrendered to the Japanese army and shouted to arrest Ding Luchang. This is the situation. So for Ding Luchang, Fang Boqian was killed. There is still no conclusion in the academic world. Starting with Fang Boqian, we can say that Fang Boqian's four generations to the present, there are more than ten people serving in the naval forces on both sides of the strait. The most famous among them was Fang Ying, who was the first general of the Chinese navy. So we can see that from Ding Luchang, there were robberies, land purchases, and smuggling. No wonder his subordinates did robberies in Japan for a long time. And for the soldiers who did such things, Li Hongzhang was very tolerant. What did Li Hongzhang say? Li Hongzhang said, This is an accusation. Ding Luchang said, Li Hongzhang said, I know that Ding Luchang is a man of good character. This is the nature of a general. But as long as you are greedy and want to make a name for the country, you should naturally listen to me within my control. He made it very clear. Li Hongzhang was very tolerant of the soldiers, whether they bought land, whether they had enough property. In other words, he was excited about his subordinates. He didn't care about anything else. Isn't it like today's so-called anti-corruption? A selective anti-corruption. I don't need you. As long as you have two protections and four insistence, I don't care. I don't care what you do. But you have to support the core of the Party Central Committee. To be honest, there were not many advantages to speak of. Let's take a look at the firepower comparison between China and Japan at the time. There were more than 30 cannons above 20 cm. The Japanese had 15 cannons. There were 230 cannons below 20 cm. The Japanese had 140 cannons. There were 244 machine guns in the dormitory. The Japanese had nearly 300 cannons. There were only 39 torpedoes. The Japanese had 43 cannons. In terms of the speed of the warships, the Chinese had 11.48 ships, while the Japanese had 12.84 ships. What's more, all Japanese warships had side-armored cannon. All the warships of the North Sea Maritime Command in China were ships with without the main cannon. This caused the side to be completely defeated and could not fight back. But at that time, the main battle group led by Wang Tuhe fooled Emperor Guangxu, and ordered the Beiyang Navy to fight the Japanese navy. And Li Hongzhang clearly knew that the Beiyang Navy had not built a new warship in recent years, and even did not buy logistics supplies and ammunition. It was impossible to be compared with the current Japanese navy. But for the sake of face, he had to say, I beat the ships and cannons, far better than the Japanese. But he knew the actual situation, so he ordered Ding Wuchang privately, you give me a war-saving ship. Received this order, so Ding Wuchang ordered the ships, to bring less ammunition on each warship. At that time, the entire Beiyang Navy ammunition depot in Lushun, Dalian, and Weihai Liu Gong Island had more than 3,000 cannons. And the four main warships of the Beiyang Navy and other warships were all added together to make hundreds of cannons. In other words, only one-tenth was brought to the warship. In this way, the ammunition was all fake, instead of hitting the enemy's warship, it would immediately explode. Fake ammunition is nothing more than a fake gun, shooting a hole. That's all. You can't let it sink immediately. So that's it. And the Beiyang Navy's cannons, they still use old black gunpowder. After the first shot, the second shot must be fired again to clean up the whole gunpowder. Otherwise, there will be residual black gunpowder in it. The second shot may turn out to be a fake. If the gunpowder doesn't explode, it can't be fired. This affects the time of continuous firing. And Japan uses Western chemical gunpowder. There is no such problem. In the end, the Japanese warships were continuously fired, and the Beiyang Navy added hundreds of cannons and guns, all fake ammunition. That's the situation. So after the whole big battle, the most important thing is this problem. The ammunition is Ding Luchang's strategy to keep Li Hongzhang in power. When he went out to sea, he didn't allow him to bring flowers and extra cannons. So the whole Sino-Japanese Yellow Sea was a big battle. Less than five hours, all the cannons of the Beiyang Navy were shot down. The rest was beaten. So after five hours, the Japanese army won easily. One shot, one shot, one shot, one shot. So this is the situation. Let's look at this situation. After five hours of decisive battle, the Beiyang Navy did not sink a Japanese warship, but sank several of its own. The main warship and the general cruisers and auxiliary warships exploded and sank. It was over. So before the war, the British Far East Fleet Commander Perry Mantt once went to the Beiyang Navy to visit various warships. He wrote a comment like this. He said that the Chinese ships were lined up on both sides and no one was in charge. It looked like a pile of iron sleeves outside. Inside, there was a mess. There were big and small changes everywhere. There was nothing to eat at night. He even saw a large group of soldiers on the warships hiding in the canons, hanging their bright clothes. Did you see this situation? It didn't look like a decisive battle at all. No wonder you were defeated by Japan. Think about how you insulted Japan back then. After more than ten years, you were humiliated. It should be said that Japan's victory was not accidental, but inevitable. So on the afternoon of September 17, 1894, a five-hour battle in the Yellow Sea, three cruisers Zhiyuan, Jingyuan, Chaoyu were sunk, Yangwei was hit, Guangjia was cut off, and five cruisers were lost. Although five Japanese warships were also hit, all of them were hit everywhere. There was a hole here, there was a hole there, and that was it. They were still able to go back. They didn't sink or blow up. And the total number of shells in Beiyang Naval Base was 197. Plus the remaining ones. As we said earlier, they only brought a few hundred. This fatal mistake was caused by Ding Wuchang's strategy of abandoning the warships. So Ding Wuchang had a direct reason for this. On January 20, 1895, the Japanese army landed in Shandong Peninsula and cooperated with the Maritime Joint Force to build all the Beiyang Naval Bases that were abandoned there. On February 11, the British military adviser to the Beiyang Naval Base in Weihai ordered the surrender. Then Fang Guoqian and Liu Guochan's subordinates gathered and demanded Ding Wuchang to surrender. What was Ding Wuchang doing at this time? Ding Wuchang's flagship, he was standing on the deck of the second floor, looking at the situation with binoculars. A shell came over and exploded around him. It hit him from the second floor to the deck of the first floor. He fell on the spot and broke his arm. The bomb exploded. At this time, the soldiers and ships around the Beiyang Naval Base shouted and demanded him to surrender. Faced with such a tragic situation, Ding Wuchang committed suicide on the spot. On February 12, the Japanese Joint Force sent a telegram to the Japanese Army Headquarters and the Navy Ambassador to report that the Great Battle of the Yellow Sea was a complete victory. The Beiyang Naval Base was destroyed. On February 15, Ding Wuchang was confirmed to have committed suicide. The telegram was sent again. At this time, the Japanese General Ito, the Commander-in-Chief of the Joint Force, gave Ding Wuchang a high evaluation and praise for his suicide. He led all the senior generals to bury Ding Wuchang. He specially arranged a merchant ship to bury Ding Wuchang later. He placed Ding Wuchang's body on the merchant ship and ordered them to return to Tianjin. He sent a letter of apology to Li Hongzhang. He praised Ding Wuchang's spirit of 50 ways. He was a real soldier. On February 20, all the soldiers of the Beiyang Naval Base surrendered to the Japanese Army. The Commander-in-Chief of the Joint Force sent a telegram again to the Japanese Headquarters and the Navy Ambassador. The telegram announced the death of the entire Qing Navy. This is the decisive victory of the Japanese Navy. We can see that patriotic generals who really studied in the UK and returned to China to study naval warfare, such as Wang Boqian and Liu Buchan, could not be of much use. They had no choice but to waste their time on smuggling and purchasing real estate. No wonder the Japanese Navy could win over the Beiyang Naval Base. In addition to smuggling and gambling, the Beiyang Naval Base had no training. All the ammunition was kept in the ammunition depot. So in a word, the mistakes and drawbacks of the system have continued from the Qing Dynasty to today. It's still the same. Thank you. If you like this video, please subscribe to this channel. Your subscription is the greatest support for me to work hard every day to produce programs. Let's spread the truth together and understand the real historical, cultural, and realistic political process of the world and China. Thank you for watching.