preface
I have talked to you before about the Dongxue Party uprising, which triggered the Sino-Japanese invasion of Korea, which led to the Sino-Japanese War, but before that, there were two more battles.
These two battles were two military conflicts between the Qing Dynasty and Japan at sea and on land before the Battle of Jiawu. The outcome of the two wars also ended in the total defeat of the Qing Dynasty.
But at that time, the Qing army's weapons and equipment were not worse than Japan's, so why did it end in a fiasco? From these two battles, can we see the problems exposed by the Qing army?
Today we will talk about the Battle of Toshima and the Battle of Chenghuan.
Battle of Toshima
In the early morning of July 25, 1894, the sky was just dark, and the Qing Dynasty warships Jiyuan and Guangyi, which had completed their military transport tasks, were leisurely driving on the sea of Toshima, at this time the officers and men on board were still immersed in their dreams, but a shell broke all this quiet, and the officers and men who were shelled hurriedly jumped onto the deck, and all this in front of them stunned everyone.
In front of them was the combined Japanese fleet of Yoshino, Nanasu and Akitsuzu flying the sun flag, and the three warships fought without declaring a declaration and firing at gunfire.
In terms of displacement, the Jiyuan and Guangyi together are only more than 3,000 tons, but what about the Japanese warships? The three ships totaled more than 11,000 tons, and they were not opponents of the Japanese warships at all, and now they could not fight and run, so what should they do? I can only fight with them.
At this time, it was necessary to mention the Guangyi pipe belt Cheng Biguang, when he found that the Japanese warships were not good, he immediately organized an effective counterattack. Although the Guangyi is a small boat in front of the Japanese warship, this ship is not small, it is a cruiser produced by the famous Fujian Shipping Bureau, which is Chinese, equipped with torpedoes and rapid-fire guns. Although the caliber is only 47mm, it still does not hesitate to fire a counterattack.
So what is the caliber of the guns of the Japanese warships? Sorry, it's three times bigger than the Guang B. All three Japanese warships were equipped with 150mm rapid-fire guns, and the two sides made a judgment, and the Guangyi was quickly defeated.
Cheng Biguang also knew that the hard fight would definitely not be able to fight, so he ordered the Guangyi to rush at full speed towards the Japanese Yoshino, thinking that he would wait until it was approaching and then sink the ya with a torpedo. But the ideal is very full, the reality is very bone, ah, Guang B has not yet approached the Yoshino, has been beaten by the other two battleships are full of holes, lost the ability to fight.
At the time of the war between the two sides, the British troop carrier Gaosheng, which China had rented, and the Caojiang warship transporting weapons, also came to the surface of the sea of Toshima, and when they saw the battle, without saying a word, the soles of their feet were greased - slipped away.
As a result, all this was seen by the Japanese army, and how could the fat meat on the side of the mouth not be eaten? So the Japanese abandoned the Guangyi, which had been almost destroyed, and turned their heads to pursue the incapacitated Gaosheng and Caojiang ships. Guang B thus avoided the fate of being sunk, left the battlefield, and finally ran aground on the coast.
Speaking of this, everyone will ask: "No, after talking for half a day, it seems that something is missing, yes, there is also a Qing warship?" Have you forgotten? "Friends, it's not that I forgot about it, it's that it ran away early."
It is reasonable to say that the equipment of another battleship, the Jiyuan, is superior to that of the Guangyi, but fang Boqian, who is in charge, not only did not counterattack at the first time, but also slipped away when the Japanese warships pursued the Gaosheng.
But the Yoshino will not let it go so easily, and it will chase it all the way, what to do? Hang up the white flag, hang the white flag is not good, still chase, then hang the Japanese flag, chase. In the end, Fang Boqian really had no choice but to order the artillery to return fire, which was able to get rid of the pursuit of the Yoshino.
On the other hand, although the Japanese Langyu caught up with the Gaosheng, the Gaosheng was after all an English ship. By the way, the captain of this Nanasu was the later Japanese admiral, Heihachiro Togo, known as the "God of War".
Heihachiro Togo did not want to, and felt that there was no need to live with the British, so he sent a small boat to the British captain of the Takashi and said, "Your ship, the Empire of Japan, wants to conduct a routine inspection, please come with us." ”
But there were still more than nine hundred Qing officers and soldiers on the ship, and the leader was named Gao Jishan, who was certainly not willing to go with the Japanese. But the Captain of England said that the fight between your two countries is not my business, I don't want the boat, let me go. Gao Jishan grabbed the British captain, small sample, want to go can not go, you foreigners are gone, little Japan is not minutes to send us to feed the fish.
As a result, the two sides stalemated from nine o'clock in the morning to one o'clock in the afternoon. Later, the Japanese may have been really bored, so they suddenly fired a torpedo at the Gaosheng, and the torpedo did not explode, which made both sides very embarrassed. Whew. As a result, the "unarmed" Gao Sheng was sunk, and all the more than nine hundred Qing officers and soldiers were buried in the sea except for 200 survivors.
By the way, the British captain jumped into the sea and escaped at the beginning of the war, and was finally fished by the Japanese.
On the other side, the Fully Equipped Caojiang Ship did not escape the clutches of the Japanese, and the entire ship of equipment was pocketed by the Japanese, of course, they will appear on the battlefield of Jiawu in the near future.
This was the famous Battle of Toshima in history, which ended in the fiasco of the Great Qing Dynasty.
But the Japanese would never just fight a naval battle, and their target was the Chinese army stationed in North Korea.
Battle of Chenghuan
No. 25 had just finished the Battle of Toshima, and on the 28th the Japanese army attacked the Qing Dynasty officers and soldiers stationed at Asan in Korea.
Stationed in Asan was Ye Zhichao, who was sent by the Guangxu Emperor to suppress the Dongxue Party uprising, and he had more than 3,800 Huai troops under his command, all of whom were Li Hongzhang's concubines. The Japanese sent General Yoshimasa Oshima and his four thousand Japanese troops.
If you go to this place in Asan now, you will find that There is nothing in Asan and it is easy to attack and difficult to defend, so Ye Zhichao's subordinate Nie Shichenghe persuaded him to abandon Asan and ambush Cheng Huanyi near Asan and catch little Japan off guard.
But Ye Zhichao didn't think so, he felt that the large troops of the Qing army were in Pyongyang, so why did I play with the Japanese in the place of Chenghuan, so he said to Nie Shicheng: "Well, you say fight, you stay to fight, I will support behind you." ”
In fact, it is reasonable to say that at that time, this unit was equipped with the same burst gun, and was supported by Gatlin and Armstrong guns, what were the Japanese on the opposite side holding? Or the American Civil War with the remaining broken single-shot rifles, and three thousand eight to four thousand, the number is not too bad, coupled with the favorable terrain of chenghuan this place, it can be said that it is very promising to win.
But we don't know what Lao Ye thought, and he had an iron heart to go back, so he left two thousand people for Nie Shicheng and ran away to Gongzhou with a cigarette. As a result, the advantage becomes a disadvantage, and in the end, it can only be defeated. What about good support? When Nie Shicheng arrived in Gongzhou, he found that Ye Zhixin had run away early.
This was the two fiascos of the Qing army at sea and on land before the Battle of Jiawu officially began.
Careful analysis is not difficult to find that these two wars have a very similar scene, what is it? The Lord will flee and the Vice will meet the enemy. The Jiyuan pipe led Fang Boqian to run, and the Guangyi pipe took Chen Biguang to meet the enemy; Ye Zhichao ran, leaving Nie Shicheng to fight and block. We have all heard of such a saying: "Soldiers bear one, will bear a nest", the big war is about to run first, and if you can win the battle, you will see the devil.
epilogue
If the Battle of Toshima was because of the Japanese sneak attack, plus our warships were indeed not as good as others, and it was reasonable to lose, then the Battle of Chenghuan really threw away the face of the old ancestors.
We know that whether it is modern warfare or ancient warfare, it is about tactics and strategy. If we weren't wearing military uniforms, and thought it was a social hooligan fighting group fight, you beat yours, I beat mine, there was no cooperation between each other, then what kind of battle would there be, set up a ring one-on-one It is not fragrant?
Even if it is a group fight, we can't fight it. You said that guns and cannons are all foreign things, so that you are not used to it, that big knife and spear will always work, the result is that you can stand up for a while without fighting a white-knife battle, and once you put on the bayonet, the warriors of the Great Qing will lose even more miserably.
Let's just impress the family a little, that is, the queue is uniform, the military posture can stand straight, and the positive step can be kicked well. Such an army was pulled to the battlefield of Jiawu, and the result could be imagined.
On the battlefield of Jiawu, more problems have been exposed again, and if you have the opportunity in the future, you will talk to you about the Battle of Jiawu.
Author: Our special invited author Kang Jiahua