WI/AHC: China wins the Battle of the Yalu River

I'll admit I'm venturing in an area bit outside my field, but I'm diving in anyway.

So, the First Sino-Japanese War, the conflict showed the world that the big dog of the east was no longer China, but Japan. One of the impressive Japanese victories was the naval one at the Yalu River (or Yellow Sea), where the IJN defeated the, or so it seemed to, superior Beiyang Fleet (at the time the largest in Asia).

So the challenge/what if is the Qing to defeat the Japanese there, from what I read the main problems with the Chinese fleet was that despite the "technical" superiority their sailors had little to none shooting training, also the infamous corruption in the Chinese government meant their ammo... wasn't really good. So, if fortune smiles on the Qing and make the crew to a have some training as well having more, good, ammunition (just to make more plausible) at the start of the war would it improve the overall performance?

Assuming their score a big victory (as well keeping the loses equal or smaller than OTL), what are the consequences to the rest of the conflict? Can the Qing win or there is need more effort? What would be consequences to the Self-Strengthening Movement to reform the Empire as the western-based military proved to be as useful as you can get?
 
Basically, all you have to do is remove Cixi from power and install a reformist faction, maybe with a successful hundred days reformation, as IOTL Cixi decided to spend naval funds on the summer palace.
 
Ok... then I'll reformulate, it may butterfly the PoD, but let's think positively!

So, in 1881, instead of Empress Ci'an, Cixi is the one getting a sudden death. It's just at the start of the Guangxu Emperor's reign (which she indeed got ill), Prince Gong wasn't sacked yet and the Chinese pupils were still studying in America and Europe.
 
That (modernized Qing and dead Cixi that is) would be...beautiful. I don't know much about Ci'an though. Another POD could be Prince Gong seizing the throne when the Xianfeng Emperor dies, perhaps after a power struggle with Ci'an and Cixi.
 
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That (modernized Qing and dead Cixi that is) would be...beautiful. I don't know much about Ci'an though. Another POD could be Prince Gong seizing the throne when the Xianfeng Emperor dies, perhaps after a power struggle with Ci'an and Cixi.
Contemporaries speaks of Ci'an as some sort "proper lady" uninterested by politics as whole and more focused in being Regent on on the familiar matters inside the Forbidden City.

I must say from my limited knowledge that modernizing the Qing is going to be wildly hard, like really, but that's why those thread are for, aren't they? Later I'll create a new thread about the subject, since it was derived too far from the original PoD.
 
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