Chapter 189: Crisscrossing Gui Province, Attacking and Harassing Battles

The Qing Dynasty army originated from the Manchu Eight Banners initiated by the Qing Taizu Nurhachi, and later added the Mongolian and Han Eight Banners, which were combined into 24 banners. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 Due to ethnic discrimination, pampering, corruption, backward systems and other reasons, the Eight Banners gradually declined.

The green battalion is to be attached to the Ming army and the Han landlord armed rebuilt into the provincial garrison army, with the green flag as a symbol, with the battalion as the system, so called the green battalion. As they were used for arrest, anti-smuggling and other local errand services, the training was not substantial, and the discipline was lax, and soon the green battalion soldiers also irretrievably declined. Due to the rise of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the Eight Banners and the Green Camp had become unusable, and the Qing government urgently ordered the provincial gentry to set up regiments to train and suppress them......

Hunan Army, Huai Army, Training Army...... changed back and forth, after all, it was "soup and miscellaneous". In the late Qing Dynasty, the old army was no longer useful, the system was not subordinate to each other, the command was chaotic, and the officers were deceived and deceitful, inferior and incompetent; The quality of the soldiers was so low and lacking in fighting spirit that they were ready to collapse at the touch of every battle, and they fled when they encountered the enemy.

In order to enhance the combat capability of the armed forces, it is necessary to reduce the old army and train the new army. For the old-style army, which has a number of millions and consumes tens of millions of taels of silver every year, this is undoubtedly a strategy to draw wages from the bottom of the kettle and eliminate corruption and nurture the new.

In the late Qing Dynasty, the idea of military reform was that the new army played the role of the national defense force, and the old armies in the provinces were reorganized into patrol battalions and were responsible for local security. This arrangement cannot be said to be unreasonable, but it is too careless, and the division of wealth between the central and local governments has not been cleaned up.

According to the regulations, the local patrol battalions were placed under the jurisdiction of the governors of the provinces in peacetime and under the command of the War Department in wartime. The patrol battalion has only two arms, infantry and cavalry, and each province shall not exceed five roads, and each road shall not exceed ten battalions.

But the patrol battalion is a replacement for the useless green battalion, military training, defense army and regimental training in the past, and it unceremoniously inherits most of the weaknesses of the predecessors, such as the commanders are mostly old-style officers. Most of the soldiers also came from the previous green battalion, regimental training, etc., and their quality was very poor in all aspects. Although these teams have practiced foreign exercises and are mostly equipped with Western-style weapons, their spirits are scattered, their military discipline is lax, and their combat effectiveness is very low.

Historically. The Qing army's repeated defeats in foreign battles cannot be simply attributed to the disparity in weapons and equipment. For example, in the First Sino-Japanese War, the equipment of the Qing army surpassed that of the Japanese army, but due to the long-term dullness of the army, the training could not keep up, and it lacked the will to "see red with bayonets" face to face with the enemy. And this is precisely the most effective tactic for foreign armies to defeat the Qing army since the Opium War.

To sum up, it is similar to the old army of the Qing army patrol battalion. Even against the brave and cold-armed civilian rioters, it is difficult to say that the odds of victory are assured. This can also be explained, in history, the League will launch an uprising carried out by the Hui Party, and hundreds of people, even 180 people, and dozens of guns, can also be tossed, causing a lot of losses to the Qing army.

Now, the Qing army's opponent was a well-trained, well-equipped, and high-morale revolutionary army. Who are the backbone of the revolutionary army? It is not enough to say that it is a person with lofty ideals and a hot-blooded young man. Many people are revolutionaries who have transcended the limitations of the times. Shedding blood, martyrdom, and rewarding the country with his life, he doesn't care about personal life and death at all.

All the suffering and torment, all the whistling blades and gunstones, in the face of this great spirit that transcends the mundane. It became so pale and weak. The greatness of the spirit transcends the meager intellect of survival. It is precisely because of their existence that the Chinese state was temporarily torn apart, and the scars caused by stagnation, and even the collapse of the regime for a while. can heal their wounds under the strong national spiritual force.

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The fact that the old-style Qing army was unbearable was a fact that could have been concluded for a long time. However, the revolutionary army was devastating and devastated, and achieved such great results, but it still greatly exceeded the estimate before the incident.

Anyway, surrender and escape, the Qing army kept staging this trilogy. Battles are frequent but not fierce, superiority in weapons and equipment is one thing, and bravery and fearlessness are more important.

ambushes, sieges, captures; The more the revolutionary army fought, the more confident it became, and the more it fought, the more accurate it was in calculating the strength of both the enemy and us in the battle.

The successive reconquest of Hekou, Mengzi, Kaiyuan, Shiping, Jianshui, and Tonghai, as well as the previous attack on Fangcheng, Qinzhou, and Lingshan, enabled the revolutionary army to seize a considerable amount of money, grain, and materials, laying a good foundation for long-term persistence; The continuous annihilation of the Qing army has also replenished the guns and ammunition in disguise, which can support the continuous operation of the revolutionary army; The substantial expansion of the Liberation Zone has created favorable conditions for the military government to implement the practice of providing food according to the locality.

The offensive that swept from southern Yunnan to the north not only allowed the revolutionary army to expand its strategic maneuver space, but also mobilized the Qing court reinforcements from the south. Just when the Qing troops in Hunan, Hubei and Guizhou provinces were rushing to Kunming and rushing to reinforce them, the revolutionary army maneuvered again, leaving only 3,000 men of the Long detachment in southern Yunnan to bluff, and the rest of the men and horses returned to Guangxi in the starry night, joined up with the land detachment in Baise, and suddenly advanced eastward, connecting the two counties of Keduan and Mashan, and went south to Wuming, forming a three-sided attack on Nanning with the men and horses of the base area and the Wang detachment.

Judging from the current situation, the Qing army's plan was to adopt a strategy of siege on three sides. In the west, the people of Yunnan, Sichuan, and Guizhou provinces are the mainstay, in the north are the combined forces of Hunan, Hubei, and Guizhou provinces, and in the east are the Guangdong New Army and patrol battalions.

However, the sudden concentrated attack of the revolutionary army disrupted Yunnan Province and annihilated a large number of Qing troops in Yunnan Province. After Lu Rongting and Long Jiguang, the Qing army in Guangxi was repeatedly attacked by the revolutionary army and was already broken. The Qing armies in Hunan and Hubei turned west into Yunnan, which immediately made the Qing armies in Guangxi appear weak.

The Qing army in Guangdong reoccupied Fangcheng and Qinzhou, and divided five battalions into Nanning to assist in the defense, with the intention of blocking the revolutionary army in the area west of Nanning, waiting for the army to gather, and then attacking and suppressing it together. When the uprisings in Huanggang and Qinuhu broke out, the governor Zhang Renjun urgently transferred the water division and the commander Li Zhun led five battalions of men and horses to leave Qinzhou and go to Chaoshan to suppress them.

After analyzing it in this way, it is logical that the revolutionary army will be weak by avoiding the strong and launching an offensive in Guangxi again.

At that time, the capital of Guangxi Province was Guilin, but Nanning was a famous city in Guizhou Province, which was not only governed by Nanning Prefecture, but also governed by Zuojiang Province and Xuanhua County, with a very important geographical location and greater political influence.

But is the revolutionary army really going to conquer Nanning and cause greater political impact? The answer is clearly no. Make a gesture of attacking Nanning. The Qing army panicked and frightened, and the surrounding people were evacuated, and the Qing army in Guilin, Liuzhou and other places asked for help. This not only caused the defense of the counties and towns around Nanning to be in vain, but also created a good opportunity for the revolutionary army to maneuver to annihilate the enemy.

Wuming, Shanglin, Binyang and other counties were easily recovered, and the revolutionary army approached Nanning, and then suddenly went north to Shangbin County. Entered Liuzhou Mansion and forced the government to govern Liuzhou.

The city of Liuzhou was strong, and the defenders closed the city and defended it, so the revolutionary army went around the city and marched towards Guilin, but secretly left the ambush soldiers in Luzhai and annihilated several battalions of the Qing army that were forced to go out of the city to chase after them in one fell swoop. Subsequently, the disguised defeated soldiers defrauded the gate of Liuzhou, and the brigade of people and horses swarmed in. After a battle, the important town of Liuzhou was recovered.

Guilin was in an emergency, and Zhang Mingqi, the governor of Guangxi, frequently sent reports to the Qing court for help, and hurriedly cobbled together six or seven thousand patrol troops to strengthen the city defense and prepare to defend it to the end.

After feinting to attack Guilin and almost emptying the local Qing army, the revolutionary army advanced westward from Liuzhou and entered Qingyuan Mansion (now Hechi area). Nandan, Tian'e, Fengshan, Donglan and other counties were easily recovered and entered the territory of Guizhou Province. Occupying Pingtang and Dushan counties, it is less than 100 miles away from Guiyang, the capital of Guizhou Province.

Taking advantage of the weakness of the Qing army in Guangxi, the revolutionary army moved from east to west, south to north, and although it could not consolidate all the occupations, it destroyed the local power of the Qing court. The people saw the weakness and incompetence of the Qing army, saw the bravery of the revolutionary army, and various policies and measures, and eliminated fear and misunderstanding.

After this vertical and horizontal attack, the Qing army's siege plan basically failed. Guilin and Guiyang were threatened one after another, and they had to be heavily defended by stationing heavy troops. The Qing troops in Yunnan Province and Gui Province suffered heavy losses, their troops were already insufficient, and the great network of encirclement and suppression had not yet been formed, and they were torn out of a big hole by the revolutionary army's initiative.

At this time, the Qing army was able to launch an active attack, and the only troops gathered in Kunming were stronger. Among them are the First Association of the Eighth Town of the Hubei New Army, 20 battalions of the Yunnan Provincial Patrol Force, and 10 battalions of the Guizhou Provincial Patrol Army, totaling 15,600 people. Guiyang was threatened, and eight battalions of the Guizhou Provincial Patrol Army were ordered to return, but their strength was still far superior to that of the Dragon Detachment of the Revolutionary Army in front of them.

As a result, the Qing court also changed its deployment, and on the one hand, it continued to transfer Hunan and Jiangxi Qing armies to the south and Guangzhou, striving to stabilize the situation; On the one hand, he ordered the Qing army in Yunnan Province to "march quickly to suppress and recover the lost territory".

In this way, the originally scheduled three-sided battle has become the key attack, and the main battlefield is in southern Yunnan.

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Shiping Prefecture, also known as Shiping, in the fifteenth year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty (1382), Shiping Prefecture was changed to Shiping, and later changed to Shiping, which belonged to Lin'an Mansion. After the Qing Dynasty, along with the Ming system, it was still divided as such.

The topography of the whole state is high in the north and low in the south, high in the west and low in the east, and the middle is concave, like a pinched basket that is carried out to the east, which can be summarized as the mountainous terrain of "three mountains and two rivers", "more than nine points of mountains, and insufficient of one point dam". The topography is characterized by many mountains and few lands, mountains and rivers, parallel mountains and valleys, great height differences, and obvious verticality. Coupled with the subtropical plateau mountain monsoon climate, the forest coverage is high.

"Compatriots kill compatriots, pigs and dogs are not as good, heaven and earth do not tolerate it." "The people are not enough, and you are all slaves, so why don't you rise up and strike a blow." "Drive out the Tartars and restore China." "Slaughter the people, and the sky thunders." "Don't kill and surrender, don't torture prisoners." "Hardcore traitors, stinking for 10,000 years." "The Han family is a good son, how can you be a horse and a cow?" ……

Along the way, at intervals, similar slogans could be seen on trees, stone walls, and walls, so that the Qing army vanguard who entered the place understood that this was not a simple civil unrest, but a group of organized, led, and idealistic revolutionary parties.

In 1907, the Qing court determined the military system of the new army, and planned to train 36 towns (equivalent to divisions) of the national army, which were assigned to the two towns in Hubei as the eighth town and the eleventh town. In the whole country, the new army in other provinces has not yet been trained, or there are only one or two standards, and the Hubei New Army has become the military force second only to Yuan Shikai's Beiyang Army at that time.

The 15th Infantry Association of the Eighth Town of the Hubei New Army was transferred, with jurisdiction over 29 standards (standard commander Zhang Jingliang) and 30 standards (standard commander Yang Kaijia), as well as two battalions of the eighth town artillery battalion, the eighth battalion of engineering, the eighth battalion of baggage, and the gendarmerie battalion, totaling more than 5,300 people.

Compared with the old-style army such as the patrol army, the equipment and training of the new army are naturally not the same. As for the revolutionary army, the new army is certainly an opponent to which it attaches double importance, but in terms of equipment, except for artillery, the new army does not have an advantage. The current Qing New Army, except for the Beiyang New Army, which was equipped with Makqin machine guns (the number is unknown), and later added machine gun battalions, the new armies in other provinces did not have such weapons.

In terms of combat power, the new army is far superior to the patrol army, but it may not be able to play normally in southern Yunnan. After all, the topography of Lingnan was not familiar with and adapted to the Hubei New Army. Mountains and mountains are connected, caves and caves are connected, mountains and forests are reckless, and rivers are all around. There will be no regular warfare in Pingchuan and cavalry warfare galloping across the grasslands, but there will be a need for mountain and jungle warfare that is unfamiliar to the Hubei New Army.

He Xifan, the pipe band of the 29th Standard 1st Battalion, looked unhappy, frowned, and felt a little headache about the complex terrain along the way. The mountains are dense and forested, the narrow roads are steep, the trees are deep and the grass is deep, and the cold guns are harassed from time to time, so that the troops' march is very slow. In particular, the patrol unit of the Yunnan Army, which was mixed with the first battalion and acted as a guide, screamed and screamed at the slightest disturbance, which made the new army nervous.

"Boom!" The pile of rubble on the side of the road suddenly exploded without warning, a puff of black smoke rose up, the gravel was collapsed and flew everywhere, the Qing soldiers who were marching were blown up, and many soldiers were hit by sharp stones and fell down screaming.

Taking advantage of the confusion after the Qing soldiers were bombed, more than a dozen figures suddenly appeared in the grass and behind the trees, shooting out rows of guns, and bullets flew towards the enemy with a whistling bullet. Amid the screams and exclamations, a dozen figures retreated quickly, only to see the grass and trees shaking, and after a while, they were nowhere to be seen.

The platoon commander Fang Xing escaped again, but his shoulder was cut by the flying gravel, and the blood flowed. Looking at the soldier who fell to the ground, he was both resentful, helpless, and afraid. If you continue to do it again and again, you will kill yourself sooner or later. If he fought with real swords and guns, he felt that with the soldiers' fighting, he could completely deal with these harassing enemies, but the enemy just wouldn't give him a chance to show it.

A soldier who had been hit in the face by a gravel rolled on the ground with a cried pain, blood gushing from his fingers covering his face. Not far away, a soldier who had been shot in the neck by a bullet was already motionless, and the blood gushing from the wound became a small pool of blood, and he was completely dead. There was also a Qing soldier whose thigh was pierced by a bullet, screaming like killing a pig.

………… (To be continued.) )