First of all, let's know the true side of Li Hongzhang in history. After Li Hongzhang made his fortune, his six brothers bought land on a large scale in his hometown of Anhui, and built a manor-style mansion with "hundreds of acres big and hundreds of acres small". These mansions are surrounded by ditches, with high walls inside, gardens around, vegetable gardens, and internal ditches. Some of them also have bunkers, fortresses, internal and external gardens, libraries and secret corridors, just like independent small kingdoms. Regarding the land owned by the Li family, according to Tang, who once worked in the Li family, the Li family owned 2.57 million mu of land in its heyday. Li Fu entrusted the land to relatives and friends for direct management by means of "building a warehouse of 10,000 mu". It is known that there are dozens of granaries in Hefei, Wuhu, Feixi, Wuwei, Lu 'an, Huoshan, Lujiang and Shucheng. The land under Li Hongzhang's name can collect 50 thousand stones a year. According to the statistics of tenants in Dongxiang, Hefei, Li occupies two-thirds of the local land, about 500 thousand mu, and his son is a bigger real estate tycoon. Such an extremely corrupt feudal bureaucrat was greatly beautified by CCTV. /kloc-In the 1970s of 0/9, the Qing government had a dispute over coastal defense, and Li Hongzhang advocated giving up Xinjiang. He said: Xinjiang "cannot be kept for a long time", and Xinjiang is not important. It is better to transfer the funds used in Xinjiang to coastal defense. Zuo insisted on recovering Xinjiang and personally led the troops to recover. 1879, Chonghou signed the Ili Concession Treaty with Russia without authorization. Domestic public opinion was furious and demanded to change the contract, while Li Hongzhang said that it was "my fault" to change the contract, and the consequences would be even worse if it was not signed. Zuo et al. requested to change the contract. After that, Ceng Jize was ordered to go to Russia to negotiate and amend the contract and recover part of his rights and interests. 1878 China and Japan hold talks on Ryukyu issue. Li Hongzhang believes that it is not cost-effective for China that Ryukyu Kingdom gives less tribute to China and China gives more. Ryukyu is far from China and close to Japan, which is "dispensable" for China, so there is no need to compete with Japan. After Japan annexed Ryukyu, it will demarcate with China, claiming that Miyako and Yaeyama Mountain in the south of Ryukyu near Taiwan Province Province will be ceded to China as national borders. Li Hongzhang said that these two islands are a burden and don't want it. During the Sino-French War, Li Hongzhang did not agree to resist the French aggression, but threatened the Qing government that France had always been "angry and sent troops" and was not easy to provoke. Zhang Zhidong presided over the war and used veteran Feng Zicai and Li Hongzhang to oppose it. Later, Feng Zicai changed the game. But when the China army chased them and the French army suffered a crushing defeat, the Qing court ordered a truce. Zhang Zhidong and others all knew that this was mainly Li Hongzhang's idea and criticized him. Some people called him "Prime Minister Herong" like Qin Gui, and Feng Zicai sent a telegram to Zhang Zhidong at the front, asking him to play the role of the man who proposed peace. Li Hongzhang advocated "winning by winning", and as a result, he signed a "unbeaten and defeated" treaty with France. In the TV series, it seems that all the responsibility for committing treason has nothing to do with Li Hongzhang. It was Empress Dowager Cixi who built the Summer Palace, which deprived the navy of funds. It was Weng Tonghe who fought for revenge, which deprived the warships of shells. It was Emperor Guangxu who rushed rashly and defeated the army. Li Hongzhang is more unjust than Dou E, which is not the case in history. Li Hongzhang has an unshirkable responsibility for the fiasco of the Sino-Japanese War. Empress Dowager Cixi embezzled naval funds to repair the Summer Palace, and Weng Tonghe secretly destroyed it, but Li Hongzhang was not small in responsibility. If nothing else, it will be a big problem to say that the generals he reused. If we look at the specific process of the Sino-Japanese War, we will find that in almost every battle, except the naval battle, front-line commanders fled at the cold feet, and most of these commanders were cronies of Li Hongzhang's Huai clan. Battle of Lushun, General Manager of Beiyang Camp, Commander-in-Chief Gong Wei. But before the Japanese army arrived, he disguised himself and fled to Tianjin by boat. When he arrived in Tianjin, he met Li Hongzhang. Li Hongzhang just scolded him and ordered him to return to Lushun to direct operations. Isn't it a big mistake for Li Hongzhang to treat such a general in this way? After Gong returned to Lushun, he did not repent and was still ready to escape. In the defending battle of Weihai, Liu Chaopei, commander of Nanbangbao, fled without fighting, which led to the fall of Nanbangbao. Dai Zongqian, commander of Beibangbao, was regarded by Li Hongzhang as an excellent general who was "resolute and loyal to Jiao Ran", but even he always deducted his salary and mistreated soldiers. Before the war, he hurriedly shipped more than 8,000 taels of silver to his hometown in Anhui. After the battle began, his soldiers dispersed automatically, and the battery was completely defended by the sailors who came to reinforce, and finally fell down. On the battlefield of Liaohe River, in addition to Huai Army, there are Xiang Army and Chu Army, the main commanders of Huai Army, and Song Qing, a veteran who is nearly eighty years old, who can still fight, but he has not fought any decent battles. Nie Shicheng, the company commander of Taiyuan Town, and Iktangga, the general of Heilongjiang Province, also have certain fighting capacity. However, the rest of the troops did not dare to compliment, and they have been defeated repeatedly, and they have been retreating from the Yalu River to Shenyang. On this battlefield, the Qing army has hundreds of thousands of troops, and the Japanese army has only 30 thousand at most, but the Qing army has never won a decent victory. In addition to employing people, Li Hongzhang also made great mistakes in command. His basic guiding ideology of commanding operations was inherited from his teacher Zeng Guofan, and he paid attention to "static braking" and "waiting to defeat the enemy first". He has always been cautious in using his troops, and he does not attack easily. He emphasizes first gaining a foothold and posing as a "tiger in the mountain". When the enemy shows flaws, he will launch at one stroke when he has the opportunity. His style of play was summed up when dealing with Taiping Army and Nian Army who used broadsword and spear. It was effective then, but now it is useless to face the modern Japanese army. In the war, the performance of the Qing army was passive beatings everywhere. Although it has an overall advantage in quantity, it is always at a disadvantage in part. Looking at the history of the Sino-Japanese War, we can understand that in the early stage, the Qing army never took the initiative to attack. Later, it was changed to the command of Hunan generals and some counterattacks were made. Of course, they did not succeed. This shows that Li Hongzhang is very mentally retarded militarily.