Before the Opium War, there was a consensus that there was a problem with China's high-level cognition.
The Qing Dynasty always felt that it was the kingdom of heaven and the world, and the world was invincible, which eventually led to being beaten by the British. However, looking at the entire Opium War, it was not only the Chinese side that had problems in cognition, but also the British side also based on its own thinking logic to start from the cognitive bias, and did not have a correct understanding of the Chinese economic model at that time, resulting in the overall mistake of the China strategy.
Lin Zexu
At the beginning of the Opium War, when he saw a large number of British warships appear at the mouth of the Pearl River, Lin Zexu was also fully prepared for war, dispatching troops from all over the place to Guangzhou, and practicing the tactics of artillery formations and fire attacking ships. As a result, Lin Zexu was surprised to find that the British warship had just invaded and heard the Qing artillery firing, so he hurriedly retreated, retreated to the open sea, and then he had been swimming in the open sea, and then Lin Zexu hurriedly reported that he had repelled the British invasion. Then there were good news from Xiamen and Fuzhou, both claiming that they had repelled the British invasion. The Daoguang Emperor was overjoyed and ordered a commendation. But the actual situation is that the British main fleet is at this time along the coastline to Zhoushan Dinghai, the intention is to threaten as close as possible to the center of the Qing Dynasty, the next target after Dinghai is Tianjin, there is no interest in Guangzhou fujian, so what are the warships at the mouth of The Fujian sea in Guangzhou? What we see now is the British archives of the Opium Wars, which blockaded the Qing Dynasty's foreign economy. The British believed that as long as they blocked the sea and prevented Qing ships from going out to trade, they could impose economic sanctions on the Qing Dynasty. Reading this, I can't laugh and cry, the Qing Dynasty at this time because of opium, the policy of sea prohibition has begun to be implemented, I have closed the door to prohibit trade, where do you still need the British to blockade. Therefore, such a blockade made the Qing army think that the British did not dare to invade. The prestige of the Heavenly Dynasty made these British people dare not make a mistake, and then all the way was a good report, and the Daoguang Emperor was at ease.
Opium war
Not happy for two days, Dinghai lost its defense, during the battle, the British warships could accurately strike the Qing positions outside the range of all Qing artillery, and the defenders of Dinghai had never seen such fierce firepower, and basically collapsed without much fighting. But in the eyes of the Daoguang Emperor, now the whole country is spreading the news of success, only Dinghai is lost, then it must be the problem of officials, various dismissals and investigations, and then the British warships attacked Dagukou to threaten Tianjin, Daoguang was afraid. Now that the bandits have failed, let's appease them. Qi Shan, the minister of Qin, was sent to negotiate with the British, and this negotiation process was all kinds of bulls and wrongs, and Qi Shan, fearing that the emperor would be angry, said that the purpose of the British war was to come to Beijing to file a complaint against the emperor, and accused Lin Zexu of bullying the British. For the sake of the overall situation, the Daoguang Emperor ordered Lin Zexu to be dismissed from his post and investigated. Just when Qi Shan was worried about how to explain the true demands of the British to the emperor, there was a plague in Dinghai's England, and the British had to retreat. This saved Qi Shan and General Irib, who ran to recover Dinghai.
The general Iribu was full of confidence when he went, but after several engagements with the British, he was desperate, which could not be defeated at all, but he did not dare to tell the emperor that the British were better than us, and this plague made General Irib quickly report the victory, saying that he had fought hard against the British army and regained Dinghai.
Irib
Next, the British army and the Qing Dynasty who retreated to Guangzhou talked and fought in Guangzhou until the British army invaded Guangzhou. Originally, the Qing Dynasty believed from top to bottom that the Guangzhou inland river defense system arranged by Lin Zexu was impregnable, and the British warships could not penetrate at all, and if the British army launched a land attack, it was exactly what the Qing Dynasty expected. Because the British emissaries were reluctant to kneel, everyone, including Lin Zexu, believed that the knees could not be bent, and the British army could not stand up as long as it was knocked to the ground by the Qing army during the land war. The result was that the British warships directly rushed to the Inland River in Guangzhou to attack the Qing army's battery, the battleship attracted the Qing army fire outside the range of the Qing army, and also bombarded the battery frontally, and the army landed from the flank rear of the Qing fort, and set up field artillery to bombard from the rear of the Side of the Qing Fort, the Rear of the Qing Fort Side did not have any defense, and more importantly, the Qing Army's artillery could not be turned sharply, and the Qing Army's battery was basically occupied by the British one by one, and there were almost no casualties in the British during this period. This method of warfare in which the warships resisted the frontal battle line, and the infantry landed after a roundabout flank almost lasted throughout the First Opium War.
Now the question arises, why can't the Qing army sum up the lessons learned and defend the rear of the side? Because there was no experience on the front line in the course of the war, what were the Qing ministers and generals who should have learned the lessons?
Qi Shan, who first succeeded Lin Zexu, was considered by Daoguang to be cowardly dismissed by Daoguang because he bluntly said that the British army was strong, and Yang Fang and Yishan, who succeeded QiShan, could only lie to Daoguang, at this time the British army had already besieged the city of Guangzhou, forcing the two Chincha to open up trade in Guangzhou and allow the opium trade. Yang Fang had no choice but to agree, but Yang Fang's message to the emperor was that the British had surrendered and prayed for the emperor's gift to restore trade. The Daoguang Emperor was on fire, so what would I do here if I promised to trade in opium? Yang Fang was dismissed, leaving Yishan. Yishan was the highest in the entire Opium War when he talked about lying, and he faced this situation, and he negotiated with the British, and we conducted a demonstration exercise outside the city of Guangzhou, showing the emperor that Yishan was fighting desperately, and then privately exploited the wealth of the thirteen elements of Guangzhou as war reparations to the British.
After the British agreed, Yishan wrote a letter to the Daoguang Emperor after the exercise, the British army was defeated under the city of Guangzhou, and the British emissaries knelt under the city of Guangzhou in the heavy rain to show their submission, and asked the emperor to grant trade. The Daoguang Emperor believed it, and seeing that the British were pitiful, he promised to partially pass through the mountain. Then the weather also came to help Yishan, and a typhoon appeared outside the Tiger Gate, and the British army had to retreat.
At this time, the Qing Dynasty thought that the matter was over, but the British side felt that things were too sharp, and replaced the British army's front-line commander-in-chief YiLu, in fact, Yilu had not dared to give a dead hand, because it was afraid of hitting too large a blow and scaring away foreigners doing business in Guangzhou. Yi Lu was succeeded by the hard-line Pu Dingcha, a man who did not care about trade problems, and his strategy was to completely subdue the Qing Dynasty.
Because of the earth-shattering lie of Yishan in front of them, the Qing army at this time did not have a real understanding of the British army, thinking that the British army was just a barbarian, and at most it would use some strange tricks, as long as it was against the grand array of my heavenly dynasty, it would inevitably hold its head and scurry.
Next is the familiar plot, every time before the battle with the British army, the Qing Generals are full of confidence, and then really fight is dumbfounded, either to escape or commit suicide, within a few months the Qing Dynasty's coastal towns were all lost, until Pu Dingcha wanted to attack Nanjing, the minister's lies could no longer cover up anything. Many film and television dramas about the Opium War have scenes of Qing and British casualties in battle, but the reality is very cruel, and the data that can be found now, in addition to the last stop Zhenjiang offensive and defensive battle, the British light enemy did not make artillery preparations in advance, causing the British army to die 39 people, other Humen Campaign, Xiamen Battle and other battles The British casualties are in single digits, more than 5 people are not much.
Now at the end of the war, the Daoguang Emperor knew that the original British army can be land combat, the British legs can also be bent normally, before this Daoguang Emperor's biggest worry, how to prevent the British from seeing the Qing army after taking a boat to escape, so that the leader of the British army can not be captured, it may be a constant side of the provocation, he will have to spend a lot of time like this, silver to rectify the defense, in fact, the Daoguang Emperor himself is also wondering why the British are obviously defeated again and again, why I spend more and more money.
At this time, in order to fight with the British, the Qing Dynasty almost had to deploy on the entire long coastline of 19,000 kilometers, and to transfer troops from all over the country, which was a helpless data, and the Qing army's transfer of troops from the central and western regions to the coast was slower than the British army's transfer from its own country, and it cost much more money than the British army. Not counting the silver that was finally lost to Britain, the Qing government spent a total of 25 million taels of silver in the First Opium War, plus the exploitation from the hands of wealthy merchants in Guangzhou, and the total cost was at least 30 million taels of silver. And the British spent only 9 million taels for this war that almost spanned half the world, and the war was fought like this, and the money spent was more than three times that of others, so after the British soldiers approached the city of Nanjing, the Qing Dynasty did not think about the compensation of 21 million taels of silver demanded by the British, and agreed without thinking, because in Daoguang, the money spent on the war was now less than one-fifth of the money spent on the destruction of the White Lotus Sect by his father, the Jiaqing Emperor, and it was too cost-effective to use this money to send the British away.
Some people in later generations said that the Daoguang Emperor was able to reuse Lin Zexu and Guan Tianpei and other loyal generals with 800,000 troops of the Qing Dynasty to defeat the British, but now that the Qing Dynasty's military discipline is scattered, the finances are not good, and the weapons and equipment are lagging behind the British for an era, there is no possibility of winning at all.
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