The Summer Palace on the outskirts of Beijing allows people to appreciate the unique scenery in the south of the Yangtze River.
Before the Qing Emperor Qianlong succeeded to the throne, there were four large royal gardens in the western suburbs of Beijing. In the fifteenth year of Qianlong, Emperor Qianlong spent 4.48 million taels of silver to honor his mother and filial piety to his queen, and converted it into Qingyi Garden, forming a royal garden area 20 kilometers long from Tsinghua campus to Xiangshan. It is a large-scale landscape garden based on Kunming Lake and Wanshou Mountain, with Hangzhou West Lake as the blueprint and drawing lessons from Jiangnan garden design techniques. In the tenth year of Xianfeng, Qingyi Garden was burned by British and French allied forces. Guangxu fourteen years reconstruction, renamed the Summer Palace, as a summer resort.
At that time, besides staying in the dreary Forbidden City, the Qing emperor liked not to go far to enjoy the beautiful scenery of the south, so he built such a classical garden. Anyone who knows a little about history knows that the reconstruction of the Summer Palace was related to the modern navy after Qingyi Garden was burned down by the British and French allied forces. Even when we visited the Summer Palace, we could hear such an explanation: "1885, Empress Dowager Cixi rebuilt this garden with naval military expenses and renamed it the Summer Palace, which means' supporting troops and seeking peace'."
So, is this really the case?
After the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, the Beiyang Navy was completely annihilated, and everyone was discussing the reasons for the failure of the war. It is mentioned that the naval weapons and equipment are backward. Why does the equipment of the army fall behind? Everyone thought of Empress Dowager Cixi misappropriating naval military funds to build the Summer Palace. How did Empress Dowager Cixi embezzle naval expenses? What is the amount of misappropriation? We need to consult the archives of the Qing dynasty carefully to find out the result. Surprisingly, when we looked up all the files, we found that, in fact, the statement that "Empress Dowager Cixi misappropriated naval military expenses" turned out to be a rumor.
Naval military expenditure is a sum of money given by the Qing dynasty, which is used exclusively for the daily expenses of the navy. Since the establishment of Beiyang Navy, * * * has set an annual military expenditure of two million taels of silver, and their sources are mainly customs duties and taxes from coastal provinces. At the beginning, all the military expenses obtained by Beiyang Navy were sent to Beiyang Minister by various departments, but the expenses given by various departments were not needed. As a result, the navy only received 802 thousand silver every year, and Minister Beiyang inevitably complained to the court about this matter.
To this end, Qing * * * specially set up a yamen to manage naval funds, which was responsible for receiving funds from various units and then uniformly sending them to Beiyang Navy. However, the shortage of funds has not improved. Various departments have found various reasons to drastically reduce the funds allocated to the navy, so that the actual available funds for the navy are only about 120. Beiyang Navy spends one million taels of silver a year, which can only pay the salaries of some naval personnel and the maintenance of departmental ships, and sometimes it can buy some small-caliber guns.
However, if you want to buy some large ships, it is impossible to rely on this military expenditure. Beiyang navy wants to buy a big ship, but it has to apply separately, even the wages of the personnel on the capital ship have to apply additionally. Before the outbreak of the war, the military expenditure of Beiyang Navy had been in a state of "living beyond its means", barely maintaining its daily activities and having no surplus at all. In fact, the naval funds used to build the Summer Palace have nothing to do with Beiyang Navy. This fund is in the charge of the yamen, which manages the navy's military expenditure.
This office is a specialized westernization organization at the central level. It is a subordinate institution of the Prime Minister's Office, responsible for the management of naval construction, mining, railways and other businesses. After Emperor Guangxu ascended the throne, Empress Dowager Cixi began to retire, but she still lived in the palace. At that time, Yi Xuan, the father of Emperor Guangxu, was responsible for the construction of the Summer Palace. If the Summer Palace can be completed as soon as possible, Empress Dowager Cixi can leave the palace and Emperor Guangxu can be truly independent.
Therefore, Prince Chun has the motivation to take care of this matter. Anyway, he is going to help his prince. The affairs yamen is in charge of a lot of money, and it is a simple matter for the person in charge, Prince Chun, to allocate a sum of money to build the Summer Palace. After Prince Chun took over the construction project of the Summer Palace, he gradually allocated money to the project from the funds of the government in charge of affairs to ensure the progress of the project. It is worth noting that this amount has nothing to do with naval military spending, and naval military spending has not been affected during the same period.
In addition to misappropriating government funds, Prince Chun also misappropriated two funds with the color of "navy":
The first is "coastal defense donation", that is, using the name of coastal defense to raise money from the society, and those who come to participate in the donation can get a virtual job. Most of the proceeds from the donation will be used for the construction of the Summer Palace, and some will be used for railway construction.
This money never belongs to Beiyang Navy, so there is no misappropriation.
Another sum of money has a professional name in the archives of the Qing Dynasty, that is, "the huge sum of naval money". 1888, Prince Alcohol asked Li Hongzhang to inform the governors of coastal provinces and ask them to raise money for the Summer Palace project. This kind of fund-raising can't be put on the table, so it needs to be covered up a little; Therefore, Prince Chun came up with the idea of using the name of "navy" and secretly explained to these officials: "These funds will be used for the construction of the Summer Palace, which was also requested by Empress Dowager Cixi." With these hints, these officials naturally raised funds enthusiastically, and finally, they raised 2.602 million silver.
At that time, Li Hongzhang informed the governors of Liangjiang, Guangdong, Huguang, Sichuan, Jiangsu and other provinces, and they all got answers: "Governor Ceng Guoquan and Governor Song Jun are willing to raise 702,000 yuan; Governor Zhang Zhidong is willing to raise 1.2 million; Governor Yulu and Governor Kui Bin are willing to raise 402,000 yuan; Governor Liu is willing to raise two hundred and two thousand RMB; Governor Dexin raised $102,000 for a reason. Together with Li Hongzhang's own claim of 202,000, it is enough for 2.62 million. "
The "huge sum of naval money" does not belong to the funds of the government, and naturally it does not belong to the military expenditure of Beiyang Navy. This money, like the "coastal defense donation", is an additional donation and cannot be regarded as misappropriation of naval military expenses. The use of "navy money" is also unusual. The money is not directly used for the Summer Palace project, but directly deposited in a foreign bank in Tianjin, and the interest on the deposit is used to subsidize the daily expenses of the Summer Palace. There is also the principal of the bank, whose declared role has always been naval construction.
In addition, after the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, Empress Dowager Cixi asked for funds to buy arms. However, at that time, I was not satisfied with the expiration, so I could only propose1582,000. Details are as follows:
"Navy Huge Money" adopts the method of "sharing interest equally", and deposits 2.602 million silver principal into three banks respectively, of which HSBC deposits/kloc-0.072 million 920, Dehua Bank 442,000 and Jardine Matheson Bank 559,620. When Empress Dowager Cixi asked for withdrawal, she offered all the principal deposited by HSBC. Dehua Bank and Jardine Matheson Bank could only withdraw112,520 and 202,000 respectively due to the expiration of the deposit period.
The Summer Palace project only collects money in the name of the navy, rather than directly misappropriating naval funds. However, Beiyang Navy was also influenced by the Summer Palace project. In the process of establishing the project, the Ministry asked the emperor to stop the navy from purchasing arms and ships, and the emperor approved it!
This is the fundamental reason for the limited development of the navy.