178 Jiawu: Perhaps Lost Before the First Shot
In this episode, we drag Sha Qingqing back to the home turf of "Leftover Talk" to discuss his new book, "Jiawu: A War in the Balance." When it comes to the Jiawu War, many people's first reaction is the Battle of the Yalu River, the Beiyang Fleet, Deng Shichang, Ding Ruchang, or that final, hard-to-swallow Treaty of Shimonoseki. In his new book, Sha Qingqing focuses more on deeper issues: What were the decision-making circles of the Qing court and Japan actually thinking? How did they misjudge each other? And how did the crisis on the Korean Peninsula transform into a chain reaction that altered the national fortunes of Northeast Asia? From the Donghak Peasant Revolution to Japan's security imagination of "sovereignty lines" and "lines of interest," from Li Hongzhang's diplomatic calculations to the Qing court's virtually non-existent intelligence system regarding Japan, from Japanese intelligence networks like those of Arao Sei, to the Itō Hirobumi cabinet turning the Korean crisis into a political lifeline, and finally to the negotiations at Shimonoseki and the Triple Intervention to return Liaodong, this episode attempts to answer a somewhat cruel question: How exactly was the Jiawu War lost, step by step?
Original Chinese title & description
178 甲午：或输在开炮之前
本期节目，我们把沙青青老师拖回《边角聊》的自留地，聊他的新书《甲午：摇摆的战争》。 说到甲午，很多人的第一反应是黄海海战、北洋水师、邓世昌、丁汝昌，或者最后那纸让人难以下咽的《马关条约》。在新书中，沙老师则更聚焦在更深层次的问题：清廷与日本的决策层到底在想什么？他们怎样误判彼此？战争又是如何从朝鲜半岛上的危机，变成一场改变东北亚国运的连锁反应？ 从东学党起义到日本“主权线/利益线”的安全想象，从李鸿章的外交算盘到清廷几乎不存在的对日情报系统，从荒尾精一类日本情报网络，到伊藤博文内阁把朝鲜危机变成政治救命稻草，再到马关谈判与三国干涉还辽，本期试着回答一个有点残酷的问题：甲午到底是怎么一步步输掉的？
Participation credit “本期参与者”：沙青青（微信公众号：13号埋立地、小红书：Sha-13号埋立地）。
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