The Battle of Hualoufeng was the first battle of the Qingdao Campaign, although the battle was not long, less than an hour before and after. However, this was the first time since the formation of the People's Army that it had engaged the enemy on the battlefield alone, and it had won a final victory, which was far more significant than this battle, and also showed that the People's Army basically had the ability to fight independently.

However, after the war, a total of 74 German soldiers were killed and 21 were captured, while the People's Army also killed 56 soldiers and wounded 23, of which 14 were seriously injured and needed to be sent back to Weihaiwei for treatment, and the battle loss ratio between the two sides reached 1:0.7. The strength of the People's Army participating in the war is almost three times that of the German army, and it is assisted by unmanned aerial vehicle reconnaissance, and it has also achieved the advantage of being surrounded by the front and rear in terms of tactics, but it still only achieves such results, which shows that there is still a considerable gap between the current People's Army and the world-class army in this era.

Of course, the KPA has only been in existence for more than two months, and it has not fought a few battles in the meantime, so from this point of view, this is also a normal result, and in any case, the KPA is ultimately the winner of this battle, and this is the most important thing. As a growing army, it not only needs to go through the real battlefield and fight against other strong armies, but also needs continuous victories to quickly grow into a strong army.

At this time, Luo Yue also led the battalion headquarters to the battlefield and ordered to immediately clean up the battlefield, collect the spoils, bury the corpses of the enemy, and at the same time contain the remains of the prisoners and his own soldiers, and treat the wounded, and evacuate the battlefield as soon as possible.

It was not because he was worried that the German army would come back, but because of this battle, the first battalion had stopped in the Laoshan area for a day, and the large army behind had already caught up, so Luo Yue had to rush to join the large army as soon as possible and continue the battle behind. Of course, now that they have entered the periphery of the Qingdao area, the army should indeed join forces to fight.

At this moment, I saw a few civilians pretending to be people of this era, who also came to the battlefield from the back mountain, although standing on the edge of the battlefield and watching the soldiers busy cleaning up the battlefield, their faces showed a look of surprise.

It turned out that these people were the guides who led the People's Army to attack behind the German army this time, and there were four of them, named Jiang Haidong, Yang Jie, Zhang Shuo, and Liu Zonghai. Among them, Jiang Haidong, Yang Jie, and Zhang Shuo were all members of the Boxers, and they were all the old department of Zhu Honglan, one of the leaders of the Boxers, among which Jiang Haidong was also a disciple of Zhu Honglan, and Liu Zonghai was a local hunter in Laoshan and Jiang Haidong's cousin.

The soldiers who crossed through the Boxers had all made up for the history of this era, and they also had a better understanding of the causes and consequences of the Boxers, and knew that Zhu Honglan was an important leader of the Boxers and one of the founders of the Boxers. In fact, the Boxer Rebellion was a very loose organization, and there was no strict regulatory system, and its members included poor peasants, handicraftsmen, urban poor, small traders, transport workers and other lower-class people, as well as some officials and soldiers, rich gentry and even princes and nobles.

Regarding the origin of the Boxer Rebellion, there are different theories, there are Boxing Club, Township Tuan, White Lotus Sect, Little Knife Club, and even the Axe Gang, but it is generally believed that it should be mainly in the form of a Boxing Club. Therefore, it is also doomed that the Boxers cannot be bound by a single founder or group. However, there is basically no objection that the Boxer Rebellion was originally initiated in Shandong. The main leaders of the Shandong Boxer Rebellion were Yan Shuqin, Zhao Sanduo, Zhu Honglan, Wang Liyan, Benming Monk and others. Among them, the vermilion light is the loudest.

Zhu Hongdeng, formerly known as Zhu Fengming, is a native of Zhegou Town, Surabaya County, Shandong, and practices medicine as a profession. In May 1898, he set up a field in Da Li Zhuang in Changqing County (now Changqing District, Jinan) to practice boxing and recruit believers, but the name of the organization at that time was still called Yihequan, and in June he led the boxers to attack the largest Xujialou Church and Hedong Gui Church in Changqing County, and now he is famous.

In February 1899, Zhu Honglan led some boxers to move to Chiping County, and led the boxers to burn churches in Liangzhuang, Wangxiangzhuang, Mashawo, Balizhuang, Yeguantun, Yaojiazhuang and other places, and contacted and supported each other with other Shandong Yihe boxing leaders Benming monks, Xu Fuhe, Wang Liyan, Liu Taiqing, Yu Qingshui and others. In October, Jiang Kai, the magistrate of Pingyuan County, suppressed the local Boxer group, and Li Changshui, the leader of the Boxer in Pingyuan County, came to the rescue of Zhu Honglan, and Zhu Honglan recruited more than 1,000 Boxers from Eping, Gaotang, Enxian, Changqing and other places to come to aid and defeat Jiang Kai's army.

Subsequently, the Qing army led by Lu Changyi, the prefect of Jinan, Yuan Shidun and Jiang Kai, the prefect of the military camp, rushed to the scene, and the two sides fought in the Senluo Palace, but the vermilion lantern was defeated and retreated to Chiping County. Zhu Honglan also became famous because of these two battles, and became the most famous person among the leaders of the Boxer Rebellion in Shandong.

At that time, the governor of Shandong was Yuxian, who hated foreign countries, endorsed the anti-foreign sentiment of the people, and actively supported the development of the Boxer Rebellion. It can be said that the development and growth of the Boxers is inseparable from Yuxian's support and promotion, and there is a saying that Yuxian changed the boxer to the Boxers. It is precisely with Yuxian's overt and covert support that Zhu Honglan can make such a big noise, and even against the official army.

In November, Zhu Honglan and the monk Benming met at the Huayan Temple in Boping, and decided to divide the troops into four directions, making a big fuss in Chiping, affecting neighboring counties, and apostolizing the religion and destroying the foreigners. However, this time the Chun army had already prepared, and the Shandong guerrilla general Ma Jinxu led the army to attack, captured Zhu Honglan, Xincheng monk, Yu Qingshui and others, and sent them to Jinan.

At this time, under the intervention of foreign powers, the Qing court had dismissed Yuxian from the post of governor of Shandong, ordered Yuxian to go to Beijing, reappointed as governor of Shanxi, and appointed Yuan Shikai to replace Yuxian as acting governor of Shandong. As a result, as soon as Yuan Shikai took office, he ordered the killing of Zhu Honglan, Xincheng monk, and Yu Qingshui. And severely suppressed the activities of the Boxers, and in May 1900, the Boxers in Shandong were basically cleaned up by Yuan Shikai, and the rest were transferred to Hebei for development, and then there was basically no contact with the Boxers in Shandong. Later, Cao Futian, Zhang Decheng and others, the leaders of the Boxer Rebellion in Tianjin, have no information to prove that they have anything to do with Zhu Honglan and others.

However, on the whole, although the Boxers originated in Shandong, compared with the later momentum, the influence of the Boxers in Shandong was not large, just like the vermilion lantern in Shandong, although it was noisy, but in fact, the largest number of people was only two or three thousand, so if the Qing court really wanted to suppress the Boxers, it was not difficult. Later, after Yuan Shikai took over as the acting governor of Shandong after Yuxian, it only took a few months, and there were basically no Boxer activities in Shandong.

This also shows that the Boxers' ability is actually very limited, Bi Jing is only a loose group, without a clear guiding ideology, and without a strong leadership organization, it is impossible to have any combat effectiveness, and the reason why the Boxers were able to develop and grow was due to extremely complex reasons and political struggles.

Of course, there is another important reason for the demise of the Boxers in Shandong, that is, in April 1900, there was a major drop in the whole territory of Shandong, which greatly alleviated the drought in Shandong since 1899.

In 1898 and 1899, drought occurred in Hebei, Shandong, Shanxi and other places, in Chinese history, natural disasters are often an important cause of peasant uprisings, and peasant uprisings are often started by boxing clubs and militias.

And after the rain in Shandong in April 1900, the hungry farmers saw hope for survival, because they could finally sow seeds in the land after the rain, and the crops could grow, of course, much better than being boxers. However, the rain clouds in Shandong did not drift to Hebei, so the Boxers developed rapidly in Hebei, so the rise of the Boxers was not accidental, but if according to the cyclical law of Chinese history, the direction of the development of the Boxers should be a large-scale peasant uprising, either triggering a change of dynasty or being suppressed by the rulers, but in this era, the complex contradictions between China and foreign countries made the development of the Boxers deviate from the track of history, resulting in the current outcome.

Jiang Haidong, Yang Jie, and Zhang Shuo are fellow villagers, and they were all ordinary farmers, because of the severe drought in Shandong, their families were completely out of food, and most of their relatives starved to death, so they all joined the Yihequan one after another. Of course, the three of them did not have a good impression of foreigners and foreign religions, so they followed Zhu Honglan to destroy churches, rob large households, and even confront the government.

After Zhu Hongdeng's death, Jiang Haidong also discussed in the name of Zhu Hongdeng's younger brothers, and pulled out two or three hundred people to continue to make trouble, but under Yuan Shikai's strong suppression, these hundreds of people were quickly dispersed by the Qing army, and only a dozen people remained, and the Boxers in other parts of Shandong were also becoming more and more difficult.

However, the three of them are also some famous people in the Shandong Boxer Rebellion, depending on whether they are Jiang Haidong or Zhu Honglan's younger brothers, so the government has issued a wanted warrant for the three of them, and as a result, the three of them can't get along when they return to their hometowns, so they have to flee to Laoshan and defect to Jiang Haidong's cousin Liu Zonghai. Living in a small village with only more than 20 households, fortunately, the Laoshan area is deep and far away, so it has escaped the government's want.

It's just that after hiding for more than three or four months, the three of them heard some rumors from the people who went into the mountains to buy medicine, and knew that the Boxers had all gone to Hebei and Shanxi, and that the Boxers had made a huge noise in the Beijing-Tianjin area, not only to fight churches, but also to beat the embassies of foreigners, and also to get the approval of the government.

After the three of them learned about it, they were all a little tempted, after all, when the three of them joined the boxer, although they were forced to make a living, with the expansion of the boxing group, attacking churches, robbing large households, resisting the government, drinking in large bowls, and eating meat in large pieces, it was the most beautiful moment in their lives, so the three of them missed this time very much, and now they heard that the Boxers actually made such a big Mingtang, so they all gave birth to the idea of going out to the mountains again.

After the three of them went out of the mountain, they inquired carefully, only to know that the news was wrong, it turned out that the foreigners formed the Eight-Nation Alliance Army and entered Beijing, and the Boxers were also defeated by the foreigners, and the imperial court officially issued an order to destroy the Boxers. Many of the members of the group who went home to farm after the gang were arrested and beheaded. The three of them were immediately frightened and hid back in the mountains. And at this time, the People's Army attacked Qingdao, looking for a guide in the Laoshan area.