There are more cattle than they are
On October 25, 1894, the Japanese army chasing Ye Zhichao launched a general attack on the Qing army on the Yalu River, and at noon the river defense began to collapse, and the Qing army was defeated on all fronts, which was the second crushing defeat of the army after the Battle of Pyongyang.
The Pyongyang fiasco declared the bankruptcy of the strategy of "fighting a decisive battle outside the country". Li Hongzhang reported the situation to the imperial court and put forward a new strategic plan, which was simply to "keep the enemy out of the country" and strive to keep the Japanese army east of the Yalu River. In this letter, Li Hongzhang seems to have some emotions.
He said that before the war, everyone did not take Japan seriously and thought that the small countries of the East were not to be feared, but what about now? Moreover, the Beiyang Navy and Army were really more than willing to fight against the Japanese Navy and Army, and the Beiyang Army Defense Force had already been completely evacuated, and for the sake of today's plan, it could only strictly defend the Bohai Sea, defend the Beijing Division, fortify the northeast, and hold Shenyang.
There were two things that the imperial court was most worried about: one was Beijing, and the other was Shenyang. Shenyang is the nest, Beijing is the nest, and they are the lifeblood of the imperial court. Once the Japanese army crossed the Yalu River, not only would the land of Longxing in the three northeastern provinces not be protected, but also the Shanhaiguan could threaten Beijing, so the imperial court personally went out to form the Yalu River defense line this time.
The Yalu River defense line gathered heavy troops and strong generals, Ye Zhichao was dismissed and taken to Beijing, and Song Qing held the post of commander. The troops defending the river were mainly composed of four parts: first, the Pyongyang corps that followed Ye Zhichao back and the garrison troops along the back road of Pyongyang also ran back, with more than 14,000 people; second, Liu Shengxiu's Ming army, which was escorted by the Beiyang Fleet to Dadonggou on 16 September, with more than 4,000 people, who were originally going to reinforce Pyongyang, but Pyongyang lost them before they went ashore and just joined the Yalu River; third, more than 3,000 people brought by Heilongjiang General Iktanga; and fourth, more than 2,000 people brought by Song Qing from Lushun. The total number of troops on the four routes is more than 23,000.
Don't remember this, because the Battle of the Yalu River is similar to the Battle of Pyongyang, both were defeated, and they were defeated very quickly and badly. The decisive battle of Pyongyang took less than a day, and the complete collapse of the defense line on the Yalu River took only one day, and it took only three days to include the small-scale battles on the front.
Judging from the comparison of forces, the battle of the Yalu River should not have been lost so quickly. Attacking the defense line of the Yalu River was the Japanese First Army, consisting of the 3rd and 5th divisions, and the commander was the Minister of War, General Yama Prefecture Aritomo. The First Army, with a total of 30,000 men, had a slight advantage in numbers. But people are playing away, and they are tired from afar, and the logistics can't keep up. Although the Qing army suffered a loss in numbers, it was playing at home, and the commanders were all well-known bulls, two of whom were the best.
Song Qing, the governor of Sichuan, is from Yipin, on the same level as Ye Zhichao, and is a general who fought from a small soldier. His troops were the most capable elite division under Li Hongzhang, and they had been stationed in the Lushun land battery group, responsible for defending Lushun and the Beiyang Fleet. This time, the Qing government was ruthless and dug up his troops, and this practice of digging the east wall to make up for the west wall laid a huge hidden danger for the loss of Lushun. This year, Song Qing was 75 years old, his hair and beard were gray, and he was called "white-haired general" by the Japanese army, but his body was still very tough, and he took the young man to do pre-war preparations in the ice and snow all day long, and was deeply loved by the officers and soldiers.
Song Qing, the governor of Sichuan
Although Heilongjiang General Iktanga is a banner man, he also fought all the way from small soldiers in the war. His troops are the most capable of fighting in the northeast, so this time he was specially transferred to the nearest area. The "general" here is an official position in the Qing Dynasty, which is equivalent to a commander, from a product.
It stands to reason that these two cattle people should be able to become better in theory, but in fact, cattle people may not be good when they get together. Both of them are from the same product, who will be the commander? That's a problem. The Qing government thought about it, since you are at the same level, then you should all be commanders, and this is how trouble comes.
Everyone is from the same product, they are all former enemy commanders-in-chief, who is in command of whom? In terms of age, Song Qing is older and should listen to him, but Yiketanga is a Manchurian, according to the rules of the Qing Dynasty's officialdom, the officials of the Eight Banners are half a level higher, and Song Qing should listen to him, so that the two sides are even. In that case, who will call the shots? It's a nuisance. After discussion, the two cattle men came up with a way that they thought was very good, they divided the defense line of the Yalu River into two sections, Song Qing guarded the southern section, and Yiketang Ah guarded the northern section, and put the troops in a long snake formation. In this way, no one has to command anyone, just manage their own defense area, and it seems that this method is not bad, but in fact there is a big loophole, and a huge crisis lurks in it.
It is very stupid to fortify the entire line, because the number of troops is insufficient, and the battle line has to be stretched so long, especially since the junction between the north and south sections has become a two-sided zone, which has become the weakest link in the entire defense line, and this is the biggest loophole in the sectional fortification. The Japanese army saw this vacancy, so they decided to start from this weakness, smuggled in a place called the mouth of the Ping'an River, successfully tore a gap in the defense line of the Yalu River, and then attacked the Qing army point by point, successively captured Hushan, Jiuliancheng and Andong, and the defense line of the Yalu River collapsed on the whole line. The Song Qing Army and the Iketanga Army were composed of troops from all over the country, lacking unified command, some fought well, some ran fast, once such a defense line was torn apart, it could not hold on, the two commanders had to retreat in three ways, the Japanese army was in hot pursuit, and the war spread in the land of Liaodong.
In addition to the lack of unified command, there was another important reason why the Battle of the Yalu River was lost so quickly, that is, Ye Zhichao's corps, which returned from the disastrous defeat in Pyongyang, affected the morale of the front. Morale is like a flu, although it can't be seen or touched, it is very fast and deadly. Fighting a war is momentum, there is a word called momentum like a bamboo, which is the truth, and there is a sentence called defeat like a mountain, which also means this. It's really important to play well at the start.
Since the Ming Dynasty's attack on Korea was frustrated, "drinking horses and Yalu River" has become a mantra for many Japanese, and this time they finally got their wish, successfully stepping into Chinese territory for the first time, and realizing the dream that had lasted for more than 300 years since Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Youpeng of Shanxian County commanded the First Army to pursue the Qing army in the Liaohe Plain, threatening to capture the northeast, enter the Guannei, occupy Beijing, and capture the emperor alive.
Both the Pyongyang and Yalu battles were battles between armies, but they had a significant impact on the Beiyang Fleet. In order to organize these two battles, Li Hongzhang and the imperial court successively transferred a large number of elite coastal defense from the Bohai Rim region, which caused a great emptiness in coastal defense. More importantly, the vulnerability of the Qing Dynasty army also foreshadowed the final defeat of the Beiyang Fleet, because both bases of the Beiyang Fleet had a weakness, that is, the emptiness of land defense.
It is no exaggeration to say that the total annihilation of the Beiyang Fleet, with the exception of the Combined Fleet, the Japanese Army played at least half of the role. In other words, the downfall of the Beiyang Fleet was not due to the strength of the Combined Fleet, but because of the Qing Dynasty
The Korean Army is too useless. Li Hongzhang had clearly pointed out this point before the war, which is also an important reason why he repeatedly avoided the war, but unfortunately many people can't see this.
The army fights the navy
While the Japanese army was pursuing the Qing army in the Liaodong Plain, the base camp planned and carried out another major military operation, which was specifically aimed at the Beiyang Fleet.
Although the Combined Fleet inflicted heavy losses on the Beiyang Fleet in the Battle of the Yellow Sea, it failed to completely annihilate the Beiyang Fleet, especially the Dingyuan and Zhenyuan still posed a great threat to the Combined Fleet.
However, the Combined Fleet found that it was impossible for the Navy alone to accomplish this task, because the Beiyang Fleet was staying at the Lushun base, and it was impossible for the Combined Fleet to defeat Lushun.
Lushun Base is known as the first fortress in the Far East, and it was one of the three major fortresses in the world at that time, and Li Hongzhang devoted a lot of effort here. Both sides of the base were lined with powerful coastal batteries, all of which were Krupp cannons imported from Germany. If it attacks head-on from the sea, even if it can win, the combined fleet will have to pay a heavy price, and this kind of loss-making business cannot be done.
In the book describing the First Sino-Japanese War, many people criticized Li Hongzhang for passively avoiding the battle after the Battle of the Yellow Sea, avoiding the enemy and protecting the ship, which led to the crushing defeat of the Beiyang Fleet. Realistically speaking, avoiding the enemy and protecting the ship was actually the only sensible choice at that time. At this time, the Beiyang Fleet was undergoing overhaul and could not go to sea to fight at all, so Li Hongzhang ordered Ding Ruchang to rush to repair the warship and bluff to make the Combined Fleet have some scruples.
Although the Japanese army was anxious to fight a decisive battle again, the Beiyang Fleet hid in Lushun and could not come out, so what could it do?
After research, the Japanese army found a strange way, that is, to use the army to fight the Beiyang Fleet. Japan had a total of 7 divisions of the army (that is, 3.5 armies), and one army fought the Qing Dynasty army from Korea to northeast China. Since the Qing Dynasty army was so incompetent, it was just right to use the remaining army to deal with the Beiyang Fleet.
Is there a mistake in using the army to fight the navy?
Could they have been able to sneak into Port Arthur like the heroes of Liangshan, scuttle through the bottom of the Beiyang Fleet, and let them sink into the sea? This is of course impossible. Liangshan Shui Bo is a wooden ship, and the Beiyang Fleet is an ironclad ship. However, Japan did defeat the Chinese navy with its army, and this was the only way to do it.
The Japanese base camp decided to divide the troops into two routes, the First Army, composed of the Third and Fifth Divisions, continued to attack the Liaodong Peninsula, pursued the Song Qing Corps, and the 1st Division, the 2nd Division, and the 6th Division were mixed into the 12th Brigade to form the Second Army, which attacked the rear of the Lushun base by land, and cooperated with the combined fleet attacking from the sea, to capture Lushun and destroy the Beiyang Fleet. In this way, not only can they monopolize the control of the sea, but they can also use Lushun as a base to transport troops to land on the Zhili Plain to attack Beijing. The formation of a division and regiment of the Japanese army is generally composed of two infantry brigades and regiments, plus cavalry, artillery, engineer and other arms and auxiliary facilities, which can independently carry out large-scale combat missions, generally more than 10,000 people. A regular brigade of the Japanese army is generally three or four thousand people, and the mixed brigade is a reinforced brigade composed of infantry and artillery arms, similar to independent brigades and integrated brigades, and the number can reach seven or eight thousand. So the strength of the Second Army was close to 3 divisions and 30,000 people.
As mentioned earlier, long before the First Sino-Japanese War, Japanese spies had carried out detailed reconnaissance of China, and Lushun was one of their key reconnaissance targets. After reconnaissance and analysis, they found that although the Lushun base was built strongly, it had a fatal weakness, that is, it emphasized coastal defense and light land defense, and the attack force of coastal batteries was quite strong, but the land batteries and guard forces were relatively weak, and if they attacked Lushun with the army, they would be able to encircle the Beiyang Fleet with the navy, and even if they did not fight at that time, they could starve to death if they were hungry.
So the Second Army landed from Huayuankou and took a detour to the back of Lushun and launched the Battle of the Golden Brigade. Lushun is the throat of the Bohai Sea, Jinzhou is the throat of Lushun's back road, and Dalian Bay is the barrier of Lushun's back road, and Jinzhou is a corner of each other, to capture Lushun, you must first take Jinzhou and Dalian Bay. How was the Battle of the Golden Brigade fought? It can be described in 4 words: a failure. The impression left on the Japanese army is also four words: vulnerable.
The Japanese army began to land at Huayuankou on 24 October and did not complete the landing until 7 November, and the landing activities lasted for nearly half a month. Friends who have played the game of beach-grabbing landing warfare know that it is very refreshing to set up artillery on the coast to bombard the landing troops, so why didn't Li Hongzhang arrange for the troops to come to the garden mouth to cool off? It's not that I don't want to, but I can't. Although Li Hongzhang knew that the Japanese army was going to land on the Liaodong Peninsula, he didn't know where the specific location was. The more important reason was that he had no soldiers in his hands, so he could only watch the Japanese army go ashore gracefully.
After the Japanese army went ashore, they went south to fight Jinzhou, because Jinzhou had to fight. But Golden State is difficult to fight because of the terrain. Someone once played a very vivid analogy, saying that the Liaodong Peninsula south of Jinzhou is like a curly heart lotus leaf lying on the blue waves, Lushun is in the southernmost part of the lotus leaf, and Jinzhou is just in the position of the lotus stem, and behind it is the narrowest area of the Liaodong Peninsula, only 6 miles wide, so Jinzhou is the legendary "one husband is the pass, ten thousand people are not open" strategic place. The Japanese army estimated that Jinzhou would be more difficult to fight, so they did not start immediately, but waited until November 6 to launch a general attack. The headquarters of the Second Army was not aware of the deployment of the Qing army, so it first sent 6 spies ashore to reconnoitre, these 6 spies were either from Hankou Leshantang or students who graduated from the Nissin Trade Research Institute, and they were all subordinates of the godfather of Japanese spies, Arao Sei.
Due to the Qing army's intensified counter-espionage work, these six people were not too smooth, four were captured alive, one of them escaped by chance, and a lot of important information was sent to the headquarters. Jinzhou was captured by the Japanese army in less than a day, mainly because the disparity in strength was too great. Garrisoned in Jinzhou was the deputy capital of Lian Shun, with only more than 500 people in his hands. In addition to the 6 battalions of recruits recruited by Xu Bangdao, there were only more than 3,000 people in total, although Xu Bangdao, the general soldier of Zhengding Town, fought relatively well, he led the troops to take the initiative to attack and block the Japanese army on Jinzhou Avenue, and the battle was very fierce, but after all, it could not stop the strong Japanese army from moving south.
After fighting Jinzhou, the Japanese army continued to move south, and the next thing to fight was Dalian Bay. Dalian Bay must also be fought, and it is not easy to fight. You should still remember that after the military parade in Lushun, Prince Alcohol once pointed out that it was necessary to strengthen the defense of Dalian Bay to prevent the Japanese army from landing here and detouring back to the back road of Lushun, and this suggestion was very correct. Dalian Bay is located in the south of Jinzhou, is the last barrier of Lushun, the terrain is quite dangerous, the harbor faces southeast, there are three mountain islands in front of the front, there are mountains around the left and right, there are two small peninsulas stretching out to the harbor, the left is the monk island, the right has the old dragon island, it is a place that is easy to defend and difficult to attack. Li Hongzhang took this place as a key project to build, is the supporting project of the Lushun base, before and after more than ten years, in the monk island and Laolong Island to build 5 coastal forts, the back road also built a land battery, a total of 38 large and small artillery, if you land from here, the fight is definitely more enjoyable than the game. The Japanese army knew that Dalian Bay could not be provoked, and of course they would not be stupid to come here to land as cannon fodder for the Qing army, so they chose to land at Huayuankou, but in order to fight Lushun, they must first take Dalian Bay, the roadblock.
The day after the capture of Jinzhou, the Japanese launched an attack on Dalian Bay, where they believed that there would be a fierce battle. But what awaited them was almost an "empty city", and the Japanese army almost encountered resistance, and the entire Dalian Bay was trampled under their feet without bloodshed, and with zero casualties. Where are all the soldiers here? This place was originally guarded by Liu Shengxiu's Ming army, but it had been transferred to Dadonggou to reinforce Pyongyang, so it was empty, which was the result of demolishing the east wall to make up the west wall.
Liu Shengxiu, the commander of the Ming army, left, Dalian Bay was handed over to Zhao Huaiye, the second-in-command commander-in-chief, the veterans were basically taken away, Zhao Huaiye had to be forced to recruit new soldiers, recruited more than 3,000 people, in the face of the menacing Japanese army, Zhao Huaiye took the recruits to Lushun with a smoke, and gave Dalian Bay to the Japanese army, Zhao Huaiye did not forget to bring the silver when he left, and a large number of weapons and ammunition were generously given to the Japanese army as trophies. The Dalian Bay Fortress that Li Hongzhang painstakingly built later became a transit point for the Japanese army's material delivery, which is like saving money to buy a machine gun to defend against robbers, only to give it to the robbers and become a weapon that continues to harm you.
Jinzhou is gone, Dalian Bay is gone, and only Lushun remains. From the point of view of military science, the Battle of Arthur is a very classic fortress attack battle, where is the classic, to put it mildly, this is probably the fastest falling well-known fortress in the world.
At first, the Japanese army thought that Lushun would definitely be much more difficult to fight than Jinzhou and Dalian Bay, so the Second Army prepared for the worst and formed a death squad of 1,500 people, ready to exchange Lushun for a heavy price. Lushun is the base of the Beiyang Fleet built by Li Hongzhang, with the largest shipyard in China, and the situation here is dangerous, surrounded by half-moon-shaped mountains on three sides, and a huge coastal battery has been built on the mountain. One of the most majestic and spectacular is the Golden Mountain Battery, which not only has a long range, but is also the most advanced 360° rotating free cannon, which can go around the track in a circle, no matter which direction you attack. In addition, there were 6 large fort groups built on the mountains behind the road, and some temporary batteries were later built, with a total of 78 large and small artillery pieces.
Therefore, theoretically speaking, Lushun is easy to defend and difficult to attack, and it is impregnable, so it has won many titles of thunderers, such as the first fortress in the Far East, the first fortress in the East, one of the three major fortresses in the world, and so on. At that time, many warships of the Western powers were moored near Lushun to watch the battle, and they thought that it would take at least 3 years to defeat Lushun, but the results were shocking, how long did it take for the Japanese army to defeat Lushun?
The answer is 1 day.
The Japanese launched a general offensive in the early morning of November 21, and occupied the entire Lushun that night, and the death squads were not used, with only more than 400 casualties. How could the Lushun base, known as the impregnable wall, be so vulnerable and taken by the Japanese army so easily?
When Li Hongzhang built the Lushun base, he had already found that the back road was weak and a huge hidden danger, so he later built a large number of land forts, and arranged for Song Qing, the governor of Sichuan, to lead the elite troops of Beiyang to guard here. The problem is, not long ago, Song Qing's troops were transferred by the Qing government to the Yalu River to block the Japanese army, and the troops who filled in the defense here were newly recruited recruits, and some of them couldn't even fire guns, so how could they be the opponents of the well-trained Japanese army?
Song Qing is gone, but Lushun is not an empty city, and the number of troops is not too small, at least not so little that it can only last for one day. There are many reasons why Lushun lost easily, and I think there are three main reasons. The first is that the veterans have been poached, and they can only recruit new recruits to come up. Prince Alcohol said that the Huai army was not enough, but the court had to cut it later, and Li Hongzhang begged bitterly, so he gave up. He also said that the strength of the Lushun rear road is weak and needs to be strengthened, and it has not been implemented. Now is the time to fulfill the prophecy, but Prince Alcohol is no longer alive at this time, otherwise he would have had mixed feelings for the foresight of the past.
The most critical reason is the second reason, there are generals and no commanders, which can be regarded as a reversion of the Pyongyang campaign.
Let's take a look at Lushun's forces first. Defending the coastal fort were Huang Shilin, the named commander, and Zhang Guangqian, the named commander-in-chief, who originally had 3 battalions each, but later expanded each to 1 battalion, with a total of 8 battalions and more than 4,000 people. Since the Japanese army attacked by land from behind, the focus of the Qing army's defense was also placed here. After Song Qing's Yi army was dug up one after another, there were three armies to fill the back road: the new army Guizi Army recruited by Jiang Guidi, the general soldier of Linyuan Town, and the new army and the word army recruited by Cheng Yunhe, the named commander, each with 4 battalions, a total of 8 battalions and 4,000 people; There are more than 3,000 people in 5 battalions of the Named Admiral Wei Rucheng Chengzi Army, which is the general reserve of the Lushun rear road. Later, there were two defeated troops: 1,400 people from the general Xu Bangdao Gong Guard Army who retreated from Jinzhou, and 1,800 Huaizi Army under Zhao Huaiye's subordinate division who retreated from Dalian Bay without a fight. There are more than 10,000 people in these 5 ways, so you don't need to remember so many numbers, it's enough to know that this is a group of miscellaneous recruits.
In this way, there are nearly 15,000 people in Lushun, and the second army of the Japanese army is 30,000 people, 1:2. Originally, I saw that there were often examples of winning more with less in history, and I didn't feel too much, but after watching the land battles of the First Sino-Japanese War, I realized that I was wrong. In fact, those who can win more with less are super bulls, such as Cao Cao in the Battle of Guandu and Lu Xun in the Battle of Yiling, who defeated their opponents N times as many as themselves, and they are all well-deserved super bulls, because the First Sino-Japanese War tells us that it is impossible to defeat an enemy with equal strength, and it is simply a fantasy to win more with less. Lushun soldiers are less, and we don't expect to win more with less, but we can always fight it. Coupled with the advantages of strong fortifications, fierce forts, and home battles, even if we don't fight again, we don't expect to fight for 3 years, we can always withstand it in 3 months, and then don't do it for 3 days, right? But it only lasted 1 day.
Sometimes we often use the term "generals" to describe the strength of the army, and it is certainly good to have a large number of soldiers, but it is not necessarily a general. The problem in Lushun is that there are too many generals, it turns out that there are 5 here, Jiang Guidi, Zhang Guangqian, Cheng Yunhe, Huang Shilin, Wei Rucheng, 3 named commanders, 1 named general soldier, 1 general soldier; Later, two more general soldiers, Xu Bangdao and Zhao Huaiye, a total of 7, 1 more than Pyongyang. You don't need to remember the names of these people, anyway, as long as you know a little, that is, there are many generals in Lushun, so many that people can't remember them.
By the way, the so-called registered general soldier and named commander are the nominal general soldier and the nominal admiral, which is similar to the meaning of adding the general rank and the rank of admiral, that is, you have the qualifications to be a general soldier or a commander, but now there is no position, so you have to be wronged first, registered, and do some work at a lower level first, but enjoy the treatment of the general soldier or the admiral, and there will be vacancies in the future. Lushun is still facing the old problem that has appeared before, that is, there are too many cattle people, according to the previous experience, more cattle people are not more cattle, but not cattle, Yalu River is two, Pyongyang is 6, here are 7, so compared to the previous to be even less cattle, not to mention that these people are not cattle people in the first place. Because these people are of the same rank, they do not belong to each other, and they go their own way, and they are scattered.
Strange to say, the problem of always being in command is difficult to solve. Pyongyang elected Ye Zhichao and Yalu Jiang as two commanders, but in fact, they did not have commanders. As the saying goes, if you eat a trench, you will grow wise, and it is said that Li Hongzhang and the imperial court should learn a lesson, but this time he still did not designate a commander. Because in his opinion, Lushun has a commander, this person is Gong Zhaoxi, the former enemy camp office in Lushun and the general manager of the dock project, and his position is translated as the commander-in-chief of the former enemy in Lushun and the commander of the Lushun base, so it is justified for him to command all walks of life in Lushun. But this person's talent and character are not this material, and he can't pick up this beam. On November 6, the night of the fall of Jinzhou, Commander Gong called a torpedo boat to Yantai and hid in the name of transporting grain and grass. After being denounced, he continued to run and went to Tianjin to ask Li Hongzhang for help.
As a result, he was scolded by Lao Li and forced him to return to Lushun immediately to take responsibility for leadership. Commander Gong led this run to have a chain effect, the dock workers ran away, the business people ran away, the flood and drought mine students ran away, the ordnance bureau ran away, and the captain of the drought mine team also ran away with 4 small soldiers after destroying the facilities.
It can be seen that Gong Zhaoyu is quite bad, but Lao Li just won't get off his post and insists on making him the commander. Everyone must ask why, in fact, just look at his resume to understand. Gong Zhaoxi, a native of Hefei, Anhui Province, couldn't pass the exam after taking the Xiucai exam, so he couldn't be an official. But it doesn't matter, the family is from a big family, and the family has money, so if you can't pass the exam, you can buy it, and you will buy it until you are a Taoist, and you will be reused after being put into Li Hongzhang's door. First, it was the general office of the Lushun dock project, and later it would run the Beiyang coastal land and water camp office. To put it in layman's terms, he was the contractor foreman of the Lushun base, and later became the deputy director of the logistics department of the Beiyang Navy (the director is the general office). In the end, Lao Li still can't get rid of that bad problem, he likes to use his hometown people and his own people, so he has been planting his heels in this place.
Huang Tifang criticized him back then, and it was not completely unreasonable to say that he liked to use "佥人" (meaning villain). Throughout the Sino-Japanese War, ineffective commanders were always a problem. On the contrary, Japan has a strong command from top to bottom, every army has a strong commander, and the soldiers regard obedience as their duty very well, so they are able to command with ease, pointing where to fight, showing a strong sense of power, and this sense of power is a strong combat effectiveness.
The generals in Lushun looked down on Gong Zhaoyu and were unwilling to listen to his command, so they discussed getting someone to be the commander. It was Jiang Gui who was publicly promoted, but this person was promoted from an ordinary soldier, illiterate, talentless, difficult to take on a big responsibility, and it was in vain to push it, if Xu Bangdao was pushed, the situation would be better. Jiang Guidi did nothing except ask Li Hongzhang for help. Where are the troops in Li Hongzhang's hands to send, the troops that were previously transferred are busy dealing with the Japanese First Army at this time. So the generals of Lushun returned to fortify everywhere and stubbornly defended the forts. This style of play still follows the style of passive beating since the beginning of the war, and the result can be imagined. Xu Bangdao was the only one who had some ideas, he advocated pulling the troops out to fight, but the others didn't do it, so they finally pulled Wei Rucheng up, and the two of them led the troops to Tuchengzi to block the Japanese army, and the result was really a "big victory".
On November 18, Xu Bangdao brought the Gongwei Army, and Wei Rucheng brought the Chengzi Army, adding up to more than 4,000 people, and came to Tuchengzi on the back road of Lushun, and happened to meet the Japanese cavalry search team, with hundreds of cavalry. After the two sides met, the cavalry team felt very strange, some time ago the Qing army ran when they saw the Japanese army, and this Qing army not only did not run, but seemed to be attacking. Sure enough, the Qing army began to attack, and at that time, the Qing army had an advantage in numbers and launched an encirclement of the Japanese army, but the Japanese army was defeated and had to break through. Xu Bangdao ordered the Qing army to pursue the victory. At this time, the Japanese advance army arrived, there was an infantry wing, a cavalry squadron and an artillery squadron, as well as an engineer brigade, that is, an infantry regiment, a cavalry company, an artillery company, and an engineer battalion. The two sides continued to fight, and the fierce fighting lasted for several hours. The Japanese fought very hard, and even the corpses and wounded did not have time to carry away before they fled all the way north, and those Japanese soldiers who were wounded and could not walk had to raise their swords and kill themselves.
The Qing army rushed up and cut off the head on the corpse. At that time, the Qing government implemented a reward system of exchanging the head for silver, 50 taels of silver for a head, and 60 taels in some places, so everyone competed to cut. Xu Bangdao still wanted to catch up and continue to fight, but at this time it was already 4 o'clock in the afternoon, and the soldiers were hungry for 6 hours, but they didn't bring the cooking guys, and they didn't bring the tents for camping, and Gong Zhaoyu didn't send troops to reinforce them, so Xu Bangdao had to give up the important place of Tuchengzi and return to Lushun. The Qing army claimed to have killed more than 1,000 Japanese soldiers, and according to the statistics released by the Japanese army afterwards, the Japanese suffered 55 casualties in this battle, which was quite impressive at the time. Tuchengzi's victory can be regarded as a big and small victory, although the victory is small, but it shows a big truth, only by attacking can we win, and we can only lose if we defend it. Although the victory was not large, according to the Japanese themselves, it was a big blow to their morale.
So they were angry and angry, and later they found that the heads of the Japanese corpses were cut off and hung up for public display, they did not know the reward system of the Qing army, and thought it was an insult to them, so they decided to carry out a massacre revenge in Lushun.
In the Battle of the Golden Brigade, and even in all the land battles of the First Sino-Japanese War, Xu Bangdao left a very deep impression on me, because he was a very special general. At that time when the wind of stubborn defense and hard fighting prevailed, his sense of initiative was very eye-catching. The day before the Japanese army launched a general attack, he led his troops to take the initiative to attack with Wei Rucheng, and was finally defeated because he was outnumbered. What followed was a dull and tragic positional battle, the land batteries were lost one after another, the defenders broke through one after another, and Gong Zhaoxi was even more unwilling, and fled to Yantai in a fishing boat. Afterwards, he was sentenced to death by the Qing government for "the crime of commanding the army and the commander of the fortress", but this guy had the money, bought off the government, and saved his life. The soldiers of the land batteries still fought very hard, but the coastal batteries were different. Huang Shilin, the defender of the east bank fort, fled without a fight, and Zhang Guangqian, who was guarding the west bank, was alone, so he had to take advantage of the night to break through and retreat north, and Lushun fell so far. Afterwards, except for Xu Bangdao, the remaining 6 Lushun generals were all held accountable, either dismissed, beheaded, or raided, which can be regarded as a pot.
Speaking of which, I can't help but think of Tolstoy's famous saying that happy families are all alike, and unhappy families have their own misfortunes. In fact, the reasons for the defeat of the land war in the First Sino-Japanese War are always similar, and it always feels like history is repeating itself. Compared with the Battle of Pyongyang and the Battle of the Yalu River, the reason for the defeat of the Golden Brigade can be said to be "the same and small", and the "Datong" has been finished.
To be continued