Chapter 37: Imaginary Enemy

  As Jin knelt down to the ground, Li Hongzhang and Ru Wengtong also stood up from the hall, bowed their hands and paid respects: "We have seen His Highness Gege."

  Both of them were high-ranking officials in the imperial court, and they didn't need to pay respects originally, but out of respect for the royal family, both elderly ministers showed great courtesy.

  The other officials on the court fell to their knees in a large patch, except for Ed and his German colleagues.

  Zhou Xuan Zhang saw the situation and knew that today's disaster was big. He could no longer care about his previous boastful words "a man kneels to heaven, earth and parents", and knelt down on the ground with the crowd.

  Min Hua ignored the crowd and spoke directly to Li Hongzhang, "May I ask, Mr. Li, who did the Beiyang Fleet ultimately lose to?"

  The sand table exercise, with the Beiyang Fleet as the imaginary Red Army, suffered a devastating blow from the Blue Army, which imagined the Japanese army as its enemy. This made Li Hongzhang extremely embarrassed, but he couldn't mention it to Zhen Fei, who was sitting next to him. Li Hongzhang's heart was anxious, but he didn't dare offend this princess, so he forced a smile: "Just one sand table exercise, the Beiyang Fleet is not good at fighting..."

  Min Hengrui bluntly interrupted Li Hongzhang's words: "Lord Li, who did the Beiyang Fleet ultimately lose to?"

  "The Japanese army." Li Hongzhang said with a red face.

  "Li Zhongtang, this remark of yours is perhaps inappropriate."

  "What's wrong? Please, Princess, enlighten me." Li Hongzhang's heart skipped a beat, could it be that this princess had come up with something extraordinary? But upon further thought, he found it unthinkable, as Xun Shi was just a young girl who liked to cause trouble, what did she know about military strategy and battle arrays.

  "Look around, you are still officials of the great Qing dynasty, eating the salary of the court, leading the army of the court, and yet you were so easily deceived by Zhou Xuan Zhang, this ignorant and cunning rascal!"

  Min Hui's comment on Zhou Xuan Zhang was extremely vicious, and Liu Bu Chan hastily said: "The princess is too serious, Zhou Xuan Zhang is a student of the Tianjin Military Academy, and he is also a fellow villager of that province, he is not a local rascal!"

  Min Xiu was very respectful of Liu Bocan and saw him kneeling down to speak, so he hastily said: "Liu Guandai please stand up and talk."

  "Thank you, sister." Liu Buxian stood up: "In my humble opinion, this Zhou Xianzhang is quite insightful..."

  "General Liu, please let Princess tell the story." Li Hongzhang hastily interrupted General Liu's words. Today's incident has caused the Beiyang Navy to lose face; if Min Hui can help the Beiyang Navy regain its honor, that would be a good thing.

  Min Xiu said: "Today's sandbox exercise, the attacking and defending sides are the Red Army and the Blue Army. The Red Army is naturally the army of my Great Qing Dynasty, so who is the Blue Army?"

  "This..." Liu Buxian hesitated. In fact, the Red Army and Blue Army appeared in the test questions, according to Li Zhongtang's intention, the hypothetical enemy of the Blue Army was the Japanese army, but from start to finish, this hypothetical enemy was not explicitly stated to the students. It was just that everyone knew it in their hearts, because the map intentionally drew out the flagship Matsushima of the Japanese fleet.

  Li Hongzhang was playing dumb with everyone, but he actually had his own difficulties.

  The Qing Empire has never taken Japan as the focus of strategic defense, and the hypothetical enemies of national defense, especially sea defense, are all Westerners. This is determined by the general anti-foreign sentiment in the Qing Empire.

  However, Li Hongzhang was clear in his mind that in the future, the archenemy of the Qing Dynasty would be Japan!

  Moreover, Li Hongzhang also knew that once war broke out between China and Japan, the outcome would be difficult to predict.

  However, facing a nationwide environment that consistently holds a grudge against Westerners, Li Hongzhang's concerns could not be expressed.

  Even now, due to the Kim Gu affair, Sino-Japanese relations have deteriorated sharply and war is imminent. However, public opinion in the imperial court is still overwhelmingly one-sided - almost everyone firmly believes that Japan can be defeated with a single blow, and once the war begins, it will take no more than a month for the Qing Empire to win easily.

  This view is well-founded.

  In terms of national strength, the Qing Empire's GDP was ten times that of Japan, and its population was five times that of Japan. The country was vast and rich in resources. In terms of production capacity, after the Tongzhi Restoration, the Qing Empire had a large number of newly established modern factories such as the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau, which could produce domestic large-scale machinery, trains, steamships, and imitation infantry guns. In contrast, Japan's modern industry was just beginning to take shape, with only a handful of immature state-owned enterprises, relying mainly on imported industrial equipment.

  From a military perspective, the Xiang Army of the Qing Dynasty has been through battles with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the Nian Army, and has long been tempered by war. The Qing army is equipped with rifles and artillery, which are the most advanced weapons in the world today. The navy is even more powerful, with four major fleets, one of which, the Beiyang Fleet, has a number of ships equivalent to the total number of warships in Japan. Among them, the two giant ironclad cruisers "Dingyuan" and "Zhenyuan" are even more powerful than any ship in Asia. In contrast, Japan's military equipment, whether on land or at sea, is far inferior to that of the Qing Dynasty.

  There is no reason to list Japan as the number one enemy of the Great Qing Empire!

  Only Li Hongzhang knew that the Qing dynasty's Eight Banners and Green Standard Army were already in decline, and the newly risen Xiang and Huai armies were not reliable either. These troops had become thoroughly corrupt, incompetent in both internal and external wars. Only the navy was still capable of fighting against the Japanese army, but the so-called naval advantage had long since disappeared.

  The tonnage of the Japanese Navy was approaching that of the Northern Fleet, and the Japanese warships were also purchased from the West, but they were all newly built in recent years. The performance was better than the Northern Fleet, and the speed was generally faster than the Northern Fleet. Moreover, the Japanese ships were generally equipped with quick-firing guns that were popular in the world at that time, while the Northern Fleet's warships had few quick-firing guns.

  The warships of the Beiyang Fleet need to be updated and replaced. To say that, the Qing Empire is not short of money, but Empress Dowager Cixi just refuses to give the money to the Beiyang Fleet!

  The reason for this was that Empress Dowager Cixi did not say it out loud, but Li Hongzhang understood in his heart and also could not speak it out.

  The reason is that the Beiyang Fleet has become too powerful!

  The strength of the Beiyang Fleet was not that it was strong in the world, but rather that within the Qing Empire, this armed force had no equal.

  This force may not be able to defeat foreigners, but if they have any evil intentions and clash with the imperial court, the imperial court will really have no way to deal with them.

  But what worried the imperial court most was that this powerful armed force was in the hands of Han people, rather than Manchu people!

  This is the basic national condition of the Qing Dynasty! A small number of Manchu people rule over the vast majority of Han people! Guarding against the Han people is a political priority above all else!

  The Manchu nobility would rather sacrifice national defense than allow Han Chinese troops to become powerful.

  Because of this unspoken reason, the Empress Dowager refused to give silver to the Beiyang Navy, and Li Hongzhang did not dare ask for it. If he asked again, the Manchu nobles would be furious!

  The Beiyang Fleet has already fallen behind in the world, it is only a decorative pillow, but in the Qing Empire, it is still enough to overthrow the court!

  Li Hongzhang spared no effort in avoiding war with Japan. Once the war started, the weakness of the Qing dynasty would be exposed to the whole world.

  However, the Qingliu school did not know this fact, and the common people knew it even less!

  The Japanese are clamoring for war, and the whole country of Qing is also filled with voices of war. They also thought that the powerful Beiyang Fleet could crush Japan's combined fleet like crushing a fly!

  Led by Yi Wanyong and others of the Clear Flow faction, they strongly demanded that the court declare war on Japan, completely dominating public opinion in the court.

  The war party was full of confidence and patriotic enthusiasm, while the peace party had almost disappeared. Even Zhang Zhidong and Zuo Zongtang, those clear-headed high-ranking officials, remained silent.

  Faced with this situation, Li Hongzhang did not dare to openly advocate for avoiding war, otherwise, he would become the target of public criticism.

  Li Hongzhang did not dare to openly oppose Ronglu, but he was also unwilling to let the Beiyang Fleet fall into an irretrievable situation. After some thought, he came up with a plan.

  He invited Ronglu to inspect the Tianjin Military Academy, actually hoping that one of his subordinates would stand up and say what he dared not say, persuading Ronglu to abandon his main war effort.

  For this purpose, he took Weihaiwei, the base of the Beiyang Fleet, as a test question and gave it to the students, assuming that the enemy was the Japanese army.

  However, considering the above, Li Hongzhang also found it inconvenient to explicitly mention this hypothetical enemy, so on the diagram of the Blue Army's battle formation, he only marked out the Matsushima cruiser.

  He hopes that through this examination, through the test papers of the students, let Ruoyun Tongyi and other Qingyunpai see the real combat power of the Japanese army, at least to prove that the Japanese army is not so easy to defeat.

  Li Hongzhang hoped that the Qing army would emerge victorious in its confrontation with the Japanese, but at a terrible cost. To achieve this victory, a nationwide mobilization was needed, and not just relying on the Beiyang Fleet and the surrounding Xiang-Huai Army. The Qing state would pay an extremely high price.

  At such a high cost, it was possible to persuade Rong Yiren to give up his main battle.

  Of course, Li Hongzhang himself did not expect that under the command of Zhou Xuanzhang, with only 4,000 troops, Weihaiwei was captured. The eastern fortress of Weihaiwei turned out to be so vulnerable, this is too much!

  Of course, all the students who participated in the examination and the generals present recognized Matsushima, so although everyone was unclear what Li Zhongtang was going to do, one thing was clear: the blue army in Li Zhongtang's mind was indeed the Japanese army.

  The Red Army was defeated by the Blue Army, of course, it was defeated by the Japanese army.

  Now, Min Xue suddenly questioned the Red Army's hypothetical enemy, and Liu Buxian was at a loss for what to do.

  Li Hongzhang's hypothetical enemy was the Japanese army, however, Li Hongzhang indeed never formally announced who this hypothetical enemy was.