On the evening of October 10, 1911 (August 19, 1911), the Wuchang Uprising broke out, kicking off the Xinghai Revolution and sounding the death knell of the Qing Dynasty.
After the Wuchang Uprising broke out, the Qing court panicked and hurriedly ordered the Minister of War Yin Chang to lead the Northern First Army to Hubei to suppress the uprising.
Another general of the Beiyang Army, Feng Guozhang, also led an army south to attack the new armies of the Hankou and Hanyang uprisings.
In order to completely eliminate the new army, the Qing government appointed Yuan Shikai as the prime minister on November 1, 1911.
As we all know, Yuan Shikai was the founder of the Beiyang Army.
It is not difficult to see that the Beiyang Army played an important role in suppressing the Manchu uprising.
During the Xinhai Revolution in 1911, how many troops did the Qing government have in the whole country? Why did you have to use the Beiyang Army to suppress the uprising? How many people were there in the Beiyang Army at that time?
At that time, the Qing government's nationalist army had about 63 people, in addition to the Beiyang Army, there were also the Eight Banner Army and the Qingying State.
The Eight Banner Army was the backbone of the Qing army and consisted of Manchus.
"There are tens of thousands of Manchurian soldiers, and they are invincible."
But later, the military discipline of the Eight Banners Army was lax, corrupt, and degenerate, and it could no longer shoulder heavy responsibilities.
The Green Battalion soldiers are mainly Han Chinese, marked by the Green Flag, and the battalion is the unit, so it is called "Green Battalion Soldiers", independent of the Eight Banner Army.
During the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, there were 66 green battalions in the country, with a total strength of nearly 650,000 people.
The Qingying were all over the country and were the main force of the Qing Dynasty.
Due to the long-term lack of war, the Green Camp was not much better than the Eight Flags Army, and various drawbacks had begun to corrupt, and by the time of the Opium War and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the Eight Flags Army and the Qingying soldiers had become ornaments and lost their combat effectiveness.
At that time, the heavy responsibility of suppressing the Taiping Army was borne by the Xiang Army of Zeng Guofan and the Huai Army of Zuo Zongtang and Li Hongzhang.
Because the Soldiers of the Qingying Battalion were unable to undertake important tasks, they were marginalized by the Qing court and were laid off many times.
Since then, the importance of the green camp has gradually weakened, and after the establishment of the new army in the late Qing Dynasty, the green camp has been reduced to a military force for maintaining local law and order, similar to a police force, and unable to carry out combat tasks.
The Beiyang Army was born after the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, and the Huai Army, which was pinned high hopes by the Qing court at that time, was also defeated and defeated in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895.
After learning the bitter lesson, the Qing government decided to emulate the great powers, "reform the military system, specialize in Western law", and prepare a new modern army to replace the old army.
In March 1895, the Qing government began to train an artillery team in Hebei Horse Farm (later changed to Tianjin Station) according to the German military system, named "Dingwu Army", which was the predecessor of Yuan Shikai's Beiyang Army.
The soldiers of the Beiyang Army had strict conditions for enlistment, the quality of the soldiers was relatively high, and the combat effectiveness was the strongest, which became the main military force relied on by the Qing government.
At first, the Beiyang Army had only a few thousand men, but with continuous expansion, by 1905 it had grown to 6 towns (12,513 people per town), with a total number of more than 70,000 people.
By 1911, the Beiyang Army had 14 towns, 18 mixed associations, 4 targets, and 1 gatekeeper.
At the time of the Wuchang Uprising, the Qing government had more than 100,000 people in the Eight Banner Army, more than 200,000 Green Battalions, more than 200,000 patrol brigades, more than 200,000 new recruits, and a total strength of more than 700,000 people.
The Eight Banner Army and the Green Battalion have low combat effectiveness and cannot be used, and they can only be responsible for maintaining stability in the country.
When the patrol brigade enlisted, the guards were not strict, the fish and dragons were mixed, and many bandits were recruited, and Yanjiao was also organized into a patrol brigade.
As a result, its soldiers are of low quality and have not received professional military training, and many, including junior officers, know nothing about military knowledge.
Almost all of these forces were there to help the government suppress the bandits.
At the same time, these organizations had only infantry and cavalry units, plus a limited number of artillery, and most of the soldiers used 1888 Mauser rifles, which were not as well armed as the Forces nouvelles.
Only three patrol battalions could fight better:
The first was the Guangdong Navy's Li Zhun Department, who wavered in the "national disaster" and declared an uprising in 1911.
An Yijun Jiang Gui inscribed the department, the Hanshu Jiang Gui inscribed Cao Yingxin, and more than 40 northern army generals who were not loyal to the Qing Dynasty and Duan Qirui sent telegrams to the Qing court to forcibly force the Qing Dynasty to "declare China and foreign countries and establish a republican form of government", and the emperor abdicated.
There is also Zhang Xun's department, this person is desperate daqing, after the Wuchang uprising, he was ordered to guard Nanjing, can not go to Wuchang, he wants to rescue the new army of the nine cities.
In short, most patrol battalions could not be counted on.
Therefore, after the outbreak of the Wuchang Uprising, the Qing court could only rely on the Beiyang Army.
In 1909, Yuan Shikai was repatriated to his hometown by the Qing court on suspicion of weight.
In 1911, the Wuchang Uprising broke out. The Qing chancellor Yin Chang led the Beiyang army south to suppress the uprising, but yuan secretly obstructed it, and the order was invalid.
The Qing government had to use Yuan as its chancellor to save the precarious Qing government.
Yuan Shikai had a ghost in his heart, and with the Beiyang Army, he threatened the revolutionary party while exerting pressure on the Qing Emperor, and he eventually forced Xuantong to abdicate, stealing the achievements of the revolution, and he became the biggest winner of the 1911 revolution.