The French offensive in Vietnam continued to meet with stubborn resistance, resulting in a significant reduction in the speed of its attack, and finally even lost the ability to continue the large-scale offensive for a time.

Under such circumstances, the French army either suspended the large-scale offensive or continued to draw troops from other places, but the French army had already sent more than 3,500 troops to Vietnam, including nearly 800 casualties, which was a difficult result for the French army, which was already small in strength.

Although tactically they have achieved great success, they have killed or wounded at least 30,000 Vietnamese troops, including at least 1,000 new forbidden troops of the Nguyen Dynasty.

However, the Vietnamese did not surrender directly after the fall of the Nam Ki provinces, as in history, but continued to resist stubbornly with the support of the Chinese Empire.

The reason why the Nguyen Dynasty has been able to hold on to the present and have not negotiated peace with France is not only that they see the hope of resisting France militarily, but also related to other aspects, such as the troubles and bandits that have plagued the Nguyen Dynasty for a long time, and the domestic riots, which have been suppressed one after another because the Chinese Empire directly sent troops into Beiqi, Vietnam.

The Nguyen Dynasty itself was powerless against the rebels in Beiqi, but this did not mean that they could resist the direct suppression of the Chinese Empire.

You must know that the rebellion in Beiqi was an important factor in the Nguyen Dynasty's decision to negotiate peace with the French, because if the Nguyen Dynasty did not negotiate peace with the French at that time in history, the rebel army and bandits in Beiqi could directly enter Hanoi or even go south to Hue.

Now the pacification of Beiqi has allowed the Nguyen Dynasty to have a stable rear and be able to draw more forces for anti-French operations in the direction of Nanqi.

These external factors gave the main battle faction within the Nguyen Dynasty a greater voice.

Although there were many lords and factions in the Nguyen Dynasty. For example, Pan Qingjian and others, but there are also many main battle factions. For example, Zhang Denggui and others, and Zhang Denggui made two envoys to the Chinese Empire. A large quantity of weapons and supplies was procured for the Nguyen Dynasty and the promise of the Chinese Empire was obtained.

When Zhang Denggui made his second mission to the Chinese Empire this year, his request to meet with Lin Zhe was approved, and when Lin Zhe met with him, he clearly told him that the Chinese Empire, as the suzerainty of the Kingdom of Vietnam, and that Lin Zhe himself, as the monarch of the Vietnamese King Nguyen Phuc Thi, would never sit idly by and watch the Kingdom of Vietnam fall under the iron heel of France.

And said that in due course, the empire will send more troops to the Kingdom of Vietnam!

While expressing support, he did not forget to warn the Vietnamese side that it would not have the consent of the Reich. The Vietnamese side must not sign a contract with France without authorization, otherwise it will be regarded as a provocation to the empire, and the empire will not send troops to fight against France, but will directly destroy the Nguyen Dynasty and re-establish a Vietnamese king.

Under the dual influence of imperial support and threats, the Nguyen dynasty could not easily compromise whether they wanted it or not, even if the French had now penetrated deep into the Mekong River and began to conquer the rest of Nam Qi.

In response, the Nguyen dynasty re-recruited more than 4,000 soldiers to equip them with mini rifles purchased from the Chinese Empire. It was used to form the 2nd Infantry Regiment and the 3rd Infantry Regiment of the New Forbidden Army of the Nguyen Dynasty.

At the same time, a company of guards infantry directly under the royal family was expanded into an infantry battalion, which, unlike the other new forbidden troops, was equipped with a 1858 model breech rifle purchased from the Chinese Empire.

It's a pity. The Nguyen Dynasty did not send this guard battalion to the front line of the French protest in Nam Ki, but stayed in Hue to guard Gyeonggi.

Put the most elite and valuable military forces in the capital. It was used to defend Gyeonggi, which was a common practice in feudal dynasties. You can't say that people like Nguyen Dynasty are stubborn or stupid in doing this, because for Nguyen Dynasty. Hue is more important than Nam Ki or Pak Ki, and Hue is also seafront, what if the French land directly from the sea and then attack Hue?

Just as the Qing court in the late Qing Dynasty put its main forces in the Tianjing and Beiping areas to control and defend Gyeonggi, and now the Chinese Empire has placed many elite main forces in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River and near Nanjing to control and defend Gyeonggi.

The Nguyen Dynasty also put the Guards Battalion, a valuable force, in Hue, and did not have the slightest intention of sending them south to fight in Nam Ki.

However, according to Wang Xuanlin, the actual training and commander of the new forbidden army of the Nguyen Dynasty and the Chinese military attache in Vietnam, there are now only more than 3,000 French troops active in Nanqi.

As long as the Nguyen Dynasty can invest more than 5,000 people equipped with Mini rifles in the new forbidden army, then Wang Xuanlin is sure to stabilize the front, if the follow-up forces are further increased, or if it drags on for a long time, the French are difficult to replenish troops and logistics because of the long distance, then there may not be no chance of counterattacking to recapture Saigon in the future.

Wang Xuanlin's suggestion is also an important reason why the Nguyen Dynasty is determined to resist to the end and will not negotiate peace in life or death, anyway, if peace is negotiated, Nanqi will not be able to get it back, and the peace negotiation of the French is not just a truce, but a demand to cede many areas of Nanqi with Saigon as the core.

If this continues to fight, it will not be able to be taken back for a while, and there is not much danger of being killed by the French all the way to Hue in the future, and it may be possible to win the war and drive the French away completely.

Therefore, the Nguyen Dynasty gritted its teeth and once again purchased a large number of ordnance to form more new forbidden armies.

It is expected that by the beginning of next year, the Nguyen Dynasty will be able to have a new forbidden army of three infantry regiments, with a total strength of about 5,000 people, and they will have a greater grasp of stabilizing the current war situation.

The Vietnamese were unwilling to surrender, and the French could only fight the Vietnamese, in short, they would not have the fruits of victory.

Perhaps in order to strengthen their confidence in the colonization of Vietnam, at the end of 1861, the French established French Annam in the western part of Nam Chi, which had already been occupied, and the French sent the governor of Annam to rule.

"It looks like the French and Vietnam have been fighting for several years!" Lin Zhe looked at the information from the Vietnamese side presented by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

I couldn't help but smile at the corner of my mouth, the current situation in Vietnam may be difficult for the Nguyen Dynasty and the French to accept, but for the Empire, the current situation is in the interests of the Empire.

Through the invasion of Vietnam by the French. The empire was invited by the Vietnamese to march into the Pak Ki region, and currently has an infantry regiment stationed in Hanoi. Four other infantry battalions were stationed in other parts of the country, engaged in skirmishes with some of the local rebels.

At the same time, the empire's industrial and commercial community also obtained the right to mine minerals throughout the North Thi region of Vietnam. High-quality coal from Quang Ninh province in Beiqi will be able to supply the domestic market on a large scale next year, and then the anthracite coal from Quang Ninh will be able to directly replace some of the British anthracite coal and become the power coal for the navy and other steam ships.

In addition, to a certain extent, some arms exports to Vietnam also controlled part of the future industries of the Vietnamese, and it was unlikely that the Vietnamese would develop their own arms industry under the impact of the Empire's cheap and excellent weapons.

And the arsenal of this era is the best driving force for the development of heavy industry, and without the arsenal market, without the arsenal. The Vietnamese will not be able to build a heavy industry system in a hundred years.

A Vietnam that was dragged the French into the quagmire of war by the complete control of the empire is a good Vietnam!

Lin Zhe wanted to fight a proxy war in Vietnam, just as the Soviet Union and China later supported North Vietnam to fight against the U.S. military.

However, the difference is that Lin Zhe is not the leader of China in later generations, for what kind of fraternal national feelings, ideological values, etc., he supported Vietnam against France at the same time to better and deeper control of Vietnam.

Now the garrison of North Ki in Vietnam and the acquisition of mineral mining rights are only the first step.

And in the process, it would be best to be able to drag France into the quagmire of war and shed their last blood in Asia.

Lin Zhe looked at the briefing in his hand and thought quickly in his mind. In order to better control Vietnam in the future, in order to make the war between the French and the Vietnamese last longer, he felt that it was necessary to instruct the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the military to control the rhythm.

Avoid the defeat of the Vietnamese at the same time as negotiating peace. It is also necessary to avoid the Vietnamese from directly killing the French after their strength increases.

You must know that the French had only about 3,000 troops in the Nam Ki region of Vietnam, although they had already begun to recruit local natives for training and form the so-called French Annam Army. But these Annam troops had little combat effectiveness.

If the empire accidentally helped the Vietnamese arm tens of thousands of new forbidden troops, it is estimated that the French may not be able to withstand it. What if the French are defeated and then choose to retreat?

At that time, it is estimated that it will be difficult for the Vietnamese to continue to endure the encroachment of the empire on their sovereignty. It is possible to even turn against the Empire.

For the time being, at least for the next three or five years, the empire did not want the Vietnamese to gain the strength to defeat the French.

Therefore, Lin Zhe personally instructed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the military to support the Vietnamese to a certain extent, not too much.

In addition to Vietnam, the situation in Burma has always been the focus of the empire's attention on the Southeast Asian side, but the Burmese side is more sensitive because of the presence of the British.

Due to the current huge strength of the British, especially the almost invincible naval fleet, although Lin Zhe was a little unhappy in his heart, he could still endure it when facing the British, at most he would make some small moves behind his back, but he would not openly clash with the British.

And supporting Lin Chengting is one of Lin Zhe's small actions, but this kind of support is limited, mainly selling ordnance and weapons to Lin Chengting, and even instructors are not sent.

On the one hand, it is true that the reason for not sending instructors is the existence of the British, but on the other hand, Lin Chengting does not need diplomats sent by the empire.

What Lin Chengting lacks is only weapons and food!

There was originally a Burmese dynasty between Lin Chengting and the British, but the Burmese dynasty was originally weak, and when their army was continuously defeated by Lin Chengting, and even the capital was in danger, the British finally couldn't sit still and sent troops directly from Lower Burma to Burma.

And unilaterally declared the suzerainty of Burma, as the suzerainty sent troops to Burma to fight with Lin Chengting's department, the direct participation of the British made the original Lincheng Ting's department, which had won consecutive battles, suffered several consecutive tactical heavy losses, and was forced to stop the original strategic offensive and switch to a strategic defensive posture.

Fortunately, the terrain in Myanmar is quite complicated, and it is difficult for both sides to carry out a strategic decisive battle with large armies, and the battle is mostly fought with a few hundred people. Small and medium-sized battles of a thousand or so people are the mainstay, otherwise. With the combat strength of the four or five thousand troops invested by the British army in the direction of Burma, Lin Chengting's headquarters had already been defeated.

To know. Some of the British troops in the Burma direction used modified breech-loading rifles, namely the 1859 Enfield rifles, although there was only one colonial infantry regiment with about six companies and more than 500 men, but this infantry regiment still brought great tactical pressure to Lin Chengting's department.

In the first half of the year, the direct reason why Lin Chengting purchased the 1858 Linde rifle from the empire was because of this British infantry regiment.

After obtaining the 1858 Linde rifle provided by the Empire, Lin Chengting's department will not be inferior in weapon performance when facing the British army, everyone uses Mini rifles and breech-loading rifles, and the tactics used are still traditional line tactics.

This fight was half a pound and eight taels for a while.

Although the training of the British army and the quality of all aspects are stronger, Lin Chengting has also fought for so many years. In addition, the terrain of Upper Burma is quite complicated, and the two sides will not be able to distinguish between victory and defeat at this time and a half.

Overall, wars have broken out in various places around the empire, but none of them are large.

The conflict between the empire and the Russian army in the Trans-Khingan Mountains and Central Asia, the war between the French and the Vietnamese, and the war between the British and Lim Thanh Dinh were generally relatively small in scale.

These wars pale in comparison to the Civil War between the North and the South on the American side!

Since the outbreak of war between the North and the South of the United States, both sides have rapidly mobilized and armed hundreds of thousands of troops, and the two sides have engaged in a series of large-scale battles around Tennessee.

The forces of both sides of these battles ranged from thousands to tens of thousands!

In these battles where both sides win and lose each other. It was not the generals on both sides who were really famous, nor the twelve-pound Napoleonic guns, but the 1858 Linde rifles from the Chinese Empire.

In late October 1861, in Manassas. After the last Battle of Manassas in July, a major battle broke out here between the North and the South.

Although the battle strength of the two sides this time was not as large as the first battle of Manassas, the combined strength of the two sides was about 20,000 men. Among them, there are more than 11,000 people in the Northern Army. The Southern Army numbered more than 9,000 men, and the two sides followed the traditional line tactics to set up a posture on the plain terrain and came to a large-scale decisive battle in an attempt to divide the winner and loser.

However, in this battle. The battle between the two sides lasted less than forty minutes before it was over, and the winner had not yet been decided. Both sides unanimously withdrew from the battlefield on their own initiative.

Why?

Because in a short forty minutes, the armies of both sides have already suffered as many as seventy or eighty percent of the casualties!

The reason for the number of casualties was that both sides used breech-loading rifles from the Chinese Empire on a large scale, and while using breech-loading rifles, they still used traditional line tactics.

And how to fight a line tactic is to line up in a row and use the opponent as a target at the same time, you are also used as a target by the enemy.

This tactic did not exist in the era of front-loading smoothbore guns, it sounded dangerous, but the actual casualty figure would not be very large, and when the first battle of Manassas came, the north and south still used flintlock pistols and so on on a large scale, and there were not even many mini rifles, so in the battle of tens of thousands of people, there were only one or two thousand casualties each.

However, after the Mini rifle era, if the line tactics were continued, the casualty figure would increase dramatically.

And when the two sides are not using Mini rifles, but more advanced breech-loading rifles, the effect is even more amazing.

The current American Civil War is a war that directly crossed the Mini rifle, from the front-loading smoothbore gun to the rear-loading gun, and the weapons in their hands have become more advanced, but their tactics are still stuck in the Napoleonic Wars.

So the most direct effect is that in a decisive battle between the two sides, they will fight each other like targets, and in the end, everyone will die together.

The Second Battle of Manassas was known for its extremely high casualty rate, and in a short battle of less than 40 minutes, the casualty rate of soldiers on both sides was as high as 80 percent, and the Northern Army participated in the battle with 11,000 men, but only about 2,500 survived.

The Southern Army was no better off there, and less than 2,000 of the 9,000 men who participated in the battle survived.

So much so that when the battle lasted for forty minutes, the commanders on both sides were stunned, they couldn't believe that their army had suffered so many casualties in just half an hour or so, and in the end, the soldiers on both sides collapsed one after another, and they turned around and fled unwilling to continue to die.

And this battle made the 1858 Linde rifle famous! (To be continued.) )

PS: 2-in-1 chapter