As an ancient civilization with a long history, China has politically formed a tributary circle of clans and dynasties with itself as the core, and has also formed an East Asian Chinese character cultural circle with itself as the core. During the Tang and Song dynasties, China's currency once became the common currency of East Asia, Southeast Asia and even the countries along the Indian Ocean coast. Similarly, the military strength of ancient China was once proud of the world: from the Great Qin Iron Horse that swept through the Six Kingdoms, the Great Han Yulin Army that chased the Xiongnu in the north, to the undefeated Yue Family Army and the Qi Family Army, all of which were unmatched elite divisions in the world.
Almost all of China's dynasties have given birth to their own famous generals: the pre-Qin Dynasty has a good wife, Bai Qi, Li Mu, Lian Po, Zhao Hao, Tian Dan, Le Yi... Qin has Wang Qi and Meng Tian ... Han has Han Xin, Li Guang, Wei Qing, Huo Fuyi... The three kingdoms have Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, Zhao Yun, Ma Chao, Zhang Liao, Zhou Yu... The Southern and Northern Dynasties had Chen Qingzhi, Xie Xuan, Zu Di... Sui has Yang Su, Han Huhu... Tang had Li Jing, Li Ji, Xue Rengui, Su Dingfang, Gao Xianzhi... Song has Yang Ye, Di Qing, Yue Fei, Han Shizhong... Yuan has Wuliang Hetai, Ah Shu, Wang Baobao... Ming has Xu Da, Chang Yuchun, Qi Jiguang...
As the last feudal dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing Dynasty lasted 268 years from the establishment of a national government in 1644 AD. The Qing Dynasty actually has two meanings: one refers to the dynastic regime ruled by the Eight Banners of Manchuria, and the other refers to the 268-year historical period from the entry of the Qing army into the customs in 1644 to the abdication of the xuantong in 1912. Some of us today actually fall into the misconception that the development of the country is entirely attributable to the government, but the concept of dynasties is not directly equivalent to the historical period.
In fact, the development of history has its own law of operation: the spontaneous activities of the masses of the people are the fundamental driving force for promoting the development of the country. In the words of a great man, "Only the people are the real driving force for the advancement of history." Some people say that the Two Song Dynasties and the Manchu Qing Dynasty were the era when the souls of soldiers were exhausted, but it is more accurate to say that the two Song Dynasties and the Manchu Qing Dynasty were dynasties in which the souls of soldiers destroyed the souls of the country. The humiliation of the Two Song And Manchu Qing dynasties was caused by the corrupt and incompetent dynastic regime, but this did not mean that all the Chinese of the Two Song And Manchu Qing dynasties lost their dignity.
Otherwise, how can we explain Yue Fei, who is determined to resist Jin, how to explain Wen Tianxiang, who "left Dan to take care of Khan Qing", how to explain Zuo Zongtang who recovered Xinjiang, and how to explain Deng Shichang, who hit the enemy ship... Aren't they historical figures of the Two Song Dynasties and the Manchu Period? Similarly, historical figures during the Qing Dynasty cannot be equated with historical figures who served the Qing Dynasty. For example, Yang Xiuqing, Shi Dakai and others in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom were not Generals of the Qing Army, but they were indeed generals of the Qing Dynasty, but they sided with the anti-Qing camp.
If we leave these anti-Qing generals aside, have there ever been famous generals in the Qing army camp? First of all, the reason why the Qing army was able to enter the customs depended to a considerable extent on a series of political and military maneuvers by the regent Dolgun. In 1635, Dorgon was ordered by Emperor Taiji to conquer Lin Dan Khan of the Chahar department of southern Mongolia and seize the Yuan Dynasty's imperial jade seal. The following year, Emperor Taiji officially changed the name of the Jurchen clan to Manchuria, changed the name of the Jin Kingdom to Qing, and himself changed from Great Khan to Emperor. This move marked the official construction of his country by Emperor Taiji with Chinese law.
After conquering the Mongol Chahar, Dorgon defeated 30,000 Ming troops at the Battle of Songshan, captured the Ming commander Hong Chengyu, and forced Zu Dashou to surrender. In 1636, Dorgon defeated the Ming dynasty general Lu Xiangsheng in Beijing and then attacked Jinan. In the process, the 20 battles were won in each battle, so that the record of 40 cities and the plunder of 250,000 people was achieved. In 1644, Dorgon lured wu Sangui, the ming general of Shanhaiguan, and joined forces with him to destroy Li Zicheng's 100,000 troops. It was the Battle of Shanhaiguan, commanded by Dorgon, that removed the last obstacle to the Qing army's entry.
After the Qing army entered the pass, Dolgun continued to command the pursuit of Li Zicheng's Dashun army and the Southern Ming regime and Zhang Xianzhong's Daxi regime. During his lifetime, Dorgon fought numerous battles: he successively commanded wars with the Mongol Chahar Army, the Ming Army, and Li Zicheng's Dashun Army. Dorgon has always been invincible in every battle. Of course, Dorgon's narrow ethnic prejudice of forcing Han people to shave their hair and change clothes did have a certain negative impact on Manchu-Han ethnic relations, but you can't always deny that people are famous generals because you don't like people, right?
On July 8, the 22nd year of the Kangxi Dynasty (1683), the Qing government sent The Fujian Admiral Shi Lang to lead more than 20,000 land and water officers and men and more than 200 warships from Tongshan to Penghu and Taiwan. The Qing naval division commanded by Shi Lang first won a major victory against the Taiwanese naval division at the Battle of Penghu, thus forcing Zheng Chenggong's grandson Zheng Ketuan to lead the crowd to submit to the Qing government. In the 23rd year of the Qing Dynasty (1684), the Qing government established one prefecture and three counties in Taiwan: the administration of Taiwan was located in present-day Tainan, under the jurisdiction of Taiwan County (present-day Tainan), Fengshan County (present-day Zuoying, Kaohsiung), and Zhuluo County (present-day Chiayi).
Shi Lang can be said to be a rare famous water master in the Qing Dynasty for more than two hundred years. Shi Lang is not only remarkable in the use of tactics, but also has forward-looking strategic thinking. After achieving a decisive victory over Taiwan's naval division at the Battle of Penghu, Shi Lang did not take advantage of the victory to attack the main island of Taiwan, but suggested using the yu wei of victory to force the Taiwan Zheng regime to surrender on its own initiative. Zheng Ketuan saw that Shi Lang had no intention of slaughtering before he expressed his willingness to submit. After Shi Lang arrived in Taiwan, he did not engage in liquidation and revenge, nor did he abuse his obscenity, but instead took the initiative to go to worship Zheng Chenggong to win over the hearts of the People of Taiwan.
Shi Lang completed the recovery of Taiwan from territory to people's hearts in line with the strategy of attacking the heart. At that time, a considerable number of people in the imperial court advocated that there was no need to stay in Taiwan. Shi Lang pointed out with a superior strategic vision: Taiwan seems to be wild, but it is rich in arable land and minerals, so it is worth vigorously developing. Not to mention that Taiwan is vital to the defense security of the southeast coast. It was under Shi Lang's struggle that the Kangxi Emperor finally decided to stay in Taiwan. Shi Lang's historical contribution to Taiwan's post-war strategic planning is, in a sense, no worse than his military campaign to retake Taiwan.
In his later years, the Qianlong Emperor reviewed his life's wars with the outside world and summed it up as "Ten Complete Martial Arts". Four of these military operations were led by Fukang'an. In the thirty-sixth year of Qianlong (1771), the Great jinchuan Tusi rebelled, and Fukang An was ordered to rush to the front line to fight. In battle, Fukang'an personally led 800 soldiers to conquer the enemy bridgehead in the rain. After that, Fukang An led his troops to overcome the unfavorable factors such as terrain and climate for the battalion step by step. After five years of fighting, the Great Kanegawa Toji Rebellion was finally put down.
In the forty-ninth year of Qianlong (1784), FuKang'an commanded troops in the northwest to quell the local Hui people's rebellion. As soon as the Huimin incident in the northwest subsided, the Lin Shuangwen Uprising in Taiwan broke out again. In the fifty-second year of Qianlong (1787), Fu Kang'an and the Counsellor General Hai lancha went to Taiwan to fight. After landing on Taiwan, Fu Kang'an and his party were attacked by Xinpi with the main force attacking the rebel army encircling the county seat of Zhuluo County. After the First World War of Zhuluo, Fukang An was able to turn the tide of the war and lift the siege of the city. In the fifty-third year of Qianlong (1788), Fu Kang'an captured the leader of the rebel army, Lin Shuangwen, at Lao yaqi.
In the fifty-third year of Qianlong (1788), the Gurkha (present-day Nepal) invaded Tibet. It is said that Gorkha, as a small country with no projectiles, did not have the strength to challenge the Qing Dynasty, but the terrain of the snowy plateau limited the efficiency of the Qing Dynasty in transporting troops and grain to Tibet. At that time, there were 500 Qing troops, 1600 Tibetan soldiers, and 1300 Taizhan soldiers stationed in Tibet. Combined, these forces were only about 400 more than the troops sent by the Kharko side. However, as an attacking side, Khalko can concentrate its superior forces to attack a certain place at will, compared to the area that the defender needs to defend is too large.
After the 3,400 troops were evenly distributed over the vast area of Tibet, the average number of troops that could be garrisoned every place was quite limited. The Khalkhs could have concentrated their superior forces to break through the Chinese army's strongholds in Tibet one by one. Obviously, the 3,400 garrisons in Tibet alone were not enough to deal with the war, so we had to send additional troops from the interior to help. The Qing court sent more than 4,000 Manchu, Han, and Tibetan soldiers from Sichuan to Tibet for reinforcements. The Gurkha side took the initiative to withdraw its troops from the Sichuan side when the Qing army entered Tibet to fight.
When reinforcements from the Sichuan side rushed to the front, they were told by the local government of Tibet and the minister stationed in Tibet that the war was over and that the two sides had agreed to make peace. The Qing army recovered all the lost land without losing a single soldier, but in the subsequent negotiations and negotiations, the two sides reached the humiliating condition of "xuyin redemption": the local government of Tibet paid 1500 taels of silver to the Gorkha every year as a cost of redemption of the disputed area. Why do you have to lose money when you win a battle? In fact, the so-called victory of the Qing army was nothing more than self-deception, because the Gurkha side actually took the initiative to withdraw its troops.
The Gurkha side had figured out the reality of the Qing army: they knew that the Tibetan garrison was not their opponent at all, but the army in the interior could not stay in Tibet for a long time. So when they learned that reinforcements from the interior arrived, they took the initiative to withdraw their troops to preserve their strength, but in the subsequent negotiations they blackmailed the local government of Tibet. The Gurkhas knew that as soon as the troops in the interior withdrew, it would mean that the local government of Tibet would no longer have the capital to negotiate terms with itself. If the Gurkha is not beaten, if "decades of peace" are not fought, then the Gurkha will continue to harass the border.
In the fifty-sixth year of Qianlong (1791), Gurkha again sent troops to invade Tibet. The re-invasion of the Gurkha army enabled the Qianlong Emperor to finally learn the truth about the so-called victory of the Qing army, so this time he was determined to beat the Gorkha once and for all. To completely hurt the opponent, you must not only recover the lost land, but also drive straight into the hinterland of the enemy country. Therefore, the dispatched army must not only be able to defeat the opponent, but also must completely subdue the opponent in the shortest possible time. This means that the dispatched army must not only be stronger than the enemy in strength, but must also be far stronger than the enemy.
After careful consideration, Qianlong transferred Fu Kang'an, the governor of Liangguang, who had just quelled the rebellion of Lin Shuangwen in Taiwan, to supervise the Tibetan military. At the same time, Qianlong appointed Hailancha, Taifei Ying'a, and others as Fukang'an's deputies. FuKang'an, Hailancha, and others were ordered to lead Heilongjiang Solun and Dahur soldiers from Qinghai into Tibet to conquer Gorkha. On December 20, 1791, in the fifty-sixth year of Qianlong (1791), Fu Kang'an led 10,000 Qing troops from Xining, Qinghai to Tibet. Heavy snow and mountain closures in the middle of winter made the march extremely difficult, but Fukang'an led his army day and night: 18 hours a day.
In the end, the Fukang'an army completed the nearly 5,000-mile journey from Xining to Lhasa in 50 days. The Qing army appeared in front of the Gurkhas like a divine soldier descending from heaven. In the ensuing battle, the Qing army "fought six battles and six victories, killed 4,000 enemies, and recovered Houzang". The Victorious Qing army defeated the Himalayan army at Yangbu City (present-day Kathmandu), the capital of Gorkha. On August 8, 1792 (September 23, 1792 AD), the head of the Gurkha governor, Kajidi Udataba, came to the Qing army camp and asked for surrender. After expelling the Gurkhas, Fukang'an rectified Tibetan affairs in Tibet according to the qianlong Emperor's will.
It is well known that the late Qing Dynasty was a humiliating period in China's history of poverty, weakness, backwardness, and beating, but even during this humiliating period, there was a bright color: in 1865, the Agubai invading army of the Kokand Khanate in Central Asia invaded Xinjiang with the support of the two imperialist powers of Britain and Russia. Zuo Zongtang, a 70-year-old veteran at the time, resolutely carried the coffin out on the expedition, thus successfully preserving one-sixth of China's land. Zuo Zongtang's merits and talents have not only been recognized by the Chinese people, but also recognized by the international community.
In 2000, Time magazine in the United States selected the world's 1000 years of 40 intelligent celebrities Zuo Zongtang was on the list. When the Agubai invading army occupied most of Xinjiang, Tsarist Russia also occupied the Ili region on July 4, 1871, and just as the Qing government was preparing to send troops to retake Xinjiang, the Japanese government sent Army Lieutenant General Saigo to lead an army of 3,000 people to invade Taiwan. For a time, China's southeastern sea frontier and northwestern border defenses simultaneously warned of the alarm. In this grim situation, a great discussion took place within the Qing government on the defense of Cyprus and coastal defense.
Zuo Zongtang pointed out the strategic significance of Xinjiang as the western ping domain of the country in this great discussion: "Those who emphasize Xinjiang are therefore defending Mongolia, and those who protect Mongolia are therefore Weijing divisions." The northwest arm fingers are connected, the form is complete, and there is no gap to take advantage of. If Xinjiang is not solid, the Mongolian department will be uneasy, and the non-special Shaanxi- Gansu and Shanxi sides will be invaded and defended, and it will be impossible to prevent it, that is, the Guanshan Mountains in the north will not have a day to sleep. China's mountains and rivers all start from the northwest, and abandoning the west is abandoning China." In 1875, Zuo Zongtang formulated the strategic principles of "first south and then north" and "slow advance and rapid war" according to the enemy situation and geographical characteristics of Xinjiang.
At the same time, the logistics of preparing grain and other logistics supplies were also in full swing: at that time, in order to raise military supplies for the Western Expeditionary Army, the imperial court asked Prince Gong to borrow money from foreigners, but was refused, and Hu Xueyan, who had begun to prepare military salaries for Zuo Zongtang as early as the suppression of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, used the income of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Guangdong customs as a guarantee, and successively borrowed 18.7 million taels of silver from foreign debt six times to solve the problem of funding for the Western Expedition. The question is how to get the hard-earned grain, grass and salaries into the hands of the soldiers on the front line?
After careful consideration, Zuo Zongtang set up a north bureau in Naturalization (present-day Hohhot) and Suzhou (present-day Jiuquan) to be responsible for the supply of grain and grass on the north and south roads. As the saying goes, "soldiers and horses do not move grain and grass first" - This series of preparations carried out by Zuo Zongtang before the war laid a solid foundation for the successful recovery of Xinjiang. Now that the initial logistics supply work has been prepared, it is time to mobilize soldiers and horses. Zuo Zongtang gathered in Suzhou a 70,000-strong western expeditionary army, mainly composed of the Daoist liu jintang troops, the capital Jin Shunbu, and the viceroy Zhang Yao.
Not all of these 70,000 Western Expeditionary Forces participated in the invasion of Xinjiang. On the one hand, this is because of the difficulty of grain and grass transfer, on the other hand, Zuo Zongtang must also retain enough troops to deal with the threat of the two major powers of Britain and Russia. The actual soldiers who entered Xinjiang to engage the enemy were 30,000 elite soldiers with Liu Jintang's troops as the vanguard. In early August 1876, Liu Jintang's troops, with the cooperation of Jin Shunbu, adopted the tactic of attacking the west from the east: avoiding the road with difficult water supply, taking the enemy's tightly defended but well-watered trail, and approaching the ancient pasture land (present-day Miquan) north of Urumqi.
After clearing the enemy's outlying strongholds, he used artillery to bombard the city wall, rushed into the city through the gap on the 17th and annihilated more than 5,000 enemy people in one fell swoop, and recaptured Urumqi the next day, and the rebels Bai Yanhu and Ma Rende fled south in a hurry. Subsequently, Zuo Zongtang ordered Liu Jintang's troops to garrison Urumqi: on the one hand, to prevent the Agubai army from invading the north; on the other hand, to continue to clear and suppress the remnants of the enemy in the mountains. At the same time, Zuo Zongtang also ordered Jin Shunbu to march westward: for a time, the enemies of Changji, Hutubi, and Manas's northern city all fled at the sound of the wind. In early September, Jin Shunbu began to attack Manas South City, but after more than a month it failed to capture Manas South City.
At this time, Liu Jintang and the Ili general Rong Quan successively led reinforcements to attack the city, and finally the Qing army captured the city on November 6. At this point, the area occupied by Agubai on Tianshan North Road has been completely recovered. Since it was the time of heavy snow in winter to close the mountains, Liu Jintang's troops raised military food on the spot and rested in the coming year's march into southern Xinjiang. During the Qing army's recuperation, the British, as the behind-the-scenes supporters of Agubai, tried to hinder the Qing army's advance: the British had just forced the Qing government to sign the Yantai Treaty, and then expressed their willingness to mediate the conflict between the Qing government and the Agubai regime.
The British tried to force the Qing government to recognize the Agupa regime as a vassal state. This is in fact a blatant violation of the integrity of China's sovereignty. Prime Minister Yamen forwarded the British proposal to Zuo Zongtang for discussion. Zuo Zongtang replied, "If the British want to establish a kingdom for Agubai, they can cut off the Land of England with it, or even cut off the land of India with it. Russia, as an old rival to Britain in Central Asia, also jumped out at this time: on the one hand, it encouraged Agubai to continue to confront Zuo Zongtang's counterinsurgency army, and on the other hand, it took advantage of Agubai's dilemma to force him to sign the Russian-Afghan Boundary Treaty.
With the support of the British and Russian powers, Agubai dispatched heavy troops to set up two lines of defense at Dabancheng and Turfan. At the same time, Agupa himself sat in Kalashar (present-day Yanqi) to fight to the death. On April 14, 1877, Liu Jintang's forces, which had recaptured Urumqi, descended from Urumqi south to Bancheng. At the same time, Zhang Yao's troops marched west from Hami, and xu Zhanbiao's troops attacked Balikun. On April 19, Liu Jintang's forces attacked Dabancheng, killing and capturing more than 3,000 enemy troops, and then divided their troops into one to assist Turpan, while the main force directly attacked Toxon.
Haigula, the second son of Agubai stationed in Toxun, abandoned the city in late April and fled west. At this time, Zhang and Xu's two departments had also been connected to Ke Peizhan and Shengjintai, and Turpan defended the enemy Bai Yanhu looked westward, and the Ma people had to lead their troops to surrender. At this point, the Qing army had conquered two lines of defense in half a month and annihilated more than 10,000 enemies. By the end of May, Zuo Zongtang's western expeditionary army had won a decisive victory in retaking Xinjiang, and Agubai, seeing that the tide had turned, committed suicide by poisoning in Korla, and his eldest son Burke Huri, after killing his brother Haigula in Kucha, became king in Kashgar (present-day Kashgar) with British support.
On April 14, 1877, Zuo Zongtang took Liu Jintang's army as the "main battle" army and Zhang Yao's army as the army of "fighting and defending", and drove south to approach the enemy's stronghold of Kashgar. At this time, farmers and herdsmen of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang took up arms to cooperate with the Qing army to fight the enemy: the people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang led the way for the Qing army and took the initiative to cooperate with the military deployment of the Qing government. In September of that year, the British again proposed to the Qing prime minister Yamen the request that Kashgar be established as a "protectorate" for China. Under zuo Zongtang's successive victories, the Qing government, which had always been known for its weakness to the outside world, rejected this unreasonable demand of the British for the first time.
In October of that year, Liu Jintang's troops traveled more than 2,000 miles with a momentum of breaking bamboo, and successively recaptured the four cities of Qarashar, Kuqa, Aksu, and Ush in southern Xinjiang. At this point, the enemy forces entrenched in the four cities of Yarkand (present-day Shache), Ingishar (present-day Yingjisha), Khotan (present-day Hotan), and Kashgar had become isolated. In mid-to-late December, Liu Jintang's forces fled into Russia with Kashgar, Yarkand, Ingishar, and Burke Huri. On January 2, 1878, the Qing army captured the last stronghold of the Aguba regime in Xinjiang and Khotan.
In addition to the above-mentioned Dolgun, Shi Lang, Fu Kang'an, and Zuo Zongtang, the general of the Black Flag Army, Liu Yongfu, who guarded Taiwan in the Sino-French War, and Feng Zicai, who won the great victory at Zhennanguan, these people were actually famous generals of the Qing Dynasty.
Some people think that the reason why the qing dynasty is nameless is that they have formed a preconceived stereotype because they don't like the dynasty; second, today's Qing palace dramas are almost all about harem battles. Therefore, over time, people naturally paid little attention to the military performance of the Qing Dynasty.