This was originally just a beautiful misunderstanding, and the British reporter wrote directly about the French army without knowing that it was a mixed coalition force, but this news report caused countless waves throughout France.

Whether it's the Louvre, the Arc de Triomphe or the outlying provinces, there is talk of such a tragedy everywhere, and as the news continues, some of the more terrible stories spread in the taverns, and from the taverns they become part of the newspaper again: "Twelve hundred French troops were slaughtered in the Far East!" ”

"Terrible tragedy, since the beginning of the war, two and three billion gold francs have been spent on the war!"

"According to letters from those close to the Montoban Command, a total of 4,700 French soldiers have been killed since the expedition to China......"

The public was extremely shocked by such news, how could the French Empire be the most powerful empire in the world, how could it suffer such a defeat, and those bureaucrats did not repeatedly guarantee that this expedition would be foolproof, that there would be no accidents, and how could it evolve into what it is now.

The rumors were getting worse and worse, and there were even rumors that the whole of France was going to mobilize like the Crimean War, and that hundreds of thousands of troops would be sent to the Far East to conquer the rebels, and these exaggerated news spread so much that the whole of Paris, and even the gentlemen of the War Office, were talking about the war in private.

In the eyes of the public, this war should be similar to the last time the British conquered China, in the last war against China, the British won a brilliant victory, and they conquered the whole of China in only 10,000 men. Moreover, the total number of casualties in the battle was only one or two hundred, and the most sacrificial battle of Zhenjiang was only thirty or forty British soldiers who died honorably.

But what had happened to the mysterious eastern country that made the expeditionary force of Mentoban pay such a heavy price. In addition to the fear, everyone already felt that this war seemed meaningless, and some prominent figures in France had already proposed to organize anti-war activities. Withdraw the children of France from the Far East.

Then came the explosive news, the War Department knew very little about the war in the Far East, in a world where only some countries had laid telegraph lines, the War Department did not know the actual situation of the Montoban Expeditionary Force at all, and they did not even have as much information as the journalists, so they could only say that they knew nothing about the interviews with the journalists, but the news published in the newspapers was: "The War Department acquiesced in the extremely heavy losses suffered by the Montoban Expeditionary Force." For the first time since His Majesty's defeat at Waterloo, France has suffered such a military defeat!"

The British, who were across the sea, soon joined in the attack on the Montoban expeditionary force, and they felt that this was the best opportunity to humiliate the French, and they published some reports of spectators from the East, which had once made the French disdainful, were now at a high level of paper in Luoyang, and even some French underground printing houses were printing them overnight.

Among these news reports. For the first time, the French knew that there was such a great commander of the Rainbow Army as "General Liu", "Butcher Liu", "Willow Peer", and "Willow Checkpoint", and for the first time, they also knew that the Rainbow Army was armed with European-style equipment, and it was so well-equipped that it was astonishingly well-equipped, and some exaggerated reports even said that their equipment was better than that of the French Army, and some reports greatly exaggerated the strength of the Rainbow Army. It claims that the Rainbow Army has more than 600,000 troops in several Chinese provinces, all of which are trained by European instructors.

Other reports focused on the details of the Battle of Fengjing, in which French citizens learned for the first time that part of the Battle of Fengjing Town was known, a part of the French Expeditionary Force suffered a major blow, several infantry platoons and a Russian company were annihilated, and even the garrison of Fengjing Town was almost completely annihilated by the rebels, and the reinforcements of the Mengtoban Command also paid a heavy price before rescuing the garrison of Fengjing Town.

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All this left the French citizens with 120,000 wonders: "Why are we going on an expedition to China?" ”

Although the Crimean War paid a greater price, the whole of France, both the upper and lower classes, were in favor of the war, the protection of the Holy Land could not fall into the hands of the Orthodox Christians, and Russia's expansion must be restrained, but the French citizens could not find a reasonable excuse for the war against China, except for the promotion of opium.

However, the British, who paid the most attention to trade, fought fiercely with the rebels, and only we, the French, cooperated with the Russians who had just fought to the death to go on an expedition to China, and we French fell on the big deed of the Russians.

You know, China is thousands of kilometers away from France proper, and the Montoban expeditionary force has taken up a considerable amount of domestic resources, and every day they fight in China, the treasury has to spend an astonishing amount of gold francs, which should have been spent on ordinary French citizens.

At the thought of this, in a very short time a loose anti-war coalition arose from the nobility to the clergy and the peasants, and their pressure forced Napoleon III to come forward and pledge: "The expedition in China will be restrained ......"

His Majesty the Emperor also had a deep dissatisfaction with Mengtoban, who had promised him that he could conquer all of China with a few infantry battalions, and now that he had twenty infantry battalions in his hands, he had no way to deal with the rebels, and even paid considerable losses.

And Napoleon III had to think about the problem from an economic point of view, the Crimean War had already spent too many gold francs, and although the scale of this expeditionary war was not large, the gold francs paid were not much inferior to the Crimean War, after all, all supplies and personnel had to be transported from Europe, and if the war dragged on for too long, it would drag the French economy across.

In the original Montoban promise, he would set up a card in China to collect taxes, without taking up much of the country's resources, and even use the spoils of war to repay the expenses of the state treasury, but Napoleon III knew clearly that 1856 was already a year of fiscal deficits, and the amount of the fiscal deficit exceeded that of 1855, when the Crimean War was at its worst.

As for the coming 1857, in view of the fact that the war against China could not end in a short time, and that it was also a clear fiscal year with a deficit, His Majesty the Emperor was obliged to issue a very strict order: "In view of the unsatisfactory progress of the war, General Mentoban must open the situation in 1857......"

When this order arrived in China, it was already January 2, 1857, and Meng Toban looked at the order sent from India by fast sailing ship, and his face was full of helplessness: "His Majesty the Emperor has asked us to speed up our movements, and he is very dissatisfied with the lack of progress of the expeditionary force!"

For the past month or two, both the coalition and the rainbow have been playing a game of peek-a-boo, but this game on both sides is extremely dangerous, and the slightest mistake can pay a terrible price.

Just a week ago, a second-line infantry battalion of the Rainbow Army was directly surrounded by the main force of the French army led by Meng Toban, although the infantry battalion commander of the Rainbow Army tried all means, but in the end he left more than 100 corpses and hundreds of prisoners and evacuated in a hurry, but the Rainbow Army also unceremoniously counterattacked, and only a third of the 50 French troops, 40 foreign legions and 100 Huai troops escaped.

Under these circumstances, Montoban knew that he was very dissatisfied with himself at home, and although the so-called "six hundred French troops were wiped out" was purely a rumor, he personally wrote a war report about that battle, but he did not think that such a war report would have any influence in the country, and he had to open up the situation as soon as possible.

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But opening up the situation is not as simple as most people think, it is true that there are not 600 French troops in total, but up to the war, 800 legal persons have been killed, sick or missing for various reasons, and until now, Montoban has not dared to publish this figure that will cause countless waves in the country.

And this figure does not include the losses of the Foreign Legion, if you count the losses of the Foreign Legion, then the total number of dead must exceed a thousand, and as for the Russians, they are a little more bitter than the French.

Now Montoban has completely sacrificed the interests of the Russians, and the first line of defense of the two provinces is borne by the Russian army, so their losses are also extremely heavy, you must know that the strength of the Russian army is less than half of the strength of the French team, but their number of casualties is three-quarters of the French team - a full 600, including several infantry companies and infantry platoons that have been completely annihilated.

The Russians therefore repeatedly lodged strong protests, but Montoban was well aware that if the mood of the Russians was to be taken care of, the only troops to be annihilated and badly wounded would be the French army, and he continued: "As it stands, we must bring about a fundamental change in the situation of the war at the beginning of 1857, otherwise the war will end in vain......

A French colonel asked: "As far as the present situation is concerned, we have no way to break the tide of the war, and our most brilliant result is only the annihilation of an infantry battalion of the rebels, and when the time comes for the decisive battle, the rebels flee on the one hand, and on the other hand launch an offensive on the other side, forcing us to return to the army, and we cannot but take into account the sentiments of our Russian friends." ”

"Who said that we have to take care of the emotions of our Russian friends?" Montoban disagreed: "This may be the best opportunity to change the situation of the war!"