Li Hongzhang was determined to fight a big battle with the French, and almost used all the famous generals and main forces of the Huai Army at that time, and deployed defenses layer by layer on the southeast coast: Wu Changqing led the Qingzi battalion of 3,000 people to garrison Shandong; Zhou Shengbo and Zhou Shengchuan led 5,000 people from the Shengzi battalion to garrison Zhili; Liu Bingzhang led a "good army" of 3,000 people to garrison Zhejiang; Ding Ruchang led the Beiyang Fleet to garrison Bohai Bay and hold Tianjin; Zhang Shusheng led the "Tree Army" of 5,000 people to sit in Guangdong and Guangxi to transport firearms and food; Liu Mingchuan was transferred to the governor of Fujian and led the 6,500 Ming troops of Tang Dingkui, the general of the old department, to defend Taiwan; The Wusongkou and Jiangyin forts at the mouth of the Yangtze River were garrisoned by the most advanced flowering artillery of the Huai Army.

This strict overall layout fully reflects that Li Hongzhang is the leader of the Huai Army who knows people and makes good use of them, and the handsome talent who commands "handsome talents", and his outstanding military command ability and the tremendous energy of the "Dinghai Shenpin" really could not find a second person in the Great Qing Dynasty at that time, so later people said that Prime Minister Ito Hirobumi regarded Li Hongzhang as "the only person in the Qing Empire who has the ability to compete with the world powers", and he is not a fool. The Empress Dowager Cixi also knew that Li Hongzhang's ability was not something that Weng Tongyi, Zhang Peilun and others could slander, so she would rather not believe in Prince Gong, but also trust Li Hongzhang and ask him to go out of the mountain to deal with the French.

After defeating Zhang Peilun's Fujian naval division in Mawei, the French commander took the fleet to the southeast coast to cruise, holding military binoculars and staring at the blue eyeballs, and after searching for a long time, he could not find the slightest loophole in Li Hongzhang's defense. He was anxious and red-eyed, and he didn't inquire in detail about who was stationed in Taiwan, and he felt that Taiwan was undeveloped, relatively poor and backward, and should be well occupied, so he took the Far East Fleet and went straight to Keelung.

After Song Xiaofei led 2,000 Huai troops into Taiwan, he immediately found that the Qing army's defense was heavy on the south and light on the north. In Tainan, there are 30 battalions of heavy troops from Taiwan's Taoist Liu Xuanzhi, while in the direction of Taipei, there are only six battalions of Cao Zhizhong, three battalions of Sun Kaihua, and more than 130 personal soldiers brought by Liu Mingchuan. Song Xiaofei knew that the main direction of the French army must be Keelung and Tamsui in the direction of Taipei, so he transferred troops to Liu Xuan's camp.

Liu Xuan is a native of Yueyang, Hunan, originally a Hunan army that joined Zuo Zongtang, and had quite a lot of military achievements, but later jumped to the Huai Army without being reused, and became a Taoist in Taiwan for many years, and was quite influential in the local area, but this person has always been arrogant and conceited, and felt that Song Xiaofei was young and talking nonsense, what did the French do in those barren places in Taipei? insisted on prevaricating and not transferring troops.

Song Xiaofei was furious, and immediately made a decision to go to Tamsui to find his eldest brother Liu Mingchuan. As soon as they discussed, they set up a "Hongmen Banquet", took down Liu Xuan, tied him up in the name of delaying the fighter plane, and wanted to arrest him and put him in prison. Liu Xuan quibbled and said: "I was ordered to garrison Tainan, and without the will of the imperial court, I must not transfer troops at will", and the thousands of battalions he brought also rushed in at this time, and the two sides were tense!

Seeing that the situation was about to go against the sky, Liu Mingchuan stood up, overturned the table, pulled out his saber, and cut off one of the legs of the square table with one sword. I am now the governor of Fujian, in charge of Taiwan's defense, and those who dare to disobey my orders will be beheaded! ”

Liu Liu's name has long been thunderous in the Huai army, seeing that he is so resolute, Liu Xuan's personal soldiers hurriedly threw the knife to the ground and switched to Liu Mingchuan. As a result, Liu Mingchuan quickly sent his own soldiers to take over all of Liu Zhang's battalion, and the whole Taiwan was shaken, and Liu Mingchuan's prestige was also established at once.

Song Xiaofei and Liu Mingchuan discussed that his Huai army would be stationed at the Keelung port in the northeast of Taiwan, and Liu Mingchuan would be stationed at the freshwater port in the northwest of Taiwan, that is, Huwei. The Qing army did not have ironclad warships to engage in naval warfare, so the two agreed that they should make use of their strengths and avoid their weaknesses, conduct land battles, let the French land first, and then encircle and annihilate them.

Sure enough, Guba believed that Tainan had been garrisoned by the Huai Army since the Tongzhi period, and it was not easy to break through, so he attacked the east and the west and broke through from Taipei. Only two warships were sent to Tainan as a cover, and he led the main force of the French army to attack Keelung.

The lonely Changsheng army had just won a big victory, and when they saw Zhang Peilun's "suspicious military plan", their front teeth laughed off, thinking that the generals of the Qing army were all Zhang Peilun, so they were proud and underestimated the enemy. The lone pioneer officer, French Navy Captain Lisby, led four French [***] ships to Keelung Port first, sent a herald ashore, and sent a letter of persuasion to Song Xiaofei, to the effect that "those who follow me prosper and those who oppose me die."

Song Xiaofei gave Lisby a green-haired turtle and asked the herald to bring it back to him. When Risby looked at the shrunken green turtle, he was puzzled by what it meant, and asked Ma Shige, the Chinese translator next to him, "What does this turtle mean?" ”

Ma Shige understands China's national conditions and is extremely smart, and said: "Congratulations, Captain, the turtle is home." The Qing generals wanted to surrender, but it was difficult to say clearly. ”

Lisby was overjoyed, but he felt that he should give the Qing army a little color and look at it first, so he commanded the French ships to bombard the Keelung Battery, quickly destroyed the battery, and then took 80 marines to the shore to accept the "surrender" of the Qing army.

The landing was smooth, and Lisby led 80 Gallic soldiers with high cattle and horses to the beach, and basically did not meet resistance. He was so stupid and cute that he ordered a quick march and ran to the top of the mountain where Song Xiaofei was stationed to surrender.

The hill was about ten miles from Keelung Harbor, and was already out of range of the guns of the French [***]. Song Xiaofei calmly counted the French troops brought by Lisby on the mountain, one, two, and three...... Damn, there are only eighty people, don't waste cannons and Krupp guns, and directly order the brothers who are ambushed in the valley to fire with the newly purchased Mauser guns from Germany.

This Mauser gun is really good, the magazine is filled with 8 rounds of ammunition, which can be fired continuously, and the butt is evenly forced, so it does not hurt your hands at all. Flanked from three sides, eighty French soldiers hurriedly raised the collar of their military uniforms high and retracted their heads. Because the uniforms of the French marines were green at that time, the Qing army shouted while fighting: "Shrinking turtle", and then Lisby understood what Song Xiaofei meant by sending him a green-haired turtle. Under the cover of the heavy firepower of the French soldiers, a man fled back to the ship in disarray, and immediately threw the translator Ma Shige into the sea to feed the sharks.

Keelung's victory in the first battle, although only 70 or 80 French invaders were killed and wounded, but it broke the myth of the invincibility of the lonely and victorious army, and greatly boosted the morale of the Qing army defending Taiwan.

After Lisby was defeated and retreated, he reported to Guba that the weapons of the Huai army led by Song Xiaofei were advanced, and even the Mauser guns of the Germans were there, and Guba was so angry that he slapped Lisby's military hat away: "You go to Tamsui to fight Liu Mingchuan, and I will deal with the people of Keelung." As a result, the French troops divided into two routes, Guba led seven warships including the "Triumph" and two torpedo boats to attack Keelung, and Lisby led the "La Galizonia" and three other warships to attack Huwei, that is, Tamsui.

After Keelung's first victory, Song Xiaofei was not hot-headed, he expected that Guba would definitely lead the fleet to attack Keelung himself. Because the warships at that time were steam ships, they had to burn coal, and the lonely fleet consumed too much coal cruising along the southeast coast, so they had to come to Keelung to replenish it, and there would definitely be a more tragic battle in Keelung next.

Song Xiaofei knew that Guba was bent on capturing the coal mine and supplying the warships. He had not been training the new Huai army in Korea for a long time, and the household money in charge of Weng Tonggong was very tight, so he asked Li Fengbao to purchase 100 Mauser guns and five Krupp guns in Germany, plus the four cannons captured in Vietnam last time, a total of nine new guns. And the lone 2,000 French army has more than 500 rifles, as well as more than 40 cannons, and the victory or defeat is uncertain!

Just in case, Song Xiaofei first ordered all the machinery of the Keelung coal mine to be demolished, the pit was filled with water, and more than 10,000 tons of coal were all ignited.