Li Hongzhang said with a smile: "Well, Officer Cheng said very well, a war is full of variables, and the strain and determination of the commander at the front are also the key." It is not advisable to generalize, and there are too many variables on the battlefield, so it depends on how the commander responds. It is certainly not wrong to anticipate the enemy's opportunities, but being good at hiding one's own shortcomings and giving full play to one's strengths is the quality that a qualified commander should have. The main general is not omnipotent, superstitious gods like the god of war, it is better to be good at commanding their own troops, and victory is to start from a local part and slowly transform into the initiative of the whole field. Defeat with one blow and win completely, just fantasize about the results. The idea of hard fighting, vicious fighting, and fighting to the death must be instilled in the mind, and a head-on duel must be preceded by a tentative attack, and we must not bet all the old books as soon as we come up. You are all future commanders, and you have different ideas before the war, but as long as the high commander gives orders, you must carry them out unconditionally. Can Commander Gao pat his head and fight? Nor can you. He needs you to report the real situation of the battlefield to him, and get the real battlefield situation, so that he can formulate a correct battle plan. If the commander at the front tells a lie, he will kill countless comrades. This article is that if I want to speak, soldiers must tell the truth, and it is a crime to deceive the commander and soldier, and military law will be engaged. ”

"Yes! Let's be honest! The classroom shouted in unison, the martial arts system does not allow lying, habit becomes natural, and the school officials and students treat each other with sincerity.

Cheng Kun continued: "I'll talk about equipment again. The range of artillery on both sides is similar to that of the first Sino-British war, but flowering shells have been widely used, the British army is the rear load, the French army is still the front load, the stray bullet is more powerful, but these are primitive guns after all, with such weapons it is difficult to resist the frontal charge of a large cavalry group. In addition, the British army still carried rockets, hundreds of gunpowder arrows for the container, the British rockets did not have the right head, mainly used to burn the enemy's baggage tents, did not expect to start a war, but found that the northern war horses of the Qing army were completely untrained in battle formations and gunfire, and they panicked and trampled on each other, causing great confusion to the march of the Qing army.

Speaking of the equipment of the Qing army, in addition to the cavalry, the Qing army was also equipped with a large number of muskets and artillery, and there were also flowering shells. It's domestic, but it's useless, I don't know what to keep it for, God knows what the commander thinks. Most of the infantry of the Qing army are equipped with arquebuses, arquebuses belong to the smoothbore gun series, except that the firing device is different from the flintlock pistol, other parameters are theoretically comparable to the British flintlock pistol, but the arquebus in the hands of ordinary soldiers can not be compared with the flintlock pistol of the British and French forces, which as a commander should have a clear understanding. Compared with the flintlock pistol, the disadvantage is that if the two sides encounter suddenly, the former will suffer a loss when the first shot, and if the flintlock gun continues to fight, the latter will be very troublesome, because the flintlock pistol will have a dead fire when it hits six or seven bullets, if it is free fire, it is okay to find the fire change surface in time, but if it is a volley in a queue, the dead fire is not known, and it is continuously loaded, then it will not be able to shoot later.

The Qing army discovered this problem very early, so the flintlock pistol was not without the Qing army, but it was never worthy of being used by grassroots soldiers, because the accuracy of the Qing army's standard musket was worse than that of the British army, and it could only be fired in a queue. From the perspective of artillery and weapons and equipment, although the Qing army is at a disadvantage, it can definitely fight, geography is in our hands, and we also have the advantage in troops, why did they lose so badly? Let me tell you the truth.

The special infantry of the 90,000 warp army of the Qing Dynasty is equipped with rattan flat knives. Spears were available, but they only accounted for 1 or 2 percent of the infantry ranks, and they were mainly used against cavalry, often not used. In other words, the Qing army gradually lost the ability to fight hand-to-hand combat, as long as the British and French troops raised their bayonets and stepped on the drums, the Qing infantry would immediately crush for thousands of miles.

A square team rushed up with bayonets, and if they rushed forward without formation, they would be cut by the grass if they fought alone. Therefore, it is useless to put kung fu first in peacetime, but it is useless on the battlefield. Only by effectively fighting in formation can you restrain the enemy's charge. The Qing army has lost the ability to fight hand-to-hand, and it is ridiculous to hear it, the elite of the Eight Banners, who claim to be masters of kung fu, has lost the ability to fight hand-to-hand, this is the bloody reality. He was able to hide it from the emperor, but he was discovered by the enemy.

I just said that the special infantry of the Qing Dynasty has rattan flat knives, which are special infantry, that is, a small number of infantry have rattan flat knives. In fact, after Emperor Sejong, the Qing musketeers did not carry waist swords at all, and they imagined that after the musket bullets were fired, the enemy had all fallen, and they were not prepared for melee combat at all, which of course was impossible. It was only a theoretical fantasy, and it was impossible to do it, including the European musketeers, so the Anglo-French troops were equipped with bayonets. There is a Russian proverb: 'A bullet is a fool, a bayonet is a hero.' Therefore, our army's long-range attack power is not as good as that of the enemy, and close combat is also at an absolute disadvantage.

But I would like to explain that the actual significance of the Anglo-French infantry musket shooting in the Battle of Bali Bridge in the whole battle was mostly to prepare for the charge.

The artillery of the Qing army mistakenly believed that in the First Great Patriotic War, in order to shirk their responsibilities, the officials thought that the foreign artillery was really invincible, and desperately adjusted the elevation angle of their cannons, and as a result, dozens of 10,000-pound heavy guns in the Beijing flag rang out, and dozens of shells whirred to the back of the artillery positions of the British and French forces. The infantry cavalry of the British and French coalition forces came back to their senses and charged at the artillery positions of the Qing army, and the 10,000-pound heavy artillery had not been maintained for more than 100 years, and it was too late to adjust the firing angle. The infantry in the bushes next to them put a few rows of guns, and immediately dispersed, and the artillery could only abandon the artillery and then fled, and the Qing artillery ended in complete defeat. This tells us that drill is important, and you can win by shooting accurately one second before the enemy fires a cannon. The army raised artillery and turned it into an ornament, deceived the artillery, and killed many Qing soldiers. Artillery is the main force of an army, and the main army will only use artillery as a salute, and the fact is embarrassing.

In terms of the Qing army, 17 Mabu officers and soldiers were retired from the Dagu Fort, 3 soldiers of the Mongol Domain of Monan, 1 member of the Dutong Shengbao Department, and 9 banner soldiers of the Jingying Battalion of the University Shiruilin, totaling 39 people.

On the Anglo-French side, there were 15 British troops, 9 French troops, a total of 24 people, and more than 6 warships of the coalition forces, excluding the navy and 16 landing troops, stayed in Tianjin and occupied areas along the way, but only 10,000 people actually went to Zhangjiawan, but there were more than 6 people who arrived at the front of Bali Bridge.

The British and French forces first used rockets to cause confusion to the Qing army's horse team, but the Qing army organized nearly 2 cavalry to carry out a large group of frontal countercharges, and the remaining 1 or so infantry waited for the enemy in the bushes. As a pioneer 6 coalition army no matter how stupid it is, it will not be stupid enough to use British triple fire or French five consecutive shots to block 3 times more cavalry frontal impact than themselves, and their artillery does not have the advantage of cavalry protection and dare not easily show their heads, otherwise the Qing cavalry will find it, and the artillery will become a prisoner at any time, their infantry try to use a hollow phalanx to exhaust the Qing army, but the cavalry of the Qing army rushed to 5 meters and actually cast a bow and arrow, and the Indian A3 cavalry stipulated that they could only use sabers to slash and kill when charging in clusters, and they were not allowed to shoot with muskets, the reason was obvious, one was that the shooting was not accurate, The second is that it is easy to shoot one's own people, and the third is that there is no time to reload, and it is easy to be hacked to death by the opponent. The effectiveness of the hollow phalanx was immediately greatly reduced, and it didn't take long for the coalition army to reach nearly 1,000 people, and the Qing army occupied a little peak at this time, but the gap between the hollow phalanx turned the Qing army's horse team from a loose formation horizontal charge into a dense formation column crossing. At this time, the intention of the Qing army was to break through each phalanx of the British and French forces, and once it broke through, the cavalry would slaughter the musketeers, the bayonets would be okay to the infantry, and the cavalry would be killed. If there is no other reason, these six members of the British and French forces will be here horizontally.

At this critical moment, the French artillery team played a role in turning the tide, they quickly occupied the commanding heights and fired artillery bombardment on the cavalry of the Qing army, and the artillery of the Qing army also behaved strangely at this time, and immediately fired a heavy bombardment at the artillery positions of the British and French allied forces, but as I said earlier, all our shells fell behind the enemy, and none of them hit the enemy, while the French artillery was extremely accurate, each shot hit our cavalry ranks, and suddenly the smoke was filled, and the flowers bloomed everywhere, and the Qing cavalry repeatedly charged, carried out a wheeled attack, and lost nearly 2 people. The victory and protection department of the capital was defeated first, and after the victory and protection were defeated, there was a large gap in our flank.

More than 3,000 Indian cavalrymen with a cavalry spear carried out a counter-charge against our side, and our cavalry was scattered after seeing the English spear, turned around and left, and were stabbed off their horses one by one. There were also a large number of reserves behind the Anglo-French army, which were horns of each other and looked like each other. When our flanks were completely exposed and in danger of being outflanked, the cavalry was still in formation, but the infantry had abandoned their allies and fled.

At this point, Zeng Lingqin could only reluctantly order the entire line to retreat, and on the way to retreat, nearly 1,000 people fell under the fire of British cavalry and artillery, and the war was over by this time. The coalition army used up almost all the ammunition in this battle, and as long as the Qing army held out for another half a day, Emperor Xianfeng would not push the back map and say, "If the emperor goes and doesn't pay it back, Santai will fall." 'The morale is high, and the troops will only consider retreating when they lose a third, and the Qing army has been so brave when it enters the pass, and it is obvious that the Qing army is not at this time. Although nearly 1,000 allied soldiers were incapacitated, after all, most of the arrow wounds were penetrating wounds, which were not as difficult to treat as gunshot wounds, and besides, the victors could calmly ambulance, and their medical conditions were good, so only a few dozen people were killed by the arrows. There is a saying in the time: 'The cavalry fled in the shadows, and the infantry fled when they heard the wind.' The battle report wrote that all 39 members of the Qing army were killed in this battle, and none of them fled. Is it possible? A move to deceive the world and steal fame, a bloody battle. In fact, not only did the 39 Qing cavalry escape, but the infantry could be said to have returned intact and formed.

The Anglo-French army cleaned up the battlefield and collected more than 3 bows and arrows, hundreds of arquebuses, and more than 100 artillery pieces of various types from the Qing army. That is to say, the Qing army lost more than 3 cavalry in this battle, hundreds of infantry and all the artillery on the front line were transferred from Beijing, and the remaining 3 people all ran away. The Qing army worships the artillery god tradition at Lugou Bridge every autumn, stipulating that 'whenever a large army goes out, it must bring artillery.' Artillery is really the soul of the Qing army, but most of its artillery car production is very awkward, so there is a very strange phenomenon, once the Qing army is defeated, the artillery will be lost, once the artillery is lost, it will be impossible to fight again. Without artillery and the Qing army, there would be no war, is this still our Eight Banners soldiers?

Many of the above information is obtained from foreigners, and the enemy will not dislike the small credit. Obviously, 3,000 soldiers and horses were killed in battle, but we ourselves want to say that 30,000 elite soldiers died, and this is what our Qing army did. The bloody battle of Bali Bridge is like this, this is the record of our Royal Guard. The whole army was wiped out by the prince of Horqin, Seng Greenqin, and the later recruitment army was actually those deserters, sad fact, national heroes are powerless. ”

The school officials all bowed their heads and pondered, they had a heavy responsibility to change the old rules of the Qing army, and they had a long way to go.

The students were filled with righteous indignation, hating the Qing army for becoming so unbearable, and secretly vowed to change from now on, set an example, strive to learn the tactical thinking of modern warfare, and become a qualified commander.