Chapter 404 The Truth About the Battle of Bali Bridge
Li Hongzhang said with a smile: "Well, Officer Cheng said it very well. A war is full of variables, and the response and determination of the commander at the front are also key. It is not advisable to make generalizations. There are too many variables on the battlefield, and it depends on how the commander responds. .When the enemy changes, we will change. It is true to anticipate the enemy's opportunities, but being good at hiding one's shortcomings and giving full play to one's strengths is the quality that a qualified commander should have. A general is not omnipotent and is a superstitious god of war. , it is better to be good at commanding one's own troops. Victory starts from a local area and slowly changes to the overall initiative. A complete victory that can be defeated in one blow is just an imaginary result. The thoughts of hard fighting, fierce fighting, and deadly fighting must be instilled in the mind, and the positive attitude In a duel, you must first attack tentatively, and you must not bet all your money at the beginning. You are all future commanders, and you have different ideas before the war, but as long as the supreme commander issues an order, it must be carried out unconditionally. The supreme commander can Do you want to fight a war with your head slapped? No. He needs you to report the true situation on the battlefield to him. What he gets is the real battlefield situation, so that he can formulate a correct combat plan. If the commander at the front tells lies, he will be killed. Countless comrades-in-arms. This is what I want to say. Soldiers must tell the truth. Soldiers who deceive their superiors are committing crimes and must be governed by military law."
"Yes! Tell the truth!" The classroom shouted in unison. The Xinwu Hall system does not allow telling lies. It becomes a habit and the school officials and students treat each other with sincerity.
Cheng Kun continued: "Let me talk about the equipment again. The range of the artillery on both sides is similar to that of the first Sino-British War, but the artillery shells have been widely used. The British army is rear-loaded, and the French army is still front-loaded. Stray bullets are more powerful, but After all, these are primitive guns and artillery. It is difficult for such weapons to withstand a large-scale frontal charge of cavalry groups. In addition, the British army still carries rockets, which are hundreds of gunpowder arrows. The British army's rockets are not accurate. It was used to burn the enemy's baggage tents. Unexpectedly, when they tried to fight, they found that the northern war horses of the Qing army were completely untrained in battle formations and gunfire. They panicked and trampled on each other, causing the Qing army to enter the ranks. caused great confusion.
Let’s talk about the equipment of the Qing army. In addition to cavalry, the Qing army at that time was also equipped with a large number of muskets, artillery, and artillery shells. At this time, they used foreign goods, and they also had cluster rockets that were of better quality than the British army. They were domestic products, but Not a single shot was used. I don’t know what to use it for. God knows what the commander thought. Most of the infantry of the Qing army were equipped with matchlocks. Matchlocks belong to the smoothbore gun series. Except for the firing device and the flintlock gun, the other parameters are theoretically the same as those of the flintlock gun. The flintlock muskets of the British army are similar, but the quality of the matchlocks in the hands of ordinary soldiers cannot be compared with the flintlocks of the British and French forces. As a commander, you must have a clear understanding of this. When comparing matchlocks with flintlocks, the disadvantage is that both sides If you encounter a sudden encounter, the former will suffer a loss if you fire the first shot. If you continue to fight, the latter will be very troublesome, because the flintlock gun will often have a dead mist after firing six or seven rounds. If you fire freely, it is better. You can find it in time and change the fire surface. , but if you fire a volley in formation, you won’t even know if the fire is dead, and if you continue to reload, then the others behind you will not be able to fire.
The Qing army discovered this problem very early, so it’s not that the Qing army didn’t have flintlock rifles, it was just that they were never allocated to grassroots soldiers because the accuracy of the Qing army’s standard muskets was worse than that of the British army, and they could only be used for firing in formation. Judging from the artillery and weapons and equipment, although the Qing army was at a disadvantage, it could definitely fight. The geography was in our hands and we had the superior force. Why did they lose so miserably? Let me tell you the truth.
The special infantry of the 900,000-strong economic army of the Qing Dynasty (Eight Banners and Green Camp) were equipped with rattan flat swords (a variant of the Miao sword, similar to the Japanese sword). There were long guns, but they only accounted for 10% to 20% of the infantry ranks, and they were mainly It was used to deal with cavalry, and was often left unused. In other words, the Qing army gradually lost the ability to fight in close combat. As long as the British and French allied forces raised their bayonets and beat the drums, the Qing infantry would be defeated thousands of miles away.
A squadron rushes up with bayonets in hand. If they rush up without a formation and fight alone, they will be cut down by grass. Therefore, the first level of kung fu in ordinary times is useless on the battlefield. Only an effective battle formation can restrain the enemy's charge. It sounds ridiculous to hear that the Qing army has lost the ability to fight in hand-to-hand combat. The Eight Banners elites who claim to be masters of kung fu have lost the ability to fight in hand-to-hand combat. This is the bloody reality. They managed to hide it from the emperor, but were discovered by the enemy.
I just mentioned that the special infantry of the Qing Dynasty wore rattan swords. They were special infantry, and a small number of infantrymen had rattan swords. In fact, the musketeers of the Qing army after Emperor Sejong (Qianlong) did not carry swords at all when they went into battle. They imagined that after the musket bullets were exhausted, After that, all the enemies had fallen, and there was no mental preparation for close combat. Of course, this was impossible. It was just a theoretical illusion, and it was impossible for even the European musketeers to do it, so the British and French allied forces were equipped with Bayonet. There is a Russian proverb: 'The bullet is a fool, the bayonet is a hero.' Therefore, our army's long-range attack power is not as good as that of the enemy, and it is also at an absolute disadvantage in close-quarters combat.
But I want to explain that in the Battle of Bali Bridge, the musket shooting of the British and French infantry had actual significance in the decisive victory of the entire battle. It was more of a preparation for the charge.
The artillerymen of the Qing army mistakenly believed that in order to shirk responsibility during the First Patriotic War, officials thought that the range of foreign artillery was really invincible, so they desperately raised the elevation angle of their cannons. As a result, dozens of heavy cannons in the Beijing Banner went off, and several Ten rounds of artillery shells hit the back of the artillery position of the British and French coalition. Most of the field artillery of the British and French coalition were medium and light artillery. After a few rounds, they could not reach us. The infantry and cavalry of the British and French coalition recovered and faced the artillery of the Qing army. After a round of charge on the position, the 10,000-kilogram heavy artillery had not been maintained for more than a hundred years, and it was too late to adjust the firing angle. The infantry in the bushes nearby fired a few rows of guns and immediately collapsed. The artillery could only abandon the cannon and flee. The Qing artillery It ended with a complete defeat. This tells us that training is important. If you fire one second faster than the enemy, you can win if you can shoot accurately. The army turns artillery into decorations and uses fake artillery, which has killed many Qing soldiers. Artillery is an army. The main force, the main force only uses cannons as salutes. The fact is very disappointing.
As for the Qing army that was serving, Seng Gelinqin had 17,000 horse infantry officers and soldiers who had retired from the Daku Fort, and later added 3,000 troops from the Monan Mongolian vassal, 10,000 troops from the Dutong Shengbao Department, and university scholar Ruilin Jingying bannermen. 9,000 people, totaling 39,000 people.
As for the British and French coalition forces, there were 15,000 British troops and 9,000 French troops, a total of 24,000 troops. Excluding the navy and the more than 60 coalition warships, and the landing force of 16,000 people, who stayed in Tianjin and the areas captured along the way, the actual number that went to Zhangjiawan was less than 10,000. There were more than 6,000 people in the vanguard who arrived at Baliqiao.
The British and French allied forces initially used rockets to cause chaos to the Qing army's cavalry, but soon the Qing army organized nearly 20,000 cavalry to carry out a large group frontal counterattack, while the remaining more than 10,000 infantry waited for the enemy in the bushes. The 6,000 pioneers No matter how stupid the coalition forces are, they will not be so stupid that they can use British three-shot or French five-shot to block the frontal impact of cavalry three times more than themselves, and their artillery will not dare to easily do so without the protection of superior cavalry. Otherwise, the Qing army's cavalry would come and the artillery would be captured at any time. Their infantry tried to use hollow square formations to tire the Qing army, but the Qing army's cavalry rushed to 50 meters and actually fired bows and arrows. India's Asan's cavalry stipulated that When charging in groups, you can only use sabers to kill, and you are not allowed to shoot with muskets. The reasons are obvious. First, the shooting is inaccurate, second, it is easy to shoot one's own people, and third, there is no time to reload, and it is easy to be hacked to death by the opponent. Hollow Square The effectiveness of the array was greatly reduced. Before long, nearly a thousand people were hit by arrows in the coalition forces. The Qing army had a slight upper hand at this time, but the gaps between the hollow square formations turned the Qing army's cavalry from a loose formation to a horizontal charge. The dense formation of columns crossed. At this time, the intention of the Qing army was to separate and break through each square formation of the British and French allied forces. Once broken, the cavalry would massacre the musketeers, the bayonet would be okay against the infantry, and the cavalry would seek death. If nothing else The reason is that the 6,000 British and French allied forces are about to stand here.
The French artillery team played a decisive role in turning the tide at this critical moment. They quickly occupied the commanding heights and fired artillery bombardments at the Qing cavalry. The Qing army's artillery also reacted extremely quickly at this time and immediately fired at the British and French artillery positions. The artillery fired fiercely, but as I said before, all our artillery shells fell behind the enemy, and none of them hit the enemy. However, the French artillery was extremely accurate, and every shot hit our cavalry formation. Suddenly Smoke filled the air and blossomed everywhere. The Qing cavalry charged repeatedly and carried out wheel-type attacks. After losing nearly 2,000 people, the Dutong Shengbao Department was defeated first. After Shengbao was defeated, a large gap appeared on our flank.
More than a thousand cavalrymen from India's Asan, armed with one lance, launched a countercharge against us. Our cavalrymen were so frightened when they saw the British spears that they turned away and were stabbed off their horses one by one. There were still a large number of British and French troops behind them. The reserves are like horns to each other, looking after each other. When our flanks were completely exposed and faced the danger of being outflanked, the cavalry was still in the formation, but the infantry had abandoned its friendly troops and all fled.
At this point, Zeng Gelinqin had no choice but to order a full retreat. During the retreat, nearly a thousand people fell under the British cavalry and artillery fire. By this time, the war was over. The coalition forces had almost exhausted all their ammunition in this battle. As long as the Qing army persists for another half day, Emperor Xianfeng will not do as the Tuibei map says, "The emperor has left without returning, and the Three Tai ambush has collapsed." The troops with high morale will only consider retreating when they lose one-third. The Qing army had been so brave when they entered the customs. Obviously, the Qing army at this time was not. Although the nearly a thousand coalition soldiers who were hit by arrows lost their combat effectiveness, after all, the arrow wounds were mostly penetrating wounds, which were not as difficult to treat as gunshot wounds. Moreover, the victory The soldiers could be rescued calmly, and their medical conditions were good, so only a few dozen people were killed by arrows. There was a saying at the time: "The cavalry fled at the sight of the shadow, and the infantry fled upon hearing the wind." The battle report stated that the Qing army All 39,000 people died in this battle, and no one escaped. Is it possible? It was a bloody battle to deceive the world. In fact, not only did the 39,000 Qing troops escape, but the infantry could be said to have returned intact.
In this battle, the British and French forces cleaned up the battlefield and confiscated more than 3,000 bows and arrows, hundreds of matchlock guns, and more than 100 artillery pieces from the Qing army. In other words, the Qing army lost more than 3,000 cavalry, hundreds of infantry and Jingzhong soldiers in this battle. All the artillery brought to the front line were mobilized, and the remaining 30,000 people were all gone. The Qing army's tradition of worshiping the God of Artillery at Marco Polo Bridge every autumn stipulates that "whenever the army goes out on an expedition, it must go with artillery." Artillery is actually the soul of the Qing army, but its cannon Most vehicles are very awkward to make, so there is a very strange phenomenon. Once the Qing army is defeated, all its artillery and equipment will be lost. Once all the artillery and equipment are lost, it will no longer be able to fight. The Qing army without artillery will not be able to fight anymore. Now that we know how to fight, are we still soldiers of the Eight Banners?
Many of the above information were obtained from foreigners. The enemy will not mind the small contribution. Obviously three thousand soldiers and horses were killed in the battle, but we ourselves said that 30,000 elite soldiers were killed. This is what our Qing army did. Bali The bloody battle on the bridge was just like this. This is the record of our Royal Guards. The whole army of Horqin Prince Seng Gelinqin was wiped out. The new troops he recruited in the future were actually those deserters. The sad fact is that even national heroes are powerless."
The officers all lowered their heads and thought deeply. They had a heavy responsibility and had a long way to go to change the old rules of the Qing army.
The students were filled with indignation and hated how the Qing army had become so miserable. They secretly vowed to change from now on, set an example, and work hard to learn the tactical thinking of modern warfare and become a qualified commander.