Ye Zhichao is Li Hongzhang's favorite general, and when he was young, he was notorious for fighting and not afraid of death. He always rushed to the front line on the battlefield, used real swords and real guns to spell out battle achievements, broke through the hall of fame, from an ordinary regimental training all the way to promotion, and finally the official residence was directly subordinate to the viceroy of Yipin, and was also given the name of Ehun Batulu by the emperor.
However, in the Sino-Japanese War, Ye Zhichao led his troops to flee for five hundred miles. Why is there such a big contrast between the same person and before and after?
I. The heroic and fearless "Ye Da Nerd"
When Ye Zhichao was a child, his parents died, and his uncle raised him, when he was young, he helped the family herd cattle and do chores every day. After the Taiping Army rebelled and drove straight into Anhui, Ye Zhichao participated in the local regimental training of the Qing army. Whenever there is a battle, Ye Zhichao must rush to the front, so he has repeatedly performed miracles and gradually gained fame.
After Li Hongzhang formed the Huai Army in 1862, Ye Zhichao threw himself into his command, and he participated in countless battles to pacify Jiangsu and Zhejiang, large and small, resolutely obeyed orders, and dared to fight fiercely without fear of death. Later, Ye Zhichao was transferred to Liu Ming's ministry and participated in the suppression of the twist with the army. Ye Zhichao was brave and fearless on the battlefield, and gained the title of warrior of the imperial court, known as Ehun Batulu.
After that, Li Hongzhang took over the Beiyang military affairs and kept Ye Zhichao by his side. Every time Ye Zhichao fought, he would never strike without capturing the enemy leader, and because of his death-defying approach, he was called "Ye Da Nerd". He rose through the ranks and became the Viceroy of the Beiyang Defense Army in 1889.
Second, sharpen their guns and reluctantly rush to the Korean battlefield
Ye Zhichao has been showing heroic and good fighting momentum for the previous 30 years. Unexpectedly, in the later Sino-Japanese War, he was beaten by the enemy and fled for five hundred miles, completely without the courage of the past. In 1894, the Dongxue Party of Korea revolted, and the Qing government ordered Ye Zhichao to lead an army to Korea to suppress the uprising. Ye Zhichao did not want to go, so he asked someone to find Li Hongzhang to intercede.
Ye Hesitated because he wasn't sure if Japan would go to war. The Qing court planned to send a total of 2,464 people under the command of Ye Zhichao to Korea, and if it was just to suppress the Dongxue Party, then more than 2,000 people would be enough. But if Japan enters the war, more than 2,000 people are hanging overseas, and there is no chance of victory. Li Hongzhang insisted on sending troops to Korea because he judged that Japan would not go to war with the Qing Dynasty. Judging from the fact that happened later, Ye Zhichao did not want to go, it was not that he was greedy for life and afraid of death.
After Ye Zhichao and Nie Shicheng arrived in Korea, they quickly quelled the Dongxue Rebellion. Japan has made it clear that it wants to send troops. Nie Shicheng asked Li Hongzhang to send a ferry to pick up the soldiers back to China. He did so because they came this time to quell the rebellion, not to compete with the Japanese.
The Qing army had no advantage in Korea and should not go to war with Japan here. Taking advantage of the fact that the war had not officially begun, he hurriedly crossed the sea and returned to China and stationed our army on the border of our country. In the autumn, the army can directly attack Pyongyang, and the navy can land at Inchon, and the two armies will attack and break the enemy in one fell swoop. If the Japanese are allowed to preemptively strike, we are in danger.
Faced with this situation, Ye Zhichao proposed three countermeasures, and he believed that the best way to deal with it was to quickly send a large army south. Nie Shicheng's suggestions were only a medium strategy, not the best solution. Therefore, it can be seen from here that Ye Zhichao's previous reluctance to bring troops to Korea was a military general's judgment of the situation, not because he was greedy and afraid of death.
Ye Zhichao's analysis of the situation in North Korea made him reluctant to go, which shows that his previous combat experience in suppressing uprisings at home cannot cope with modern wars. After the Qing army arrived at Asan, Nie Shicheng put forward constructive suggestions, Ye Zhichao did not adopt, but instead proposed unrealistic strategies, which eventually led to the Qing army fighting alone overseas for a long time, very passive.
Third, the cooperation with comrades-in-arms is not effective, and the military merits are falsely reported
After the battle with the Japanese army, Nie Shicheng believed that the sea route had been blocked, reinforcements could not come, the terrain of the YaShan Mountains could not be defended, and Ye Zhichao could garrison Gongzhou. Nie Shicheng led part of the army to battle, and if it went well, Ye Zhichao led his troops to help. If Nie Shicheng was not defeated, they would take a detour back to Gongzhou from the north.
However, after the start of the war, Nie Shicheng was once under siege, but Ye Zhichao did not send troops to rescue him. Nie Shicheng could only lead the soldiers to break through. After the successful breakthrough, the two teams met at Tian'an, and Nie Shicheng proposed to ask Ye Zhichao to go to Gongzhou first and take the people to break the queen himself.
Unexpectedly, the next day, when Nie Shicheng rushed to Gongzhou, he actually found Ye Zhichao leading his army to withdraw to the north. It was only at this time that Ye Zhichao told Nie Shicheng that they were not planning to defend Gongju, but were planning to take a detour to Pyongyang.
In this battle, Ye Zhichao did not send troops to rescue Nie Shicheng when the fierce battle was not supported, and after the war, he did not say hello, changed the plan and deployment without authorization, and abandoned Gongzhou to go to Pyongyang. These are just a matter of not fulfilling their responsibilities, and then, Ye Zhichao's behavior shows that there is a problem with his character.
Ye Zhichao obviously returned from the defeat in this battle, but he sent a telegram to the imperial court saying that he had won a great victory and killed more than 2,000 Japanese troops at the cost of killing and wounding 200 people. The imperial court rewarded twenty thousand taels of silver. Ye Zhichao had already been contaminated with the vices of the official arena, so how could he lead his troops to fight without being defeated?
Fourth, the Battle of Pyongyang, the army was defeated like a mountain
After the Qing army retreated to Pyongyang, it joined the four-way army led by Wei Rugui, Ma Yukun, Zuo Zhen, and Feng Sheng'a. Li Hongzhang vigorously defied the public opinion and appointed Ye Zhichao as the commander. Ye Zhichao proposed an offensive plan to gather all the troops and advance together after the autumn harvest. At that time, the spies of the Qing army could not detect the situation of the Japanese army at all, and the deployment of the other side's troops, the route of the march, and the supply of ammunition and food were all unclear!
Ye Zhichao's proposed plan to "advance after the autumn" is meaningless at all, and his real idea is to withdraw from Pyongyang. He once summoned the general to discuss, and he said that the Japanese army had come to take advantage of the victory, the limelight was in full swing, our army did not have enough ammunition, and was not familiar with the terrain here, so it was better to retreat first. As soon as General Zuo Precious heard this, he said angrily: "The state has spent a thousand days raising troops for a while, and now the Japanese army is hanging in a different country, and it is precisely the time to send troops to strike them fiercely!" ”
Later, learning that the Japanese army had landed from Yuanshan, Li Hongzhang asked Ye Zhichao to take advantage of the enemy's catch-up to the battlefield, disperse his troops, and immediately set up an ambush to attack. So Ye Zhichao dispatched seven thousand elites and set up an ambush in Zhonghe to prepare to annihilate the enemy. However, Li Hongzhang did not expect that Li Hongzhang felt that the Japanese army might detour to the rear of our army, so he asked the Qing army to set up an ambush in the direction of Yuanshan. With such chaotic command, the Qing army marched a lot, lost the opportunity, and could only retreat to the defense of Infant City.
After the war with the Japanese army, the war was scorching. The Qing army defended well to the south and west of Pyongyang City, but lost to the north, and the heroic general Zuo Was sacrificed. At that time, the Japanese army only broke through the outer gate of the Xuanwu Gate and could not enter the city. Moreover, the Japanese army ran for a long time for days, did not eat for a day, and was seriously short of food and ammunition. If Ye Zhichao had made up his mind to actively fight back at that time, Pyongyang could have held on. But Ye Zhichao ordered the city to abandon and flee!
Fifth, the body is ruined
After the Qing army withdrew from Korea, Ye Zhichao directly led his troops to run for five hundred miles and ran back to China. At the same time, he lied about the military situation again, and he wrote to the book that there were 30,000 or 40,000 People in the Wokou, the attack was fierce, and our army fought hard for five days and five nights, and finally ran out of ammunition and food, and had no choice but to withdraw from Pyongyang. The imperial court once again sent a message to reassure him that he was not to blame for this failure.
However, the battle was fought like this, and it was certainly impossible to hide it, and soon his lying about military merit was exposed, and finally Ye Zhichao was sentenced to "beheading hou" and was discredited. Throughout the Sino-Japanese War, the repeated defeats of the Qing army cannot be completely attributed to the greed of the soldiers and fear of death, which is actually related to the accumulation of shortcomings in the entire Qing court for a long time.
At that time, the Qing court had already launched a foreign affairs campaign, and military equipment was nearly modernized, but the overall level was still backward. The military generals represented by Ye Zhichao could only suppress the peasants at home and were not capable of coping with modern wars!
epilogue
The ugly rules of the late Qing dynasty bureaucracy impregnated the heroic soldiers of that year into hypocritical officials. Ye Zhichao lied to his superiors about his military merits, falsely reported the battle plan, concealed the plan instead of supporting his comrades-in-arms, and treated him negatively when he encountered the situation of the war. How could such an army brought out by a commander win a battle?