In December of that year, Tang Jingsong arrived in Guangzhou, but received instructions from the imperial court to suspend zhao'an, because Li Zhongtang's negotiations had come to fruition.
After two months of negotiations, Li Hongzhang and the French envoy to China reached an agreement in Tianjin, the main contents of which included: France respected the Status of the Qing Dynasty as the suzerainty in Vietnam; North Vietnam belonged to the Qing State's sphere of influence, and China-Vietnam and South Vietnam belonged to the French sphere of influence; and the Qing State gave French merchants the convenience of trade in North Vietnam.
Li Hongzhang thought that this agreement was very fair, so he asked Cixi, and Cixi also approved it after reading it.
Objectively speaking, this agreement is indeed fair, because it only reaffirms the status quo in Vietnam. The reason why France signed this agreement, in our idiom, is "a strategy to slow down the army", which paralyzed the Qing court.
Because at this time, Prime Minister Joffery had ordered Brigadier General Alexander Buat of the French Army to lead an expeditionary force of 4,000 men to Vietnam, and it would take a while for them to hurry.
Soon after, the French cabinet rejected Li Hongzhang's signature of the resolution.
On February 24, 1883, 500 reinforcements led by Lieutenant Colonel Carlo of the French army arrived in Hanoi, and Lee Willy was even more emboldened and ordered the French army to attack on all sides.
After receiving this news, Cixi ordered Tang Jingsong to contact Liu Yongfu immediately. On April 14, Tang Jingsong met with Liu Yongfu in Shanxi, Vietnam.
After Tang Jingsong saw Liu Yongfu, he did not directly tell him Cixi's original words. After all, the two sides had been fighting for a long time, and directly saying that the past was not blamed was a bit like a trap, so Tang Jingsong put himself in the position of Liu Yongfu and came up with three ideas.
Strategy: Occupy all of North Vietnam before the French, in order to claim vassalship to China and obtain the status of king of the vassal states;
Zhongzhi: Attack the French army with all its might and retake Hanoi, whether it is to continue to be a vietnamese courtier or return to China, the Qing court will give great support in terms of food and ammunition;
The next strategy: in laojie, a corner of Shanxi, sit and watch the fall of Vietnam, wait for the French army to call, and be forced to defect to the Qing court for help.
Liu Yongfu pondered for a long time, chose the middle strategy, and agreed to Zhao'an. After that, Tang Jingsongnai secretly accompanied Liu Yongfu back to China and met with Huang Guilan, the viceroy of Guangxi, at Zhennanguan to discuss the battle plan.
After receiving reinforcements from Carlo, the French army began to attack the cities of North Vietnam one by one, including Haiphong, Nanding, and Quy Nhon.
What is more funny is that in the March 27 French army to conquer Nanding, because the city was equipped with 5 30mm rifled guns donated by France in 1874 and the defenders did not run, the French army was once in trouble, many French soldiers were killed, and the commander Lieutenant Colonel Carlo was shot and killed.
This was the highest French general killed by the Vietnamese army during the French invasion of Vietnam, and he was actually killed by a shell sent by himself.
Of course, there are more hilarious ones. Due to the French attack, the Vietnamese horse Huang Jiyan believed that Hanoi was empty and the defense was weak, and led 6,000 Vietnamese troops in an attempt to retake Hanoi. At that time, there were about 100 French troops in Hanoi, and a Vietnamese force of about 500 people was trained.
As a result, Huang Jiyan's 6,000 troops were defeated, with casualties and more than 1,000 captured...
Seeing that North Vietnam was about to fall, Liu Yongfu resolutely decided to return to Vietnam. On May 10, Liu Yongfu secretly left The Town of Nanguan and posted a post along the way, which read as follows:
In order to declare the decisive battle, Liu, the great general of Xiongwei and the governor of the Three Xuans, was ordered to spy on thieves, the three armies were gathered, the guns were like a forest, and the sneaky people were straight to the ear, and the ugly categories were swept away. The great affairs of the first country could not bear to fight in Hanoi, lest it spread to the merchants, so they were first announced. The Erfa bandits, who are called skilled, lead the rabble-rousers, and the division of our Tiger Brigade in the wilderness of Huaide Province to fight the battlefield, the two armies opposite each other, in order to decide between male and female. If Er is afraid and does not come, it is advisable to hand it over from the head of the commandery such as Ber, return it to the cities and pools, and leave you with mosquitoes. If you hesitate, once the soldiers come to the city, there will be no grass left, the misfortune will be particularly close, death and life are imminent, and Er and so on will think about it. Chechets!
The main purpose of this essay is to "fight with the division of our Tiger Brigade in the wilderness of Wild province", and the main purpose is to provoke the generals. Because whether it is defending the city, besieging the city, or encountering the city, the Black Flag Army cannot defeat the French army, but it is preset in advance to fight an ambush on the battlefield, and the result is not necessarily the same.
Li Weili had built up super self-confidence in the process of fighting the Vietnamese army, and seeing Liu Yongfu's provocative peace and treaty battle, he naturally couldn't resist and decided to teach him a lesson.
Lee Willie
In the early morning of May 19, Lee Wai Lee led 550 people out of Hanoi and went to Huaide, which Liu Yongfu had agreed to be located in the western suburbs of Hanoi. Liu Yongfu sent troops to monitor Hanoi City day and night, so as soon as Li Weili left the city, someone told Liu Yongfu.
Prior to this, Liu Yongfu had already preset a large number of traps in Wilder, and a considerable number of heavy weapons were damaged during the French march, but Li Weili insisted on marching and reached Paper Bridge at 7:30 on the same day.
Liu Yongfu led 3,000 people to ambush here, from the rear of the French side, although the French army quickly stabilized the formation, but because the inherent pattern of Western combat is that the commander is located behind the army, so when the Black Flag Army rushed out, Li Weili and Captain Ville became the first line, and were killed by the Black Flag Army that rushed over.
The French suffered 87 casualties and the Black Flag army suffered 106 casualties.
This was the second and third French generals liu Yongfu had beheaded.
After the war, Emperor Si De made Liu Yongfu a baron of the first rank and a third-class viceroy.
Cixi was encouraged to learn that Liu Yongfu had killed Li Weili at paper bridge, and ordered Li Hongzhang to be the minister of Vietnam affairs, to unify and control all the troops in the three provinces of Guangdong, Guangdong, and Yunnan, and to prepare for the French army.
In order to save face and retain the position of Prime Minister, Joffrey ordered The Commander-in-Chief of the French Mediterranean Fleet, Vice Admiral Guba, to lead a Mediterranean Fleet with 5,000 troops to the Far East, which arrived in Saigon at the end of July 1883.
When Li Hongzhang heard that the French army was coming, he realized that this battle was more fierce and less auspicious, and his governor Vietnam would be unlucky. So he found his old superior, Prince Gong, to unblock relations, reported Cixi on the grounds that the French army had come and the security of the Beijing Division was the most important, resigned from his post in Chincha Vietnam, and still returned to the viceroy of Zhizhigan.
Cixi then ordered Zeng Guofan's brother Zeng Guoquan to be sent to Vietnam as a Chincha, but Zeng Guoquan did not do anything, and wrote to Cixi that he was old and weak, and he was afraid of misleading state affairs.
Cixi was furious, she should have known the reason for Li Hongzhang and Zeng Guoquan's resignation, so she ordered Li Hongzhang's concubine Zhang Shusheng, the former governor directly under the direct subordinate, to take over as the governor of Liangguang, meaning that it didn't matter if you didn't do it, let your concubine do it, and no one could run away if something happened.
It was this official power arrangement that ruined the entire Vietnamese battlefield.
Soon after, Cixi ordered Liu Ming, who was also from Li Hongzhang's faction and had a prominent performance in the suppression of the Taiping Rebellion, to be appointed minister of Taiwan affairs.
Since Li Hongzhang did not want to fight with the Qing Dynasty, but then the French army captured Hanoi, Cixi expressed doubts about Li Hongzhang's intelligence ability. In order to restore his position, this time Li Hongzhang tried his best to dispatch the French army to Cixi.
There are two advantages to this: First, the French army is in full swing, so the strength is very strong, so it is reasonable to lose the battle, so his two concubines Zhang Shusheng and Liu Mingchuan will not be too punished; the second is to render the enemy strong and make Cixi shake his heart of war and have the idea of peace talks, so that he himself has a place to play, and he can go to the country to sell his reputation.
However, it is ironic that at this time, the French army was extremely controversial, and a considerable part of the cabinet believed that if Liu Yongfu united with the Qing army, the five thousand French troops were not opponents.
However, a message at this time strengthened Ruferi's determination to send troops, and the Vietnamese Emperor De tak died.
On July 19, 1883, the Vietnamese Tsitsi Died of Illness. The edict ordered his nephew Nguyễn Phúc Đạng
On 23 July, the Vietnamese vassals and the adopted son of Emperor Thieu Dần staged a coup d'état and deposed Nguyễn Đạng Đạng Đồng Trịnh Trịn Trịnh Trịn Trầ
After learning of the chaos in Vietnam, on July 30, Gu Ba sent a telegram to Paris, requesting a direct attack on Hue, Vietnam, turning the whole of Vietnam into a French colony.
Rufri consulted Arthur Triku, the then minister to the Qing Dynasty, and Triku replied that judging from his exchanges with Li Hongzhang, the Qing court advocated peace and would not participate in the war.
On 11 August, the Joffiri cabinet approved the plan of action for lone pulls.
At this time, there was a great domestic chaos in Vietnam, and the Vietnamese army had nearly 200,000 people, but it had no combat effectiveness. The Black Flag Army, with about 5,000 men, is an absolute mainstay.
On August 16, 5,000 French troops attacked Hue, Vietnam. On the evening of the 18th, the coastal forts were leveled, and in the early morning of the 20th, the French army landed, and by the 22nd, the French army captured Hue and controlled the newly established Vietnamese royal family.
On August 25, the Vietnamese Nguyen Dynasty signed the Treaty of Hue with General Gu Ba.
The treaty is very long, a total of 27 articles, but in the final analysis: leave a place near Annam Hue, let you Vietnamese continue to maintain your country, except for this self-reserved land, all belong to French territory.
At the same time as the lone attack on Hue, Brigadier General Buat was sent to attack Wilder and Danfeng, where the French army was met with stubborn resistance from the Black Flag Army, with 140 French casualties and more than 1200 Black Flag casualties. Soon, Liu Yongfu led the Black Flag Army to raid Danfeng, which had just been occupied by the French army, and successfully expelled the French army.
It is worth mentioning that in the process of this French attack, it also passed by the territory of the yellow flag army mentioned earlier, and as soon as it saw the French army, the yellow flag army instantly forgot about the national righteousness, joined the french army, and became the earliest local accomplice of the French army, attacking the black flag army together.
Because of the defeat of the attack, Brigadier Buat will be dismissed. At this point, Liu Yongfu had killed three commanders of the French army and forced one commander to leave his post, and no one in modern Chinese history was outstanding.
In October 1883, Guba was officially appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Tokyo Expeditionary Force, and his naval fleet was called the Tokyo Fleet or the Indochina Fleet. This "Tokyo" here is not the Japanese one, because Westerners refer to North Vietnam as Tokyo, for the Tokyo Fleet.
In November, Gu Ba gathered 9,500 troops in Hanoi to prepare for a fatal blow to the Black Flag Army in Shanxi.
Seeing this, many friends may have questions, how to fight around, all are black flag troops, where is the Qing army?
The truth is that vietnam is dead, and the Qing army has not declared war on the French.
Due to Li Hongzhang's previous scare, that is, the so-called French army came to the country, Cixi did not want to fight the French army for a Vietnam. So she ordered Zeng Jize to negotiate with the French government in Paris, and Li Hongzhang to negotiate peace with the French envoy Trico in Tianjin.
Of course, she also made some preparations.
On September 1, Cixi ordered the governor of Liangguang, Zhang Shusheng, and the governor of Yungui, Cen Yuying, to send a large army into North Vietnam to prevent the French army from annexing all of North Vietnam. Zhang Shusheng then ordered Guangxi Governor Xu Yanxu, Viceroy Huang Guilan, and Daoist Zhao Wo to lead 20,000 troops into Bac Ninh, Vietnam; Cen Yuying sent Yunnan Inspector Tang Jiong to lead 2,000 people to Shanxi, Liu Yongfu's stronghold.
On September 4, Tang Jingsong, the former chief of the Liupin Department of the Cixi Imperial Household, was promoted to the fourth rank in a row and awarded the title of Zhengsi pinqing for his success in making Liu Yongfu attached.
On September 22, Cixi issued an edict rewarding Liu Yongfu with a reward of 100,000 taels of silver for his entire army, and was previously pardoned in the Heaven and Earth Society, and was specially granted the post of Sanpin guerrilla general.
But at this time, Liu Yongfu was not happy.
Since the Battle of Paperbridge in May, the Black Flag Army has fought countless battles, large and small, and at this time has suffered more than half of the casualties, leaving only more than 3,000 people. Liu Yongfu and Tang Jingsong asked Xu Yanxu, the governor of Guangxi, for a supplementary salary of silver, firearms, and ammunition, and for soldiers to be recruited in Guangxi, but Xu Yanxu refused, and even the 100,000 taels of silver that Cixi rewarded were privately intercepted by Xu Yanxu.
The French government's primary goal at this moment is to eliminate the Black Flag Army in Shanxi.
In early October, Cixi received a recital from Tang Jingsong, in which she euphemistically explained the Qing army's attitude towards the Black Flag Army. It should be explained here that it is not that Tang Jingsong is timid, but that he knows that he cannot tear his face, and if he tears his face to complain to Cixi, these local governors will take revenge and revenge, and the situation of the Black Flag Army will be worse.
When Cixi heard the news, he was furious and ordered Zhang Shusheng, the governor of Liangguang, Cen Yuying, the governor of Yunnan, Xu Yanxu, the governor of Guangxi, and Tang Jiong, the governor of Yunnan, to give Liu Yongfu's troops preferential treatment and timely response, and when the French army attacked Liu Bu, it was regarded as an attack on the Qing army.
Perhaps it was Cixi's strict will that played a role, and Admiral Huang Guilan gave the Black Flag Army 400 foreign guns and 20,000 rounds of ammunition, about 10,000 silver taels. Liu Yongfu was grateful for zero, and the morale of the Black Flag Army was greatly boosted, although Liu Yongfu's previous request was 4,000 foreign guns and 200,000 rounds of ammunition.
The reason why this gang of Wang Badou did not cooperate was that in the end it was Cixi's pot.
Cixi attached too much importance to Liu Yongfu, causing these generals to feel very unhappy. Can't you? Don't leaders like you? You have the ability to fight the French guys alone, and see how long you can hold out.
That's the mindset.
On November 25, Governor Shum Yuk Anh led 10,000 people into Vietnam.
On December 11, the lone army left Hanoi and marched west, and at the same time sent a special message to Tang Jiong, the inspector of Yunnan who had previously come to Shanxi, that the French army had come only to suppress the black flag bandits and had nothing to do with the Chinese army.
On December 14, more than 9,000 French troops launched a fierce attack on Shanxi, which was almost the entire french ground force in Vietnam at that time, which also meant that it was completely empty in other directions, and the defenders of Shanxi at that time were 3,000 black flag troops and 2,000 Qing army Dian army.
The French army attacked for several days, the Black Flag Army suffered heavy losses, Liu Yongfu and Tang Jingsong asked Huang Guilan for help in Beining, and Huang Tidu replied to the emissaries to immediately rescue them, but did not send a single soldier. After Tang Jiong, the inspector of Yunnan who was stationed in Shanxi, learned of this news, he led the Qing army guarding the city and fled.
On December 17, the French army conquered Shanxi, and the Battle of Shanxi killed more than 400 French troops and about 2,000 black flag army casualties.
At this time, Viceroy Cen Yuying led an army of 10,000 people to reach the xinghua, Xuanguang, and Lintao lines at a marching speed of up to 10 kilometers per day. Seeing the Black Flag Army fighting with the French army and sending people to understand the enemy's situation, this understanding was understood for seven days. During these seven days, Governor Cen could not rush forward under the pretext that the enemy situation was unknown, so he still insisted on moving at a high speed of 10 kilometers a day.
In the Battle of Shanxi, Zhang Shusheng, the governor of Liangguang, transferred the troops to Cixi. Zhang Shusheng put all the blame on the Black Flag Army, saying that it provoked trouble, causing the French army to retaliate, and thanks to the assistance of several other Qing troops, Liu Yongfu was able to escape. Cixi believed it to be true and did not punish Liu Yongfu and several other army generals.
Soon, Army General Lieutenant General Charles Milat succeeded Guba as the new commander-in-chief of the Tokyo Expeditionary Force. Gu Ba was reappointed deputy commander-in-chief and commander-in-chief of the Far East Navy, and it was this arrangement that made Gu Ba eventually lose his life. At the same time, the French army added 6,500 troops to Vietnam.
After the Battle of Shanxi, Cixi ordered Li Hongzhang to lead the newly established Beiyang Marine Division south to Vietnam and intervene in Vietnam on the grounds that the suzerainty had investigated the repeated murders of the Vietnamese royal family.
After Li Hongzhang received the order, he immediately went to the stage to say that the Beiyang Marine Division was defending Gyeonggi and that it was absolutely impossible to leave lightly, and then said that no matter how powerful the French Navy was, if it was not careful, it might hit Beijing, and then there would be no warship defense, and the consequences would be unimaginable.
In fact, what Li Zhongtang meant was that these warships were my political capital, so how could I get them to serve the country?
Cixi had no choice but to order Zhang Shusheng to personally lead his men and horses to Zhennanguan by land, so that the governor of Yungui, Cen Yuying, would meet Liu Yongfu as soon as possible, and at the same time order all the troops on the southwest border to be under the unified command of Cen Yuying.
When Cen Yuying heard this order, he immediately wrote to him, saying that his ability was limited, he was incompetent, and he was afraid of misleading state affairs, so he resolutely resigned.
At this point, Cixi found it difficult to mobilize anyone, and also laid the groundwork for the later Jiashen Yishu.
To be continued, seven articles are expected to be updated.
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