The Sino-Japanese War took place in 1894 and was a war of aggression launched by Japanese imperialism to invade China and Korea. The reasons for China's defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War have been analyzed in many ways. The author believes that among the many reasons for the great defeat of the Qing army and navy today, the failure to fortify on the hidden front, the long-term Japanese spy and the "mainland ronin" who drove straight into the country, and the repeated leakage of military and political intelligence were one of the most important reasons for the defeat.
During the First Sino-Japanese War, the highest authorities in China and Japan had different understandings of the importance of the covert front, and their security measures were very different. Cixi and the princes and ministers in power in the Qing Dynasty only knew that the Japanese army was strong, and the Japanese spies and "mainland ronin" who did not know the secrets could also cause great harm. In their minds, spies and "mainland ronin" are all "roosters and dog thieves" and disdain. Therefore, ** and local ** have always had no reconnaissance and anti-espionage organs, and the whole of China is in a state of undefended concealment on the front.
Japan is different. Meiji** attaches great importance to internal investigation and external intelligence investigation activities. Regardless of internal reconnaissance, the Meiji Restoration soon began as far as its external intelligence investigation activities were concerned. The Army General Staff was the presiding officer. In order to strengthen the Army's General Staff Headquarters established in 1878 and the Navy Command Department established in 1893, special agencies were set up to supervise their affairs. Diplomats are also explicitly tasked with intelligence investigations. At the same time, with the support and instigation of the Japanese and bourgeois political parties, in the early 80s of the 19th century, a number of organized right-wing groups with programs appeared, such as the famous "Genyosha". These right-wing groups advocated the "absolutist emperor system" internally and supported the aggressive and expansionist policies of the Meiji ** externally. He instigated tens of thousands of "mainland ronin" to come to China to smuggle and sell narcotics, deceive officials and harass the people, and secretly and vigorously assisted Japanese spies and diplomats in carrying out intelligence investigation activities.
As early as a few years before the war, the intelligence command organs and diplomats of the Japanese army and navy began to secretly spy on China. According to my personal research, there are the following five important activities:
1. The Army General Staff Headquarters sent an intelligence officer, Lieutenant Seiki Arao, to China in the spring of 1886 to enlist the support of Kishida Ginka, a Japanese businessman living in Shanghai, to establish a secret intelligence base in Hankow, the "Leshantang" drugstore. Under the cover of doing business, more than 20 Japanese spies and "mainland ronin" were gathered to conduct extensive intelligence investigation activities against China.
2. The Army General Staff Headquarters supported Arao Seiki to obtain 40,000 yen from the "Cabinet Secret Fee" and set up the "Nissin ** Research Institute" in Shanghai from 1890 to 1893 with the goal of training intelligence personnel. The funds were insufficient, and the deputy chief of staff, Major General Kawakami Korokuro, made up for it with a mortgage on a private residence.
Arao Seiki was the first person in Japan to systematically investigate Chinese intelligence, and retired early due to illness. He was replaced by artillery captain Tsuichi Nene. The staff and graduates of the "Leshantang" in Hankou and the "Nissin ** Research Institute" in Shanghai were colleagues and students of Arao and Nezu, who formed the backbone of Japanese spy agents during the First Sino-Japanese War.
3. The Army General Staff Headquarters has taken advantage of diplomatic opportunities to conduct intelligence activities such as openly inspecting the gazetteers of China's military points. In 1883 and 1886, Lieutenant Yasumasa Fukushima, an intelligence officer, was sent to China to investigate the geographical records of the troops from Beijing and Tianjin to the north to Shenyang, the necessity of building cavalry in the war against China, and the coastal defense intelligence of the Liaodong Peninsula. A year before the start of the war, in the spring of 1893, Major General Kawakami personally led a large number of staff officers to China for field investigations. They traveled north through the Korean Peninsula, crossed the Yalu River to Liaoning, and then entered Shanhaiguan through western Liaoning to Beijing and Tianjin, and then returned to Japan from Shanghai. This field trip was very important, and it was during this field visit that Japan's war plan against China was quietly formulated.
Fourth, the intelligence command organs of the army and navy respectively dispatched intelligence officers, Army Senior Lieutenant Serada and Navy Major Toshio Inoue, in the name of military attachés stationed in Beijing and with the assistance of a group of "mainland ronin," to investigate in detail the geographical records of the Bohai Bay and the Yellow Sea coast and the intelligence of the Beiyang Fleet.
5. The army and navy intelligence command organs relied on Japanese businessman Jotaro Yamamoto (head of the Shanghai branch of Mitsui & Co., Ltd.) to establish an intelligence base in Yingkou, Liaoning Province in 1887. At that time, Yamamoto was engaged in the soybean business in Yingkou, Shanghai, and under the cover of Pan Yutian, a businessman in the Yingkou oil house, and his son, he lurked in Yingkou during the war to assist the spies of the Japanese army and navy to conduct intelligence.
Because the Japanese side had already conducted an intelligence investigation, before the start of the war, Japan was already well aware of the political and military situation of China's Qing Dynasty.
During the war, the command base for Japan's intelligence advance was located in Shanghai. At that time, Shanghai had developed into a port city with a population of more than 200,000, with a mixture of Chinese and foreign countries, leased lands from various countries enjoying extraterritoriality, and the Qing Dynasty was relatively weak. The transportation is convenient, there are ships from various countries regularly travel between Shanghai and Japan, and the telecommunication service is also quite convenient, not only connecting China's east, west, north and south, but also connecting Japan and other major cities abroad. Before the war, Japanese spies were active in Shanghai for many years and had laid a considerable foundation. On the eve of the war, in mid-July 1894, the Japanese army headquarters decided that the chief of staff and army general, Prince Arisugawa Miyashihito, would summon Nezuichi and order Nezu to infiltrate Shanghai to arrange spy activities for the war. Nezu infiltrated Shanghai and ordered a large number of spies on standby in Shanghai to go north and infiltrate Shandong, Hebei, Liaoning, North Korea and other areas where the Japanese army was about to attack, directly collect battlefield intelligence, and meet the attacking Japanese army. Nezu was active in Shanghai for more than two months, took a French steamer, and under the protection of the French captain, resisted the inspection of the Chinese official constitution and returned to Japan safely.
On July 25, 1894, Japan sent its army to attack the Qing army in Korea without declaring war. The Qing army was defeated and retreated, and the Japanese army pursued the Yalu River. On September 17, the navies of the two sides went to war in the Yellow Sea. At this time, Japanese spy agents and "mainland ronin" went all out to collect military and political intelligence of the Qing Dynasty, and obtained a lot of information. There are three pieces of valuable information:
1. Discover the core military and political confidential information of the Qing Dynasty. The military attache stationed in China, Mitsutomi Kamio, was a major in the army and bought a member of the Qing **Military Aircraft Department in Tianjin. This person constantly provided him with confidential information on the core military and political affairs, such as the consideration of peace and war issues. Takaro Tsunoda, a Japanese spy agent lurking in Shanghai under the cover of a tea merchant, reported to the Army General Staff Headquarters, enabling Japan to take the initiative strategically. Later, Tsunoda was exposed for his frequent activities and was arrested by the Shanghai Daotai Yamen. Japan** entrusted the U.S. consul in Shanghai to release him on bail and return to Japan safely.
2. Discover the information on the sailing date of the troop carrier Gaosheng. Japanese spy agent Ishikawa Takeichi (a former Hankou staff member of the "Leshantang") was led by Toshio Inoue of the Navy and specialized in collecting intelligence on the Chinese Navy in Tianjin and Shandong. At that time, there were no military-specific telecommunications lines in China, so military communications were also sent by ordinary telegraph offices. At the beginning of July 1894, Ishikawa bribed a staff member of the Tianjin Telegraph Office and learned that the Beiyang Fleet would send three ** escorts to charter the British ship Gaosheng to transport 950 troops to Incheon, Korea, and learned the date of sailing and reported back to Japan. On July 25, the Japanese Navy ambushed Toshima outside the port of Incheon and launched a sneak attack on the Chinese escort **, sinking the Gosheng and sacrificing all the carrying land. This is the real reason why the famous Gosheng was sunk.
3. Discover the information on the departure date of the Beiyang Fleet. Kotaro Munakata (former staff member of "Leshantang" in Hankou, head of the Beijing branch of "Leshantang", and student supervisor of "Nissin ** Research Institute") was responsible for investigating intelligence in Hebei, Shandong, Shanxi, and Liaoning provinces. In July 1894, Munegata received an order from the Japanese army headquarters in Shanghai to investigate the movements of the Beiyang Fleet. He immediately disguised himself as a Chinese merchant and infiltrated the Weihai Weijun port area several times, and finally discovered the date of the 14th departure of the Beiyang Fleet. Zongfang's activities were discovered by the Chinese official constitution, and he fled Weihaiwei in a hurry, and met an acquaintance Cai Tingbiao (the general manager of the Yangtze River Water Division) on the way back to Shanghai.
Cai knew that Zong Fang was a spy and did not expose it. On August 19, Munakata sent this information to the Japanese base camp via Shanghai. Based on this, the Japanese Navy formulated a plan for a sneak attack on the Beiyang Fleet. On September 17, the Battle of the Yellow Sea was held, and the two sides basically ended in a draw, but Li Hongzhang, in order to preserve his strength, deliberately exaggerated the defeat and ordered the Beiyang Fleet to hide in the port of Weihaiwei, resulting in a situation of being trapped and waiting to be killed. At the beginning of February 1895, according to the information obtained by the spy agents for many years of investigation, the Japanese army landed in Rongcheng on the Shandong Peninsula, went around to the back of Weihaiwei Port, and attacked the Beiyang Fleet from the shore and the sea, putting the Beiyang Fleet in a desperate situation.
Japanese spies and the "mainland ronin" who assisted them were also very active in the Liaodong and Korean battlefields, some of them sneaked from Shanghai, some landed north of Dalian with the Japanese army, and some even welcomed the Japanese army to Seoul, Korea. Japanese spy Lambzaburo Yamazaki was a member of the "Genyosha" who had been active in the "Leshantang" in Hankou for several years and worked as a general clerk in the "Nissin ** Research Institute" in Shanghai. In June 1894, he secretly boarded a Chinese troop transport ship through Shandong to go to Seoul, North Korea, pretending to be an overseas Chinese medicinal herb merchant in Kobe, and infiltrated the Asan position of the Qing ** army to reconnoitre, and the arrogance of his activities can be seen.
They may be mixed with the migrant workers to build fortifications for the Qing army, and take the opportunity to steal the map of the fortress fortifications; or investigate the number of Qing troops and equipment; Or serve as a guide for the Japanese army, and provide battlefield intelligence for the Japanese army anytime and anywhere. The Japanese First Army's capture of Asan, Sunghuan, and the battles of Pyongyang in Korea were quickly won by temporarily changing the battle plan based on Kawasaki Lambzaburo's reconnaissance information. The 1st Division of the 2nd Army captured the strategically important city of Jinju on the Liaodong Peninsula, and also drew up an operational plan based on the reconnaissance intelligence of spy agent Kenichi Mukai (a graduate of the "Nissin ** Research Institute") and quickly won the victory. After the Japanese army captured Jinzhou, the main force moved south and soon captured Dalian Lushun, and slaughtered the city in Lushun in a very savage and cruel manner, killing more than 10,000 residents of Lushunkou in addition to leaving 36 people to carry and bury the corpses. It can be seen how important the spy activities are to the Japanese army.
During the First Sino-Japanese War, the backbone of Japanese spies were all Japanese. Almost all of them have been active or "studied" in the "Leshantang" in Hankou and the "Nissin ** Research Institute" in Shanghai. According to incomplete statistics, there are 19 staff members of the upper two units, and 72 of the graduates have joined the Japanese army, either as translators, or as intelligence workers, or as guides. Among them, there are 19 backbone spy agents who specialize in intelligence, and although the number is small, the harm is very great.
Japan attaches great importance to the work of espionage agents. After the start of the war, Meiji Emperor Muhito summoned Japanese spy agents with a low position three times as the "supreme commander". September 17, 1894. When Army Intelligence Officer Nezu returned to Japan from Shanghai, he was immediately summoned by Muhito and ordered Nezu to make an exception to attend the Imperial Council for two hours, and after the meeting, he talked alone for an hour and a half, which lasted for three and a half hours. On October 4, Kotaro Munakata, the humble "Ronin of the Mainland", had just returned to Japan, and was summoned to the base camp, where he wore a Chinese costume and dragged his pigtails behind his head. On November 4, Saburo Nagasaki, a general spy agent of the Navy, returned to Japan after reconnoitring the defense of the Shanhaiguan area, and was summoned by Emperor Meiji in Chinese clothing. These things seem to be ordinary, but they greatly encourage the Japanese spies and "mainland ronin", and they are even more willing to serve their lives.
The lack of defense on the hidden front has two effects:
On the one hand, Japanese spy spies and "mainland ronin" have a very high security factor in the investigation activities of the Chinese newspaper. They pretended to be Chinese and traveled thousands of miles, as if they were in a no-man's land. Due to the fact that the Qing ** was not defended on the hidden front, there were few arrests by the official constitution and yamen, and many were arrested by the people and Qing soldiers. Japanese spy Takehiko Fujishima was discovered by a Chinese monk. From July to September 1894, Fujishima Takehiko was ordered by Nezuichi to go to Korea in Shanghai to meet the Japanese First Army through North China and Northeast China, and then served as a guide for the First Army. He disguised himself as a Chinese monk and prepared to go to the Fayu Temple in Putuo Mountain, Zhejiang Province to be ordained in order to cover well.
At that time, there was already a Japanese spy named Takeo Takami, pretending to be a monk, and infiltrated the Hoyu Temple to be ordained. Takami was sent directly from Japan to Hoyuji Temple in November 1893 by Tsuichi Ne. Takami holds a letter of recommendation from the monk of the sea banquet of the Kosei Temple in Okayama, Japan, so the presiding officer of the Fayu Temple is convinced, and the quasi-Takami sits in meditation at the Fayu Temple. Nezuichi planned to send Fujishima to Hoyu Temple to learn some Buddhist etiquette, and then go north with Takami. However, Fujishima was accustomed to being arrogant in China and completely ignorant of the rules of Buddhism, so he was arrested by a Chinese monk on the same ship shortly after boarding the ship in Ningbo, and escorted to the governor of Zhejiang, Yamen, to be beheaded. Because Fujishima confessed that he was going to Fayu Temple to find Takami Takeo, Takami was also beheaded. However, the Qing soldiers and the masses often did not guard the arrested spies strictly, so there were many opportunities to escape, but there were very few, so the backbone spies and spies were preserved at the end of the war;
On the other hand, there are a few people in China who have committed treason and defected to the enemy and acted as spies for Japan, but they will not be discovered. Liu Lei, a native of Pulandian in Liaoning Province, provided a large amount of intelligence to Japan, was very trusted by the Japanese army, and became an important traitor spy. This person later changed his name to Kameyama Yutian, married a Japanese wife, and was a traitor for life, full of crimes, until 1945, after Japan surrendered, he was brought to justice by the people. The dangers of a concealed front being undefended are clear.
Some Japanese spies and "mainland ronin" who participated in the First Sino-Japanese War became famous in World War I and made their fortunes. The highest climbers are: Lieutenant Yasumasa Fukushima, who soared after the war, and soon rose to the rank of army general, and the official to the "Kanto Governor". Jotaro Yamamoto, after the war, served as the executive director of Mitsui & Co., Ltd., the president of the "Mantetsu", a member of the House of Representatives, and a member of the House of Nobles. Lieutenant Genzu, who became a celebrity after the war, founded the "Tongwen Academy" in Shanghai in 1901, and served as the first president, Liu Kun, the governor of Liangjiang.
1. Zhang Zhidong and other feudal officials made friends. Kotaro Munakata, known as "the most important person in the study of the Chinese question" after the war, began to run the "Cheng Pao" in Wuhan in 1896, propagating Japan's "justification for aggression" for more than ten years, and became the first overseas Japanese to run a newspaper in China. "Mainland ronin" Kawashima Naniwa, at that time impoverished, unknown, because of the second division of the Japanese army as a translator, by the appreciation of General Nogi Noshinori, gradually emerged, after the war in the invasion of China activities, even with the Qing court noble Prince Su Aixin Jue Luo Shanqi as an alliance brother, rewarded the second grade, was appointed by the Qing court to supervise the Jingshi Police University Hall, and so on. After these people became the Japanese military and political **, celebrities and dignitaries, they have always played an important role in the invasion of China.
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The above situation clearly shows that the lack of defense on the intelligence front was one of the important reasons for the great defeat of the army and navy of the Qing Dynasty in the First Sino-Japanese War.
The consequences of the defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War were severe. The Qing Dynasty was forced to sign the Treaty of Shimonoseki, ceding Taiwan and Penghu to Japan, plus a large amount of reparations and other harsh terms. As far as the impact reached, the Western powers followed suit, and the wolves devoured them, and they forcibly demanded land leases and forcibly demarcated spheres of influence, and the Chinese nation suffered even more disasters and fell to the dangerous edge of being carved up. When commemorating the 100th anniversary of the First Sino-Japanese War, studying the tragic lesson of the Qing Dynasty not defending on the hidden front makes people hate Cixi and be stunned! Taking history as a mirror, today our country should heighten its vigilance and set up a strict fence on the covert front to prevent sabotage by foreign spies!