Was the Japanese treasury empty during the First Sino Japanese Naval War?

In a sense, you can say that, but not exactly.

Japan's main purpose in going to war is several things: to expand its own territory (most importantly) to quell the domestic reactionary popular anger (there is some basis, but not entirely) to force China to give money to Japan (in some books) In fact, due to the shortage of domestic industrial raw materials, if Japan wants to keep up with the footsteps of the capitalist countries, it must expand to the mainland and other islands, from the rich natural gas and oil resources in the islands around Taiwan, to the rich timber resources and a large number of mineral deposits in the northeast area, Exactly what the Japanese need most. They need to force China to pay reparations to them through a quick war to solve Japan's immediate needs.

At the same time as the Japanese launched a naval war against China, they also launched an offensive on land, and probably along the Korean border, the Japanese army was invincible at first, but once it entered the heart of China, it became stranded. This frightened the Japanese, who believed that if they persisted in this way for a year and a half, the treasury would be completely overdrawn, and the Japanese even wanted to initiate an armistice first. But history is so interesting, China surrendered first.

So the Japanese got the first pot of gold.

The above is my evaluation based on my knowledge of history, because I am just an ordinary junior high school student, not a historian, so it is inevitable that there will be mistakes, I hope it can be helpful to you.

It's empty, it wags war to seize the wealth of other countries.

Japan embarked on the road of capitalism through the Meiji Restoration, and its national strength increased rapidly, and there was also an economic crisis that Japan could not solve at that time, so it embarked on the road of war to solve it! But since there is no raw material for industry, invade China!

Before the First Sino-Japanese War, Japan had transitioned from a semi-feudal and semi-colonial society to a capitalist society through a series of reforms, during which Japan had reached unprecedented strength both economically and militarily, but unfortunately Japan was a country with extremely scarce resources, in order to maintain its own industrial economy, Japan invaded Korea through the uprising of the Dongxue Party, and China sent troops to Korea....

After the Meiji Restoration, Japan's strength swelled dramatically, and then it set its sights on our originally emaciated camels, which were bigger than horses, and if Li Hongzhang fought to the death, Japan's navy would have finished its tragedy.