Author: YouLing
Statement: Soldiers say original, plagiarism will be investigated
In the late Qing Dynasty, internal and external troubles were intertwined, and they were in a state of turmoil, and the traditional clans also faced the invasion of Western powers. In the face of modernized state relations, the Manchu Qing court still adhered to the traditional clan relationship. Vietnam, as a traditional vassal state of the Qing Dynasty, fought a large-scale war with France in modern history because of this vassal state. In this war, the actual participants in the Qing army at the beginning were a group of lone troops living in a foreign land, the Black Flag Army.
Liu Yongfu
The Black Flag Army was originally a rebel army operating on the border of Guangdong and Guangxi during the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, led by Liu Yongfu. In 1851, Liu Yongfu participated in the Guangxi Peasant Uprising, and in 1865, he led his troops to join the Tiandihui rebel army led by Wu Yazhong. With the failure of the Taiping Rebellion, this force, which was not tolerated by the Qing Dynasty, had to be transferred to northern Yue.
In northern Vietnam, Liu Yongfu's Black Flag Army gradually gained vietnam's trust by helping Vietnam to clean up the bandits who were wandering in Vietnam, and was recruited by Vietnam to become the "Viceroy of San Xuan", awarded the first class baron, and obtained the right to set up a business card in the Baosheng area to collect taxes, becoming a separatist force in northern Vietnam.
Vietnam is also in danger of being colonized by Western powers. France occupied southern Vietnam in 1867, but its plans to colonize Vietnam were interrupted by the sudden Franco-Prussian War. France was devastated during the Franco-Prussian War, but when France recolonized Vietnam, it encountered the Black Flag Army that had divided its territory in northern Vietnam. The initial result was astounding, the Black Flag Army, led by Liu Yongfu, beheaded the French colonel An Ye in 1873, and because France had not yet come out of the shadow of the Franco-Prussian War at that time, it chose to swallow its anger in this matter.
French Colonel An Ye, who was beheaded by the Black Flag Army
By the 1880s, as its power had regained, France had once again turned its attention to Vietnam and had to confront the Black Flag Army. In the Battle of Paperbridge in 1883, the Black Flag Army used ambush tactics to defeat the French army and behead the French colonel Li Weiye. A series of moves by the Black Flag Army finally angered France. In 1883, the French Joffrey cabinet passed a bill to increase military spending, and the process of invading Vietnam was fully launched.
In dealing with Vietnam, the Qing court appeared to be wavering, wanting to protect its traditional vassal states on the one hand, and unwilling to engage in direct conflict with the great powers on the other. At this time, the Black Flag Army, which repeatedly severely damaged the French army in northern Vietnam, became an excellent choice for the Qing court. The Qing court sent Tang Jingsong, the alternate chief of the bureaucracy at that time, to Vietnam to recruit the Black Flag Army. Liu Yongfu, the leader of the Black Flag Army, also took the opportunity to return to his hometown to worship his ancestors and contact the Qing Dynasty, and the two sides quickly reached a cooperation intention.
Colonial army recruited by France in Vietnam
Faced with the French gunboat offensive, Vietnam had to sign the Treaty of Hue in humiliation, declaring that Vietnam was a French protectorate and was under French administration. However, after the signing of the treaty, Vietnam asked the Qing Dynasty for help, and the Qing Dynasty was influenced by the Qing faction, and the domestic crowd was indignant and made the decision to secretly send troops to northern Vietnam. The French also realized that the monopoly of Vietnam must completely eliminate the Chinese forces in Vietnam, and the primary target was the Black Flag Army. In December 1883, the French army stationed in Vietnam, led by Gu Ba, attacked the important town of Shanxi in northern Vietnam, where the Black Flag Army was stationed.
Lonely
As the old base area of the Black Flag Army, Shanxi still made a thorough defense of the Black Flag Army. The Black Flag Army relied on the fortifications outside the city to fight the French army to the death. The French suffered heavy casualties in the attack on the outer fortifications, and even the Black Flag Army once encircled the French flank, but the French army, with the machine guns of the gunboats on the Red River, broke the Black Flag Army's offensive.
At night, Tang Jingsong offered a reward of 200,000 yuan to carry out a night attack on the French army, and the Black Flag Army caught the French army by surprise in the night attack, and 20 African colonial soldiers and 5 French soldiers became prisoners, but only with the dawn came, the Black Flag Army's offensive was over. In just two days of fighting, the French paid the price of 85 killed and 240 wounded, including 3 captains. Although Shanxi eventually fell, the intensity of the battle was rare in the Sino-French war. The final defeat of the Black Flag Army was largely related to the Qing court's pulling back legs.
According to the war reports of both sides, the Number of French attacks was 5500, while the Black Flag Army as a defender had only 2000 old battalions. Before the war, 1,000 new recruits were recruited, and Tang Jingsong repeatedly asked the Qing court for help, obtaining a total of 2,000 reinforcements. The Qing court sent troops to cause a dispute, and had to order the Qing army entering Shanxi to change into black flag army clothing. Therefore, the defensive strength of the Black Flag Army in Shanxi is only about 50,000 people, and the two sides can be described as evenly matched in terms of strength.
However, the French army was a modernized army that had undergone modernization training, and it was not comparable to the Black Flag Army in terms of organization, strength and command. What's more, the French also had the advantage on the water, and the gunboats on the Red River could support land operations at any time with the ship's Hatch kaisi machine guns, and the French army on land also had 4 mountain gun companies. In terms of individual equipment, the French army was also equipped with advanced rifles with rear-loading rifles. Originally, in the Battle of Shanxi, the Black Flag Army could get more reinforcements, but before the war, the most speechless thing was that the Qing army withdrew the four battalions of the Gui Army that had originally defended Shanxi to Beining. In the battle, the Ten Thousand Qing Army in Bac Ninh did not move on the wall.
The equipment of the Black Flag Army was extremely poor. Before the war, in order to strengthen the Black Flag Army, the Qing court specially replenished a batch of guns and ammunition to the Black Flag Army, but the Black Flag Army was disappointed to see it. After the war, Liu Yongfu reported to the Qing court that "all of them are stupid guns in Tianjin, and there are too many bullets to catch fire." It can be seen that the quality of the ordnance aided by the Qing court is poor, but even this kind of "no fire" ordnance black flag army cannot guarantee that every soldier has it. Recruits recruited before the war were completely unarmed, and when they entered the war, they had to fight with their bare hands. After the war, even Li Hongzhang said that "the disadvantages of non-fighting battles are not refined, and the actual equipment is not refined."
The weapons and equipment of the Black Flag Army, in addition to the Qing court transfer, there is also a way to buy it yourself. A month before the Battle of Shanxi, the Qing Dynasty central government rewarded the Black Flag Army with 100,000 yuan for preparations for the war, which was allocated by the Guangxi Fanku nearby. However, this precious money was not transported to the front line of the anti-French until the beginning of the Battle of Shanxi, and was not distributed to the Black Flag Army until the end.
The Qing court not only did not honor the reward, but also withheld arms, and the arms transported from Home to Vietnam were detained by the Qing general Zhao Wo stationed in Bac Ninh. The Qing troops who came to the aid were also not full of ammunition, and after a day of fighting on December 14, the Qing army was already short of ammunition. Therefore, when the French army attacked Shanxi, almost no ordnance was captured. This was in stark contrast to the mountains of materials captured by the French attack on Bac Ninh afterwards.
The Black Flag Army used the most primitive weapons and well-equipped French troops to fight to the death under shanxi city. Even so, the Black Flag Army was not inferior, and in the battle with the French Army, the Black Flag Army repeatedly counterattacked the French army, and even once used the tactics of enveloping to put the French army in trouble.
On the night of the 14th, the Black Flag Army carried out a large-scale night attack, which caused the French army to collapse for a time. However, due to the constraints of the Qing court, it finally regretted the battlefield and ended the battle with failure. In contrast, when the Qing army attacked Beining, it destroyed more than 60 battalions of nearly 20,000 Qing troops in less than 6 hours, and the price paid by the French army was only 5 people killed. The advantages and disadvantages of the two armies can be seen.