Search for and rescue the missing Vice Admiral Seymour and his troops?

Yi Shui scoffed at this task: think carefully about the fastest speed of the mercenaries arriving in Tianjin, if the lieutenant general and his troops really encountered a dilemma that they could not solve and had to rely on another army to rescue, and when the mercenaries arrived and began to search, they would have seen God a long time ago, and the mission was meaningless; If the lieutenant general and his troops can solve the dilemma they encountered, naturally, they will not care whether there is rescue or not, and the task is still meaningless. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

Washington's demands were apparently merely a pretense, both to curry favor with the British and to show off force -- a vice admiral of the world's most powerful empire on which the sun never sets, and the 3,000 elite soldiers he commanded, were in need of rescue from American troops, and the American press seemed to have big news to cover......

No, not seemingly, it must be. The press is bound to make unbridled show-offs.

Yi Shui believes that in the recent past, the front-page headlines in newspapers will be very exciting, funny and exaggerated, enough to make every American citizen who does not know the truth of the matter excited.

If they care about international political and military issues.

Of course, Qin Lang ignored this mockery, and immediately began to select the combat units that would make up the advance force - four battalions, made up of the most elite combat units of the mercenaries, all of whom were experienced veterans and absolutely obeyed orders - as well as conceived of the contracts that would be signed. A little later in the day, Qin Lang had already completed all of this work, and then after a few short hours, the mercenaries set off.

Eight days later, the advance force arrived in Tianjin; However, at this time, just as Yi Shui guessed, the object it was about to rescue had been out of the predicament and returned to the original place of departure.

More precisely, the day before the mercenaries arrived, Vice Admiral Seymour and the remaining soldiers of the British Expeditionary Force fled back in disarray.

"Remnants?" Although it still seemed calm, Qin Lang was indeed surprised by the word. Remaining? If David. Mr. Webb did not use the wrong adjective, which meant that Seymour's troops suffered heavy losses. But how could the Boxer fighters, who had nothing left but fanaticism and courage, do this?

"How many people did the British Expeditionary Force lose?" He wanted to know an exact number.

"One hundred and eighty-one people were killed and five hundred and forty-seven wounded, of whom two hundred and ninety-four were seriously wounded." David. Webb replied, "Fifteen officers were among the dead. ”

Qin Lang furrowed his eyebrows almost imperceptibly.

Weber's claim was incomprehensible to him, and it simply shouldn't have happened. On the basis of a known example of the battle of Sanyuanli in May 1841, in which the Madras Infantry Company of the British Expeditionary Force was surrounded by outnumbered civilian troops in Sanyuanli, and finally succeeded in breaking through by means of white-knuckle fighting, killing seven men,[Note]—it is inferred that, no matter how serious the trouble was, Seymour's troops could not have lost more than the Madras Infantry Company.

Seymour's troops consisted of three thousand soldiers, armed with modern Lee Lee. Enfield rifles, machine guns, and breech-loading artillery, even if the Qing army entered the battle, it would still be an impossible task to add more than 700 names to the casualty list of this force, let alone the Boxers.

"Do you know the exact situation of the battle, Captain?" Qin Lang continued to ask, wanting to make things completely clear.

"Know a little. One of the first things Vice Admiral Seymour did when he returned to Tianjin was to lash out at our company, Umbrella, and the Great Viper. Weber spread his hands and made a helpless gesture, "He accused us of not training the Chinese army so well, let alone selling them powerful weapons." ”

"I don't remember when I ever sold powerful weapons to the Qing government."

".308 caliber spiked bullets." Webb explained, "The 7.7mm round bullet was so much more powerful than the British that some British officers were complaining that it was a grave mistake not to ship some special bullet from the Indian Damdam Arsenal to China, resulting in their soldiers suffering from the power of their weapons." ”

"That doesn't be a reason at all." Qin Lang snorted, and then asked, "According to Seymour's accusation, he met the Beiyang New Army?" ”

Webb nodded. "A number of junior officers and soldiers of the Mighty Guard took part in the battle, providing support to the boxers and instructing them in digging trenches."

In fact, it was the junior officers and soldiers of the Armed Guard who were the main cause of the casualties of the British army - although it was the boxers who actually caused the casualties, and they rushed to the positions of the British troops in waves without hesitation, attacking the enemy troops equipped with modern weapons with broadswords and spears, and wrote more than 700 names on the casualty list. But without the Forces nouvelles soldiers instructing the Boxers in digging trenches to avoid artillery fire, it would have been difficult for them to insert their weapons into the British.

At least that's what Webb thinks.

Of course, the participation of the Armed Guards in the battle is a noteworthy issue. Even if they were not yet up to the level of mercenaries, these soldiers, who had been trained as military advisers, were much more difficult to deal with than ordinary Qing troops and Boxers...... It's only part of it, but the question is, which part of the battle is part?

"Wuwei Front Army, Wuwei Middle Army, Wuwei Left Army, which one did Seymour meet?"

"It's not clear yet. The only thing that is certain is that it is not the Right Army of Wuwei. ”

Weber was very sure, but Qin Lang was also very sure, so he didn't mention the Wuwei Right Army at all, because its commander was Yuan Shikai - after the attempted coup last year, as a punishment for his declaration of neutrality, Rong Lu officially took over the training and reorganized the Beiyang Army in the Zhili area into the Wuwei Army, and Yuan Shikai was demoted to the commander of the Wuwei Right Army; Of course, this didn't make much sense, and the most elite part of the Beiyang Army was still under the control of the former Minister of Military Training - almost all of the soldiers with the longest training time and the best results of military advisers were in the Wuwei Right Army. [Note 2]

But this force will never take part in the battle. After the coup broke out, Yuan Shikai, who had already moved to Shandong, immediately declared neutrality. In that case, it was impossible for his troops to slip in from Shandong to stop Seymour's forces.

And it's too late.

Of course, it can also be ruled out that none of the soldiers in this unit have been trained as military advisers, and that none of them are in Beijing. Therefore, there are only three options in Qin Lang's list of suspicions: the front army, the middle army, and the left army. But sadly, no one can tell him the correct answer.

"I don't think Lieutenant General Seymour knows which Qing army he encountered." Qin Lang crossed his hands, hugged them to his chest, and slowly paced around the room, "It seems that no one can provide me with valuable information. ”

"I'm sorry, boss." Webb said.

"It's nothing, Captain." Qin Lang shrugged nonchalantly, "Overall, the situation is still very favorable to us, in front of those students who are far from qualified, our soldiers only need to be a little more vigilant, and trouble will never appear." What is certain is that we will soon be able to solve the current problem. ”

"I'm afraid it's not that simple, Mr. Qin." Webber shook his head, "General Seymour has been frightened and openly declared that without 20,000 soldiers and at least one hundred and fifty cannons, he will definitely not advance to Beijing again." You may not know how panicked he looked when he returned to Tianjin......"

"I can imagine, Captain." Qin Lang interrupted him, "I can guess. ”

Qin Lang could easily imagine how panicked Vice Admiral Seymour was. In the history he knew, the little setback of the expeditionary force at Langfang had completely discouraged Seymour, declaring that "the expedition had in fact failed", and that this time he had suffered far more serious losses than that one, and that the vice admiral's failure to ask London for permission to immediately lead his troops out of Tianjin was already a sign of his courage.

In reality, however, it was only a matter of his mentality – and that of all Westerners – that before encountering the Boxers, Westerners, whether soldiers, diplomats, or civilians, generally viewed military operations in China as a military operation without an actual armed parade or an exotic magical adventure, rather than as a real battle that would lead to the threat of death. Therefore, when a group of armed men with simple weapons bravely attacked the British army and caused casualties, every Westerner would be strongly impacted.

So the American Congregational missionary Ming Enpu [note 3] who preached in Shandong commented on Seymour's failure: "...... In any case, it dispels for good the oft-talked about argument that a small foreign army, as well organized and armed, can run rampant throughout China without effective resistance...... Without a large field army prepared to deal with all contingencies, and without a base sufficient to resist the attack of any force that the Chinese could muster to maintain unimpeded communications, the capital Beijing would be impossible to reach at present. When the Chinese are thoroughly awakened and in fact pouring out in infinite numbers, too much faith in the ability of foreign countries to deal with Chinese resistance will undermine our ability to make many more correct assessments of the difficulties we face. ”

Qin Lang thought this was a good thing—even from the perspective of his plan. The Boxers were able to make Western countries aware of the dangers of dividing China by force, and then they would have to choose a safer approach.

Of course, it's his method.

Everything will be in his hands.

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Note: The figures are from Mao Haijian's "The Collapse of the Celestial Empire"

Note 2: This is different from history, please note (to be continued.) )