In December 1883, the French army attacked the Black Flag Army and the Qing army garrison in The West of Vietnam, and the Sino-French War officially broke out. The Sino-French War lasted about one and a half years and could be roughly divided into three stages:
(1) Early land warfare: In December 1883, the French launched the Shanxi Campaign against the Black Flag Army and the Qing Army, and in March 1884, they launched the Battle of Beining. On May 11, 1884, Li Hongzhang and French representatives signed the Concise Treaty of the Sino-French Conference in Tianjin, agreeing not to ask any questions about the treaties between France and Vietnam.
(2) In the middle period, land and sea warfare and naval warfare were the mainstay: In June 1884, France and Vietnam signed the second "Hue Treaty". Soon after, the Northern Li Conflict was launched, shelling the Qing troops stationed near Lang Shan. At the same time, France extended the war to the southeast coast of China, and the fleet led by Amédée Courbet reached Fujian and Taiwan. In August 1884, the French army encountered resistance led by Liu Mingchuan in Keelung, Taiwan, and retreated to the sea, and on August 23, it raided the Majiang River in Fuzhou, defeating the Fujian Marine Division and destroying the Mawei Shipyard of the Fuzhou Shipbuilding Bureau. After that, the French army imposed a naval blockade on Taiwan, and once captured Keelung and Tamsui. In March 1885, the French occupied Penghu, but were repulsed in the Battle of Zhenhai, Zhejiang. In June, he died of illness in Penghu.
(3) Later land battles: In March 1885, after the French army captured Lang Shan in Vietnam, it directly attacked the Sino-Vietnamese border, and Feng Zicai, who was nearly ancient, led his army to defeat the French army at Zhennanguan, killing and wounding more than a thousand enemy soldiers, and then swinging his division to restore Lang Shan in one fell swoop. At the same time, Liu Yongfu's Black Flag Army also won in the Lintao area, recovering more than a dozen prefectures and counties. The war situation was greatly reversed after the Battle of Zhennanguan.
China and France are at loggerheads in Vietnam. In December 1883, the French army increased its troops and set out from Hanoi to capture Shanxi, and the Battle of Shanxi marked the official outbreak of the Sino-French War.
The "Liu Ti Du Zhen Shou Bac Ninh Map", which depicts Liu Yongfu leading the Black Flag Army to engage the French army in Bac Ninh east of Hanoi, Vietnam, in 1884. Before and after the official outbreak of the Sino-French War, the Black Flag Army insisted on resisting france.
At the beginning of the war, the French army won successively in Shanxi and Beining. The Qing Dynasty did not want the war to expand, and on May 11, 1884, it sent Li Hongzhang to negotiate with france and sign the Concise Treaty of the Sino-French Conference in Tianjin (see pictured), agreeing not to ask about the treaties signed between France and Vietnam, which was tantamount to recognizing Vietnam as a French protectorate. In June, France forced Vietnam to sign a second Treaty of Hue, negating the Qing Dynasty's suzerainty over Vietnam.
After the initial victory and the victory of the treaty, France took advantage of the victory to launch a larger offensive. In early August 1884, the French fleet attacked Taiwan under the leadership of Gu Ba. On August 5, the French attacked Keelung (see pictured), but was repulsed by Liu Mingchuan, who was in charge of Taiwan's military affairs, which was the first Battle of Keelung.
The French invasion of Taiwan was frustrated and turned to attack Fujian. On August 23, 1884, the French ships raided Mawei in Fuzhou and violently bombarded the ships of the Fujian Marine Division, winning a great victory.
The Battle of Mawei, also known as the Battle of Majiang, was the first major naval battle between China's new naval divisions and foreign navies during the Foreign Affairs Movement. The service was very short, and the Fujian Marine Division was defeated miserably. The French also destroyed the coastal forts and the Mawei Shipyard under the Fuzhou Shipping Bureau, seized the sea control over the Fujian coast and the Taiwan Strait, and threatened Fujian and Taiwan. The war meant that the Western Affairs Movement, which began in 1860, had not been effective in improving China's coastal defenses more than two decades later.
After winning the Battle of Mawei, the French army re-invaded Taiwan and attacked Penghu, once capturing Keelung, Tamsui and Penghu. The picture shows the French warships slamming into Magong Island in Penghu in March 1885.
Although the French navy won victories in Fujian and Taiwan, it was repulsed at the Battle of Zhenhai, Zhejiang. At the same time, the Taiwanese and Penghu military and civilians struggled to resist, which also caused many casualties to the French army. In addition, the French army was plagued by the epidemic, and the commander of the navy, Gu Ba, and many French troops contracted cholera during the occupation of Penghu. In June 1885, he died of illness in Penghu and his body was returned to France.
The French navy has been victorious, and the army has also made progress, gradually advancing north from Vietnam, threatening southern China. The Qing court urgently summoned the retired veteran Feng Zicai to rescue him. Feng Zicai was ordered to carry the coffin out on the expedition to show his determination to resist the law.
Feng Zicai had already been relieved of his army in 1882, and due to the critical situation during the Sino-French War, Zhang Zhidong, the governor of Liangguang, asked him to re-employ the veteran. Feng Zicai, at a rare age in the near past, was ordered to carry the coffin and swear an oath, treating death as a homecoming, and his subordinates were moved and their morale was greatly boosted.
On February 13, 1885, the French army, led by the famous general François Oscar de Négrier, captured Loc Son, a key northern part of Vietnam, and forced the Sino-Vietnamese border fortress town of Nam Kwan. Before attacking Zhennanguan, Nigri did not taste a defeat in his leading career.
From left: Feng Zicai, Zhennanguan, Nigri. Zhennanguan in the Qing Dynasty was the main pass on the Sino-Vietnamese border, known as the "Southern Gate of China", and its strategic position was extraordinary. After Nigri led the French army to capture Langshan, he advanced towards Zhennan Pass, Feng Zicai waited in a strict position, and the big battle was about to break out.
From March 23 to 24, 1885, the Chinese and French armies fought a bloody battle at Zhennanguan. Feng Zicai personally went to the battle to fight and kill, and defeated the French army. The great victory at Zhennanguan reversed the unfavorable situation of the Qing army throughout the war. The Qing army could have taken advantage of the victory to go south, but the Qing court was afraid of war, eager to make peace, and wasted a great warplane in vain.
On March 23, 1885, the forty-six-year-old Nigri took the lead in shelling the town of Nanguan. The next day, the French army attacked in three directions, and Feng Zicai, who was more than twenty years older than Negri and sixty-seven years old, and his two sons risked death to enter the enemy's hand-to-hand combat. When the Qing generals saw the commander as a pioneer, they all bravely rushed to kill. After nigri's successive victories in Vietnam, he thought that he could easily capture Zhennanguan and invade Guangxi, but the Chinese army fought extremely bravely, and after two days of fierce fighting, the French army was in danger of being besieged. In order to avoid encirclement, Nigri quickly led his army to retreat, and suffered the first defeat in his leading career. After the new defeat of the French army, the Qing army fled south, and the Qing army withdrew from Langshan in a hurry before it arrived, and on March 29, the Qing army recaptured Langshan. At the same time, Liu Yongfu's Black Flag Army also won in the Lintao area, recovering more than ten prefectures and counties. France's military defeats were particularly severe, culminating in the downfall of the cabinet of its Prime Minister, Jules François Camille Ferry. Just as Feng Zicai took advantage of the victory to mobilize a large army to prepare for the advance into Hanoi, the Qing court decided to negotiate a peace treaty and ordered the Qing army to stop moving.