Hello everyone, at the end of the last video, I thought I was going to continue to do the content of Qishan's negotiations in Guangzhou, but after checking some information, I found that there was really nothing to talk about, Qishan's attitude is basically a copy of the Iribu I talked about in the last issue, but his luck is obviously not as good as Iribu, plus the original Qishan is a dare to do the official character, he directly reported the strength of the British army he saw in Guangzhou, imploring the Daoguang Emperor to reconsider the strategy towards Britain, but his blunt words have brought him a disaster. The Daoguang Emperor and his ministers attributed the defeat of the war to his weak attitude.
Before the Opium War, Chinese civilization has been relatively independent development, and with its superiority exported outwards, in East Asia formed a Chinese cultural circle centered on China, since ancient times Chinese habits to look around in a condescending posture, the Qing Dynasty is the ultimate form of this "heavenly kingdom", China is the world, the vassal states, including the Western countries are barbarian states outside the country. The emperor's ministers, who were located in the central part of the north, naturally believed that the defeat of the southern war was not the defeat of the Heavenly Dynasty to the outside world, and that the defeat in the battle was entirely due to the ineffective handling of the Chincha minister Qi Shan, who was weak and traitorous. Then as long as Qi Shan asked all the questions, he could solve it, which was a result generally accepted by both the government and the public, after all, there was no need for any complicated changes, and it could save the face of His Majesty the Great Emperor. As for the continuing war in the south, with the negative example of Qi Shan, no one dared to mention compromise, so the Qing Dynasty's attitude toward Britain returned to "annihilation".
In the following time, we will focus on the large-scale Sino-British conflict that broke out during the Negotiations in Guangdong presided over by Qi Shan, the Battle of Humen, which was commanded by the famous patriotic general Guan Tianpei and eventually died.
Located in what is now Dongguan City, Guangdong Province, the Humen region consists of a section of the Pearl River about 8 kilometers long, as well as some islands and banks along the river, and it is the gateway to Guangzhou, which is extremely important if it is to resist the threat of the sea. As early as the Ming Dynasty, the rulers of the Wanli Dynasty built fortifications in Humen, and in 1810 the Jiaqing Emperor established the Guangdong Water Division and its headquarters yamen was located in Humen Zhai (present-day Taiping Town) behind Humen. The most recent large-scale renovation of the Humen fortifications was between 1835 and 1839, presided over by Guan Tianpei himself.
In 1834, two British warships directly broke through the Humen Fortress and approached Guangzhou, although the Humen defenders at that time tried their best to fire, but only killed two British troops, the British ships were only slightly damaged, and the Daoguang Emperor was furious and sent Guan Tianpei to take over the Guangdong Marine Division and renovate the fort.
After Guan Tianpei arrived at his post, he inspected the terrain of Humen in detail, and combined with the combat process of the last British warship intrusion, he put forward the defensive idea of establishing three defensive lines.
The first line of defense, the two forts in Shajiao and Dajiao, which are the outermost part of Humen, are too far away to form crossfire, so they are changed to signal forts without too much reinforcement. Once an enemy ship was spotted, the two batteries needed to signal the rear batteries to be ready.
The second line of defense is above the hengban island as the center, taking advantage of the geographical advantages, strengthening the three forts on the island of Weiyuan, Zhenyuan and Hengchang to place a total of 120 artillery pieces to control the eastern waterway of Hengban Island. In the West Waterway, a total of 60 artillery pieces were built on the west side of the island of Upper Hengchang and the fortified batteries along the coast.
The third line of defense reinforced the Big Tiger Fort on the south side of Dahushan Island in the rear of Hengchang Island, and 32 artillery pieces were installed.
At the end of 1835, Guan Tianpei's defensive fort, which lasted ten months, was basically completed, but in 1838, before Lin Zexu went to Guangzhou to ban smoking, the British business representative Yilu in order to show the British force to find Ma Ta Lun to lead two British ships to attack Humen, Guan Tianpei realized the defects of the Humen defense system through this incident, so with the support of Deng Tingzhen, the governor of Liangguang at that time, 60 guns were built between the original Two Forts of Zhenyuan and Weiyuan, and 60 guns were built in Jingyuan Fort. Jingyuan Fort was the strongest and most powerful fort in the territory of the Qing Dynasty at that time, and two card chains were also set up in the waterway near the fort, equivalent to a speed reduction belt, which slowed down the speed of the British ships as much as possible, and by 1839, the Humen Coastal Defense Fortress became the most powerful defense fortification of the Qing Dynasty at that time. Later, Lin Zexu was ordered to come to inspect the fortress and expressed satisfaction with Guan Tianpei's defense system.
According to Guan Tianpei's defensive vision, after the Shajiao and BigHorn Batteries, located in the first line of defense, found the enemy ship and reported it, it had no value and even if it was lost, it did not matter. The key defensive point is the second line of defense in the rear, and if the enemy ships sail into the Eastern Waterway after entering the Humen Waterway, they will be bombarded with saturation of the four forts of Weiyuan, Jingyuan, Zhenyuan, and Horizontal Gear, and the speed bumps arranged in the waterway will inevitably be able to severely damage the British fleet. Subsequently, the Guangdong Marine Division warships came forward to annihilate Yingyi in one fell swoop. Raise our country's prestige. The same is true for the waterway on the west side, but only 60 artillery pieces were arranged because the west side was relatively far behind Guan Tianpei. If there are still fish that have slipped through the net, then there are still 32 cannons in the back of the Big Tiger Mountain Fort to finish. However, the reality is that no matter how many artillery pieces Guan Tianpei has arranged - it is useless!! Because I can't fight at all!!
Guan Tianpei's battle plan was formulated based on the case of a British warship breaking through Humen and approaching Guangzhou a few years ago, and the purpose of the combat plan was to prevent enemy ships from breaking through Humen and threatening Guangzhou. But what if the enemy ships did not want to threaten Guangzhou, but instead directly attacked the forts? Guan Tianpei did not formulate a support force between the three lines of defense, and even the various batteries located in the second line of defense could not support each other, and most importantly, Guan Tianpei far underestimated the number of British warships and the number of guns that no British ship could carry.
When the British army officially arrived in 1841, Guan Tianpei was faced with the number of warships far beyond the design ability of Humen, 9 forts plus Guangdong marine division warships, Guan Tianpei had a total of 426 guns, but I also said in the video of the Qing Dynasty weapons earlier, the Qing Dynasty's artillery was rough in order to prevent the explosion of the breech, the barrel of the Qing army was often thickened, and in addition, there was almost no mathematical knowledge in that period, the firing angle and range of the artillery completely depended on the experience of the gunner, and the most critical point was due to the design of the artillery support. The firing angle of the Qing army's shore artillery is difficult to adjust, and the reason why Guan Tianpei arranged how many cannons Guan Tianpei arranged earlier was useless.
The first battle of the Humen Campaign was the Battle of Shajiao and Dajiao Forts located in the first line of defense, in which the British sent three warships into the front of Shajiao Fort, bombarded with 52 naval guns (more than the number of cannons of Shajiao Fort) to attract the attention of the defenders, and sent 1461 ground troops to land about 4 kilometers behind the side of the fort in small boats, and then built field gun positions on the commanding heights behind Shajiao Fort, so that the British Army, with the support of field guns, cleared the barracks and auxiliary batteries behind the main battery of Shajiao. By the time it was the turn of the main battery, the Qing army had been shelled for several hours without the intention of retreating, and at the same time that the Shajiao Fort fell, the other battery of the first line of defense, the BigHorn Battery, was also attacked, but here the British arranged four battleships, and the total number of naval guns reached 106, which was four times the number of cannons of the BigHorn Battery.
Different from the previous Battle of Zhoushan in Zhejiang Province, the Qing army has made full preparations for the battle of Shajiao and Dajiao Fort, and the Morale of the Qing army in the entire operation is also rare, and the Qing army killed 282 people and wounded 462 people in this battle. However, in exchange for only 38 British soldiers were wounded and 0 killed.
After the end of the Battle of the Two Corners, the British fleet continued to advance and began to besiege the situation on the island of Upper Hengpao, at this time, because Qishan's negotiations were still ongoing, the commander of the British Expeditionary Fleet, Bermai, sent a note to Guan Tianpei, saying that he could stop the war, and put forward five new requirements based on the current situation (not included in the Guangzhou negotiations).
1 The British army occupies Cape Sand
2 Guangzhou port opening trade
3 British merchants' taxes are paid in Sha Kok
4 Immediately stop the construction of new forts in Humen
5 Qi Shan needs to reply to the conditions proposed by the British side in the previous guangzhou negotiations
At this time, Guan Tianpei continued to time to reorganize the defense line, so he immediately replied and promised to relay the British conditions to Qi Shan, so the British fleet withdrew from Humen.
Negotiations between Qi Shan and Yi Lu also reopened in Guangzhou, and Guan Tianpei used these times to sum up the mistakes of the Battle of the Two Corners Fort, and immediately began to build fortifications on the back of the remaining forts to set up hidden gun positions to arrange for the Green Camp guards, and at the same time asked Qi Shan to ask for 11,000 taels to send to the soldiers to boost morale. In addition, 9 gun positions were added to the three forts of Zhenyuan, Jingyuan and Weiyuan, and dozens of small cannons were set up in several temporary forts throughout the island. After reinforcement, the Qing army had a total of 377 artillery pieces and 8500 soldiers in the second line of defense, but the core of the defense was still the original 6 fixed batteries
Negotiations eventually broke down, and on 23 February 1841, the British ship Nemesis led a number of small boats to dismantle the first chain speed bumps. The batteries then began to attack and the battle resumed. On the 25th, the British army occupied the island of Hengban and set up 3 heavy field guns at the high point of the place to directly attack the Fixed Battery of the Qing Army located on the Upper Hengban Island, but because the Qing fort was designed to mainly deal with the enemy at sea, coupled with the design flaws, the Qing artillery shooting angle was extremely small and it was impossible to return fire on the British army under the Hengban Island. Interestingly, some Qing generals abandoned their positions and sailed north to escape, and angry Qing soldiers directly fired the first shots at these fleeing generals. On the 26th, the british three warships carried a total of 222 guns and began to attack the Wushan position, that is, the three forts of Weiyuan, Jingyuan and Zhenyuan, after several attempts, the British warships quickly found a tricky angle and distance, avoiding the artillery fire of Jingyuan and Zhenyuan anchored about 400 meters southwest of Weiyuan Battery, this distance was outside the range of the Qing army's temporary battery, and the distance was too close for Weiyuan Fixed Battery, after a long period of shelling, the British Marine troops began to land, and at 2 p.m. on the same day, the three forts fell to Guan Tianpei and died. The troops originally set up in the rear to prevent the British from landing around the rear did not take the initiative to attack until Guan died in battle, and were finally dispersed by the British army.
At the same time as Guan Tianpei was killed in battle, the other six British ships with a total of more than 200 guns have also completed the suppression of the two coastal batteries Yong'an and consolidation, the battery of upper Hengban Mountain has been destroyed by the field artillery of Lower Hengban Mountain, and then the British army landed at each fort to clear the remnants of the Qing army but found that most of them had fled, and the battle ended at 5 p.m. on February 26, the so-called First Coastal Defense Fortress of the Qing Dynasty was captured by the British Expeditionary Fleet within 48 hours, according to later data, the number of British casualties in this battle was zero and only 5 people were slightly wounded.
Guan Tianpei's pre-war design of the tactics was originally to block the attack layer by layer to prevent the British ships from approaching Guangzhou, in short, Guan Tianpei envisioned this operation as a tower defense game, and he never expected that the British army would attack these "towers". Especially under the Hengban Mountain, we can see that the place is so close to the fort on the Upper Hengban Mountain and Guan Tianpei did not arrange the defensive force, this is because he did not understand the tactical idea of seizing the commanding heights and setting up artillery positions in the West, although he also had firearms, but the concept of war was still stuck in the era of cold weapons, this time he did not have the opportunity to sum up the lessons learned, I believe he had the opportunity to evacuate the fort, but he chose to martyr the country, for a general who died heroically, I am not qualified to criticize him. But I still feel sorry that if he can "survive" and continue to sum up experience, then the Qing army will have a higher chance of victory in the next confrontation. However, the fact is that these loyal soldiers who are brave and good at war often choose to coexist and die with the position, they do not have the opportunity to accumulate experience and sum up lessons, and those scum who are greedy for life and afraid of death and blindly flee can always survive, and even later the entire Qing army is controlled by these people.
After the fiasco at Humen, the Daoguang Emperor still failed to recognize the gap in military strength between the two countries, and blamed the cowardice of the commander-in-chief for the defeat, so he sent Yishan to replace Qishan in charge of Guangdong military affairs, and ordered Qishan to be dismissed from his post and escorted to Beijing for trial, while the most important summary of the lessons of the Humen operation was not asked.