Chapter 5: Life in the World (2)

Since the founding of the Qing Dynasty, it has basically been at war. First, he fought with all walks of life in the Southern Ming Dynasty for decades, and finally exterminated the remnants of the former dynasties of all sides, and then came the rebellion of the three feudatories. Later, the Tianli Sect, the White Lotus Sect, the Little Knife Society, the Great Sword Society, the Heaven and Earth Society, and the God Worship Society all kinds of rebellions emerged in endlessly. Therefore, the Qing Dynasty was very skilled in suppressing the popular uprising.

Before the Qing Dynasty trained troops at Yuan Shikai's small station, there were three military systems: the earliest were "flag soldiers" and "green battalions", and after Zeng Guofan organized the township regiments, the so-called Hunan army and Huai army, the official name was "Yongying".

Before the First Sino-Japanese War, people of insight in the Qing court had been alerted to the unbearable battle of the Qing army, so Li Hongzhang was determined to imitate the Western law to train soldiers during his tenure as governor of Zhili, and set up a Tianjin military academy, which was purchased by Gordon on his behalf, and hired a German official as the instructor, and the Manchurian Yinchang as the general office. It is a pity that military education and military organization can not cooperate, so the students who graduated from the Tianjin Military Academy were assigned to the various armies of the Huai Army to serve as teachers and coach new exercises, while the command of the army is still in the hands of the old commander, and all strategies and tactics are still outdated, so in the First Sino-Japanese War, the Huai Army was defeated, and the most famous Sheng army commander in the Huai Army, Wei Rugui, was wiped out. At this time, the Qing court suddenly realized that it was not enough to train troops in Western France, and that a thorough reform was necessary for the entire army and military forces. Therefore, Zhang Zhidong, the governor of Liangjiang, first trained the self-improvement army in Wusong, hired German instructors, and imitated the German army in all sizes and systems. On the other hand, in Beiyang, Hu Liao was assigned to train the ten battalions of the Dingwu Army, and the camp of the Sheng army led by Zhou Shengkun and Zhou Shengbo in the old days of the fake small station was the training of the Chang Shengjun was originally in the small station Tuntian, so there were complete barracks and reclaimed rice fields, because the Sheng army was submerged in the Sino-Japanese First Sino-Japanese War, so the small station was also abandoned, and the Dingwu Army used this as a barracks.

At the same time as the training of the new army, the Qing court organized patrol battalions in the provinces. The patrol battalion is to select the old green battalion and the brave battalion of the strong, recruit the people, and form a group, its nature is to defend the place, such as the police security team, its establishment is divided into horse team and infantry team, the horse team is set up in the whole battalion officer, Ben, soldier, husband a total of 189, 135 horses, each battalion is divided into "center", "left", "right" three posts. The whole battalion of the infantry team has a total of 301 officers, ben and husband, and each battalion is also divided into three posts: "center", "left" and "right". Patrol battalions are found in all provinces, and according to local needs, they are divided into a number of roads, with "center", "front", "left", "right", "rear" or "east", "west", "south", "north", and each road has a commander. The infantry and horse battalions are to be commanded by pipe bands and sentry officers, and those who are trained in new gun drills are to be appointed as instructors.

Of course, the discipline system of the patrol battalion does not conform to the tactical principle, but it is an army that has undergone new training and uses new weapons, but because the sources of the elements are uneven, and most of the officers with the troops are old military attaches or alternate roads (at that time, the alternate roads, those who have methods will be filled when they are vacant, so people call them universal alternate roads), and they know nothing about the new military knowledge, so the patrol battalions have become nominal and practical, and the short-lived of the brave battalions is not much different.

And Handan is a large county in Hebei, is the capital of the ancient Zhao State, although the status has deteriorated for thousands of years, but because it is located in the main road and because it is located in the most powerful territory of the Qing Dynasty, so the military equipment has always been good. After receiving that there were rioters gathering to make trouble in the locality, and that several members of the party had cut their braids and kept them on board, the Handan County Commander immediately ordered the patrol battalion to go out to exterminate these rioters. The people of my Qing Dynasty actually dared to cut their braids, which is clearly a rebellion. Keeping your head and not your hair is not just a joke and so on, it seems that something is wrong?

In short, the battalion officer received the order, and on the same day, he beat the drum and gathered the sergeant general. First of all, I ate and drank a meal in the Taibai Building in the city, and of course, my soldiers in the Qing Dynasty naturally don't have to pay for the restaurant to eat. After the battalion officers and other generals were full of food and drink, they were coerced and enticed. Then these generals coerced and enticed the soldiers below, and finally each soldier was given a handful of copper, and he was ready to get rich in a majestic manner.

While the soldiers and generals of the patrol battalion were still eating and drinking, there were spies from the Black Dragon Society who reported the situation back. Then Li Dayan led more than 600 people on foot and waited on the road with guns.

The cannon is a bronze cannon, and it is the famous Napoleonic cannon. That is, the M1857 12-pounder field gun, with a barrel length of 66 inches (1.676 m 14.3 times the caliber), a caliber of 117mm, a gun body weighing about 1227 pounds (556.57 kg), a wheel diameter of 57 inches (1.45 m), and a full weight (gun body, gun carriage plus wheels) weighing 2445 pounds (1109 kg). The full gun combination (all guns plus the front trailer and the attached ammunition box) weighed 3,865 pounds (about 1,750 kg). The use of bronze cannons is a last resort, if there is another way, Chen Cheng will definitely not choose this kind of cheating.

Although the Napoleon cannon is an epoch-making work, it is a matter of decades ago. In this era of rapid technological change, the replacement of weapons is also extremely rapid. But isn't that no way? This is something far behind the times, or the black dragon will smash the pot and sell iron, and the bronze on the ground and even the copper bell in the temple are snatched and melted before casting.

The guns were large-caliber shotguns and a small number of foreign guns, and there were more than 300 horses. The effective range of the shotgun was only a pitiful more than 100 meters, but it was enough to bully the Qing soldiers' already decaying patrol battalion. The three-hundred-strong horse team is the essence of the entire Black Dragon Society, and its members are not only those local warriors, rangers, but also recruited Mongolian knights. All the cavalry were two-man horses, and in addition to the war horses there was a pack horse for riding. The weapons were steel knives weighing more than a dozen pounds, and a few were armed with revolvers.

This is already the entire family of the Black Dragon Society, which is enough to run rampant in a province.

The beginning of the battle began with the roar of artillery, and three volleys of six cannons directly destroyed the will to fight of the patrol battalion. Except for a few guys whose heads were paralyzed by alcohol and didn't realize what was happening, the rest of the people just threw away their armor and scattered. The battalion officer had also fought in the Hongyang Rebellion for more than ten years, and when he heard the sound of artillery, he knew that the situation was not good. After the infantry team was hit by the solid bullet a few times, he immediately turned his horse's head and ran away as fast as he could.

There was no suspense about the ensuing battle.