You know, the mortality rate in white-knuckle combat is much higher than in gun battles, and there are often more dead than wounded, especially at the end of the 19th century, when medical conditions were far inferior to later generations.

Moreover, it must be noted that although the bayonet charge of the modern army is more likely to defeat the old army than the rifle fire in many cases, there are two prerequisites, either the opponent's morale is not high and the will to fight is not strong, or the modern army has broken up the opponent's formation through platoon gun shooting.

However, the morale of the Donghak rebel army was extremely high, and even if they suffered heavy casualties, they could not retreat, and at the same time, they had an overwhelming superiority in troops, and it was difficult for the Japanese army in Korea, which was short of ammunition, to disrupt its formation.

In this case, as the saying goes, "an inch is long, an inch is strong." It is really difficult for the obviously short bayonet to fight the long-handled cold weapons of the rebel army, which have long been behind the times.

Although relying on the superiority of personnel quality, the exchange ratio of the Japanese army's "suppression of bandits" is still obviously superior, but in the face of the Donghak Party rebel army, whose total strength has skyrocketed to more than 100,000 and continues to grow rapidly, let alone a 1:3 exchange ratio, even if it is 1:10, the Japanese army in Korea cannot afford to fight!

In addition, the land supply line was too long, and the Japanese army in Korea was forced to divide their troops to defend it, and it was difficult to rush to help quickly due to the inconvenience of transportation.

As a result, in less than a month, the Japanese army in Korea suffered more than 3,000 casualties, but the Donghak rebel army fought more and more, and became stronger and stronger, and finally even Yamaprefecture Aritomo, known as the "father of the modern Japanese army", had to order a reduction in troops to avoid greater losses.

But in this way, the land supply lines of the Japanese army in the DPRK were completely cut off, not to mention ammunition, and even military rations began to run out.

As a result, the Japanese army intensified its efforts to go to the countryside to collect grain, which aroused the strong dissatisfaction of the Korean people, and even many landlords and scholars, and led to the fact that the Hokkaido faction in Donghak-do, which advocated compromise and surrender, also began to be inclined to armed anti-Japanese, so that people in Gyeonggi-do, which had not had many Donghak-do followers before, began to rise up to respond to the call of Jeonhyun to resist Japan and save the country.

If this trend is not stopped, the Dongxue rebel army will be very difficult to control.

Faced with such a predicament, Yamasan-youpeng finally couldn't hold on anymore after holding out for a month, and was forced to throw away his face and lead the army to retreat to Busan to get supplies nearby, but because he had to bring the Joseon royal family, hardcore pro-Japanese factions, and a large amount of goods and materials plundered from Gyeonggi Province, the march was extremely delayed, and as a result, he was constantly harassed by the Donghak Party rebels along the way, and often frightened overnight.

After the Japanese troops retreating south were exhausted, the leader of the Donghak Party rebel army, Jeon Hyun-joon, concentrated nearly 100,000 of the most elite troops under his command near Gongju, hoping to annihilate the southbound Japanese army, which now had less than 20,000 soldiers to fight

Originally, this battle was very promising to win, although the Japanese army was elite, but at this time almost all the bullets had been exhausted, and there were only more than 100 shells available, and at the same time, because they had not slept well for many days, they were extremely tired from top to bottom; However, the rebel army waited for work at leisure, had high morale, and had an absolute superiority of more than five times the strength of the army, and the situation was very favorable.

On the first day of fighting, the Japanese suffered more than 4,000 casualties, and were divided into three parts by the rebels, and at this rate, the Japanese army would have completely collapsed after three days at most.

However, in this excellent situation, Quan Junjun, who lacked combat experience in large corps, made two fatal mistakes in succession

Although the telegraph line was cut off and it was impossible to receive the First Army's request for help, the commander of the Japanese Second Army, Oyama Iwa, who had recently ventured to lead some men and horses across the sea to Pusan, still estimated the current predicament of the First Army with his rich war experience, and specially sent the First Cavalry Brigade that had arrived in Busan with him to the north to meet it.

However, Jeon Junjun did not expect that the Japanese reinforcements from Busan would arrive in time, and he was caught off guard when he landed.

Even if Quan Qizhun could have mobilized a large force in time to intercept it, the First Cavalry Brigade, which had less than 500 troops left at this time due to seasickness, beriberi and other reasons, would not be able to reverse the situation of this general battle.

However, Quan Qizhun, who had never experienced the real combat power of the Japanese army, only estimated the strength of the first cavalry brigade by tripling the average combat effectiveness of the first army, and did not know how great the impact of the supply situation on the modern army was, let alone how terrible the machine guns, even the old-fashioned hand-cranked machine guns such as the Green gun, were to the troops in dense formations, so he only sent more than 2,000 troops to intercept them.

As a result, this unit was easily routed by the 1st Cavalry Brigade, which was temporarily reinforced with several Grimm guns, which took advantage of the situation to tear open the encirclement of the rebels and rescue some of the officers and men of the 1st Army, while the shortcomings of the rebels' lack of formal military training were completely exposed

Although the Dongxue rebels have shown a strong ability to bear casualties in previous battles, they rely on high morale rather than strict organizational discipline, and they can withstand heavy casualties in normal battles that can make many modern armies unable to hold on, but once unexpected variables appear on the battlefield, they can easily fall into chaos or even collapse suddenly.

However, the huge size of the troops that Quan Hyun Zhun specially gathered in order to completely annihilate the Japanese First Army, which far exceeded his command ability, further magnified this hidden danger, and finally quickly collapsed under the internal and external attacks of the Japanese army, and then the army was defeated like a mountain.

After the war, preliminary statistics showed that the number of deaths of the Donghak Party rebel army was no less than 80,000 (the Japanese army basically did not take prisoners), and most of them were among the "elite soldiers".

However, the Japanese army also paid a very heavy price, with a total of more than 7,000 casualties, of which more than 5,000 were permanently attrition (because it was mainly a white-knuckle battle), and the First Army could be said to be completely disabled.

In fact, if it weren't for the fact that the whole First Army knew that they had surrendered, they would inevitably fight to the death and never surrender, but I was afraid that they would not have been able to hold out for reinforcements to arrive

Taking advantage of the great victory of the Japanese army, the bureaucratic landlords in all parts of Korea who were hostile to the Donghak Party rebel army pulled up one after another and joined forces with the Japanese army and the Korean "official army" to exterminate the rebel army, which made the situation of the Donghak Party rebel army even worse.

However, because the problem of logistical supply for the Japanese army entering Korea was not solved, the scope of activities, the time of the battle, and the number of troops that could be invested were greatly limited, and it was difficult for those puppet armies to defeat the rebel army on their own, so the latter was not quickly extinguished after only one major defeat as in history.

As long as the Donghak Party rebel army is still active, it will be impossible for the Japanese troops in Korea to return to Seoul, let alone attack Pyongyang in the north