The demise of the late Qing Dynasty was due to the dispersion of power. Cixi was nominally the Empress Dowager, the Empress Dowager, and was worshipped by all officials. She did not dare to cause trouble even if she was not killed.

After the Boxer Incident, Cixi declared war on all countries. As a result, Li Hongzhang, Zhang Zhidong, Liu Kunyi and others came to protect themselves in the Southeast, which means they directly told the foreigners that we do not recognize the imperial declaration of war. If you want to fight Beijing, go fight Beijing, anyway, you can't fight us.

As a result, the foreigners really agreed. The Eight-Nation Alliance of the Southeast Provinces did not invade the entire war, and the war was completely destroyed in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei.

There is a record in unofficial history that Cixi escaped from Beijing and headed westward. There was almost a month in between and there was no news. No one in the court knew whether Cixi was dead or alive.

At that time, the governors who protected themselves in Southeast Asia had privately connected with each other, wanting to withdraw Li Hongzhang as president and reform the republic.

Gu Hongming even offered advice to Zhang Zhidong to ask Jiangnan to be independent, build a country and prepare for the military preparations.

Sometimes the truth of history is hidden in unofficial history. Perhaps what is recorded in unofficial history is not necessarily true, but later generations can see unofficial history at that time, which shows that the literati who wrote unofficial history at that time represented the thoughts of a large number of people. His thoughts or fabricated fantasies are what the people are willing to see or even long to see.

It is precisely because the people have this desire in their hearts that they work hard to spread it, which allows unofficial history to be passed down for hundreds of years and can be seen by future generations.

This is a very important contribution of unofficial history to history. Don’t ask unofficial history to be absolutely correct. Unofficial history cannot be absolutely correct, because even official history cannot do this.

However, unofficial history has been passed down for hundreds of years but has not disappeared, which shows that this unofficial history represents the mainstream public opinion at that time. This is a very important verbal evidence for studying the direction of people's hearts in that era.

From the Southeast Mutual Protection Incident alone, we can see the dispersion of power in the late Qing Dynasty. With Cixi's control over the late Qing Empire, we cannot achieve power concentration, let alone expect Tongzhi, Guangxu and other sick people.

The more dispersed the power, the more severe the constraints will be! The resources of the empire cannot be concentrated, and of course, it will not be possible to carry out some major projects that reverse the country's destiny.

What's even more terrifying is that the Qing Dynasty's political system was originally imperfect, and it was born with the gene of decentralization. The ghost of the Eight Kings' political discussion wandered in the hearts of every bannerman.

When the emperor's authority collapses, it will be difficult to establish it again! To put it simply, the entire Eight Banners Group does not want another Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong to appear from the bottom of their hearts.

It’s so dangerous and atrocity to do with such a strong emperor! If you want to chop your head, you will chop your head. If you want to get rid of your official position, you will give up. Even if you want to destroy your nine clans, it’s just a matter of one word.

If you are engaging with such a master, you have to be careful even if you embezzle. It would be better to be with a cowardly and incompetent emperor. Everyone should embezzle together, and even the imperial kitchen is greedy for the emperor's money. The emperor will have no choice but to do nothing when he finds out. How great is this.

Therefore, the revival of Emperor Tongzhi's imperial party will definitely anger all the nobles of the Eight Banners!

The Eight Banners group that was rotten to the roots were born against centralization, which has become a "crab barrel effect". What is the crab barrel effect?

Even the crab catcher at the beach brought a bucket without a lid. He caught a crab and threw it in. He didn't have to cover the lid and couldn't escape.

Is it because the edges of the crab bucket are very smooth? Actually, it is not. The crab bucket is very ordinary and any crab can easily climb up, but don’t forget that the domineering guy like crabs doesn’t understand civilized politeness.

Half a bucket of crabs were fighting for each other and they were about to run away. When one climbed up, the other dragged his feet and walked up. Then the third one went up, and finally they all fell to the bottom of the bucket.

Just restrain each other, entangle each other, and make trouble with each other. As a result, the crab bucket does not need to be covered with lids or watched by people, and almost no one can escape half a bucket of crabs.

This is the crab barrel effect, and the officialdom in the late Qing Dynasty was actually like this. The Eight Banners and Han officials were crabs one by one, staring at each other like black-eyed chickens.

Let’s talk about the 30,000 new troops in Xishan Camp, who will give the command power? In fact, it’s not enough to give it to anyone... Is it okay to give it to Yi? Is it happy to give it to Yihuan Prince Li? Everyone thinks so, and everyone is extremely wary of outsiders.

Because the Eight Banners Military Group has this gene, they know very well whoever has soldiers is the eldest and the ancestor. If they have the right, they will definitely bully others and exploit others.

You are guarding against me, I am afraid of you, all court officials are like hemp rods to beat wolf bulls, and in the end it caused a strange phenomenon. The Qing Dynasty, which had more than 10 million square kilometers of land, had the final military force to rely on the Beiyang of the Han people to support the scene.

After Tongzhi, the Eight Banners had no strong army. One important factor is that all the Eight Banners nobles hoped to have a strong army from the bottom of their hearts, but they still didn't want others to have this strong army. They all hoped that they had this strong army themselves.

The more you think this way, the greater the suspicion among people, and the greater the suspicion, the more hindered it. The final result is that everyone thinks about it, but no one can get it.

It can be seen that the root cause of the late Qing Dynasty's demise had already sown the seeds as early as the early days of the founding of the country. The revival of the Eight Kings' idea of ​​controversial political discussions was an important factor in the Qing Empire's destiny.

Once you figure this out, you can also understand the failure of Beiyang in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895. Before the Sino-Japanese War, all applications for adding warships, fast artillery, and ammunition were rejected. Even the Beiyang navy burned the most trashed coal, while the Japanese Navy burned all high-heat energy white coal and anthracite.

This phenomenon is definitely not explained by the inability of the corruption of the Qing government. The fundamental reason is the result of this constraint balance within the court.

You, Li Hongzhang, have spent tens of millions of taels of silver, are you still not satisfied? You still have to add ships and cannons? Do you want to rebel? Buy less warships for you, and other departments of the court can pay millions of taels of silver.

The late Qing Dynasty was such a tangled society. On the one hand, they urgently hoped to have a strong navy, because they were afraid of being beaten by foreigners and had to have some self-protection power.

On the other hand, they naturally did not believe in these governors and generals holding heavy troops. Not to mention you, Han people, even the Manchus themselves became this general, and the court was very afraid of it.

In fact, according to the Qing Dynasty's national strength in the early years of Guangxu, the Qing Dynasty had to let go of internal grudges and work together! It would be like playing to build a pure Western-style strong army of about 100,000 people.

How much can a 100,000 pure Western-style strong army cost? For the Qing Empire, which had more than 10 million square kilometers, this amount of money was simply drizzling, and there was no need for food and money from Jiangnan. It was enough to raise some money and grain from the three provinces of Shanxi, Shandong and Zhili.

Look at the warlords fighting in the early years of the Republic of China, a province could bring out hundreds of thousands of Western-style troops. The famous Shanxi King Yan Xishan started his business with Shanxi Province. At the peak, he was 400,000 soldiers, and at the lowest point, there were 100,000 troops in his hands.

Even Yan Xishan could bring out such a strong army with his back to a province, let alone the Qing Dynasty, which is home to the whole country. This is enough to prove that the Qing Dynasty did not have the strength to reform, but they did not want to change at all.
Chapter completed!