Although the French did not invest a lot of troops in the direction of Vietnam, except for a few warships, the total number of troops available for road combat was less than 3,000, and it is worth noting that it was not only the French who invaded Vietnam, but also the Spaniards.

This invasion of Vietnam was strictly a coalition of France and Spain, but the Spanish sent very few troops and played a very small role, so they had little influence.

However, only these 3,000 French troops still fought the army of the Nguyen Dynasty in Vietnam.

In the first half of the year, the Nguyen Dynasty hoarded at least 15,000 troops in the Saigon area, but unfortunately, these armies, which were still equipped with cold weapons and only a few arquebuses, were completely no match for the French army, and were defeated by the French.

However, the resistance of the Vietnamese was relatively stubborn, and in the process of resisting the advance of the French army, the troops deployed by the Nguyen Dynasty in the southern region also caused two or three hundred casualties to the French army.

This casualty figure is nothing if it is placed in other wars, in the past, when the Chinese Empire was engaged in the Anglo-French coalition army, the British and French coalition forces casually suffered thousands of casualties, and in the final battle of Shanghai, more than 20,000 people were wiped out.

And the current civil war between the North and the South of the United States, the scale of casualties on both sides is tens of thousands.

Even if it is not a war, it can only be regarded as a sporadic battle between the Chinese Empire and Russia, which is an armed conflict on the border, and there are hundreds, and sometimes even thousands.

For example, in the two-month conflict between the Empire and Russia in the Trans-Khingan Mountains, the Imperial side suffered about 1,000 casualties on the Royal Army and garrison, while the Russians were more numerous. They suffered more than one and a half thousand dead and wounded.

The two or three hundred people inflicted on the Vietnamese side for the French are nothing elsewhere, but on the Vietnamese side. But it was enough to halt the onslaught of the French and force them to rest for two months.

Because the French, though only two or three hundred people were killed and wounded. But the troops they sent to Vietnam were not much, and the total number of troops was about 3,000.

And unlike the British, the British had a large number of colonies in India and Burma, and stationed a large number of troops, and the British had hundreds of thousands of troops in the East India Company alone.

However, the French military presence in Asia was quite weak, and in order to maintain the colonial military operations in Southeast Asia, they had to draw troops from high Africa and the Arab region.

Just as the French were drawn from Africa and especially North Africa.

The French did not have much military power in Asia. Moreover, the British maintained a strong attitude of resistance to France's colonization in Southeast Asia, and they did not want to see France compete with themselves for Southeast Asian colonies.

Throughout the nineteenth century, the French and the British adopted a policy of alliance in the Far East, in addition to facing China, and in other places, especially in Southeast Asia, they dismantled each other.

The reason why Siam was able to maintain its independence in the colonial wave of Southeast Asia was because Britain and France contained each other, and finally used Thailand as a buffer zone between the two countries, so that Thailand established the only independent country in Southeast Asia, without Burma. Vietnam and other countries were also colonized.

Britain's rejection and opposition, and the lack of its own strength, forced the French to pull Spain, an old colonial empire that had entered its twilight years.

Unfortunately, Spain can only do some logistics at best. If they send troops, they will not be able to draw too many troops, you must know that their rule in the Philippines is not too stable, and if too many troops are drawn from the Philippines. The local natives will have to riot.

After the French had suffered two or three hundred dead and wounded, they found that the Vietnamese had appeared in a firearms force of more than 2,000 people. And the Mini rifle was used, although it had not yet fought with the new army of the Vietnamese. But the Mini rifle is not an easy weapon to deal with.

In the absence of absolute superiority in weapons, the French were not willing to test with their precious forces.

You must know that a few years ago, the French had planted a big heel in China, and even in the face of the new armies of backward countries, they were cautious enough.

So they rested for more than two months, replenishing about 500 soldiers before resuming the attack.

This time, they took out the entire six southern provinces of Vietnam in one go, and after taking the six southern provinces of Vietnam,

The Nguyen Dynasty could no longer sit still, they had no other army to resist in the southern part of Vietnam, so the new forbidden army that had not yet completed formal training at this time was regarded by them as a lifesaver.

Insisting on sending the new forbidden army to the southern region to resist the French army, even if it was a military adviser in charge of the training of the new forbidden army, Wang Xuanchuan, a major of the Chinese army, bluntly said that they had not completed the real training, and they had undergone basic tactical training such as formation and loading and shooting.

But when it comes to the actual battle, it is estimated that it will collapse by itself as soon as it is rushed by the enemy.

However, even if the Chinese instructor said that he had not yet completed the training, but now that the Nguyen Dynasty was about to drown, how could it be possible that the new forbidden army, which cost them a lot of money and even paid for the mineral mining rights in many northern provinces of Vietnam, has been training in the rear instead of going to the battlefield to resist foreign enemies.

Therefore, the Nguyen Dynasty forcibly transferred the new forbidden army to the south to participate in the war.

Of course, the Nguyen Dynasty also knew that there were no professional generals in their family who could command this army in battle, so they specially hired three Chinese instructors to go south with them and serve as military advisers.

In fact, the three advisers will assume the actual operational command of the new Forbidden Army.

Among them, Wang Xuanchuan was in charge of the commander-in-chief, and the other two instructors served as his assistants.

After this new forbidden army moved south, it soon fought with the French army, which had already occupied the six provinces in southern Vietnam, of course, since the strength of both sides was only a few thousand men, and the area of engagement was so large, it was natural that there could be no large-scale decisive battle of several thousand men.

Several battles at the company and battalion levels continued to take place in both places.

And no surprises. The new forbidden army of the Nguyen Dynasty was defeated, and one of the three Chinese instructors who led the army was wounded and had to return home.

But despite their successive defeats several times. But this time, the ratio of their losses in the battle with the French army was not as ugly as before.

In many battles, the new forbidden army of the Nguyen Dynasty suffered about 800 casualties. But it also managed to kill and wound the French by almost two hundred.

It was about a four-to-one casualty ratio.

This situation made the Ruan Dynasty not only disappointed or angry, but overjoyed, why?

Because when their old-style army fought with the French army before, it was more than 10,000 people who were chased and fought by the French army with only two or three thousand people, and the ratio of losses on both sides was not even in single digits, but tens to one or even a hundred to one.

Now it's just a mere four to one, and what could make the people of the Nguyen Dynasty happier than that.

Therefore, although the new forbidden army on the front line was still retreating, the Nguyen Dynasty had regained all the money that could be used, and then sent people to China to urgently buy Mini rifles and ask the Chinese Empire to support more military instructors.

In order to raise money for the purchase of guns, artillery and ammunition. In addition to looting gold and silver in the country, the Vietnamese even forcibly collected a large amount of rice and other materials from the people, you must know that Vietnam is not a big grain producer in this era, and ordinary people still often go hungry.

But even so, they collected many people's rations and used them to buy Chinese weapons.

Of course, just is not enough, because this time the Nguyen Dynasty saw the benefits of the Mini rifle and was even more determined if there were enough advanced weapons. They could beat the French, so this time they wanted not only the second-hand 1856 Mini rifle in the hands of the Chinese army, but also the 1858 breech rifle.

They knew that the 1858 Linde breech rifle was a much more advanced weapon than the Minnie rifle.

In order to raise money, the Vietnamese directly sold the mining rights in the Beiqi area. China's Jiangnan Mining Company, China's privately-owned coal and iron enterprise, owns a number of small and medium-sized iron ore mines and coal mines in the north. In addition, the North Coal and Iron Company, which had newly obtained the mining rights of part of the Anshan Iron Mine in Liaoning, and some businessmen in Guangdong Province established the Nanyang Mining Company to bid for the mining rights of Vietnamese minerals, and conducted bids for other provinces in Beiqi except Quang Ninh Province.

Finally, he set foot in the mining industry for the first time. However, the Nanyang Mining Company, which was full of funds and confidence, won the bid, but the Nanyang Mining Company had no intention of monopolizing it after winning the bid. Instead, it was developed together with Jiangnan Mining Company.

By selling the mineral mining rights in the Beiqi region, the Vietnamese, having obtained sufficient funds, ordered 3,000 second-hand 1856 Linde rifles from China and another 500 1858 Linde rifles in one go. As well as a large number of paper-shelled bullets.

In addition, more than a dozen twelve-pounder front-loading smoothbore guns were ordered.

However, they encountered some difficulties in terms of instructors, as the Imperial Navy wanted to obtain a port in Vietnam, especially Cam Ranh Bay, as an extension of the Navy's power in the South Seas.

However, the Vietnamese side is not so easy to fool, isn't this giving a port equivalent to ceding land, if the land is ceded in order for the empire to help Vietnam resist France, what else are they resisting, just ceding it to France.

In addition, the Imperial Army and the Cabinet also oppose it, so the Empire currently has limited energy and cannot allow the Navy to set foot in the South Seas region for the time being.

Besides, how many ships does your navy have now, even if Cam Ranh Bay is occupied, can you hold it?

Moreover, it was an established national policy of the empire to support the Vietnamese to resist France, and it could not be said that it would stop because of the navy's obstruction.

Therefore, the cession of Cam Ranh Bay was not a matter of success, but the Vietnamese side also agreed, and in the future, the Vietnamese side allowed the imperial warships to berth freely in Cam Ranh Bay or other ports.

In fact, it goes without saying that this right was originally there, and China, as the suzerainty of Vietnam, had the right to garrison troops in Vietnam, and now it is not stationed in Hanoi an infantry regiment.

However, the significance of garrisoning troops is not the same as directly ceding a port city, and Vietnam's permission to garrison Chinese troops does not mean that these territories will become Chinese.

So in the end, the Chinese military approved the plan to send more military instructors to Vietnam, and the next batch of 12 army instructors would go to Vietnam to help them form a new army to resist the French.

However, the Nguyen Dynasty's newly purchased ordnance and hired instructors were still in the beginning, and the current Vietnamese were still struggling to support the war with the only new forbidden army.

Although in the eyes of the French army, this new Vietnamese forbidden army was unsatisfactory in terms of training level and morale, far inferior to the Chinese army they met in Shanghai back then.

But they were also equipped with Mini rifles, with weapons and equipment that were not inferior to those of the French army, and although their level was not very good, they had undergone about three months of initial training by Chinese instructors.

Subsequently, he also fought with the French army one after another, and slowly accumulated some combat experience.

Therefore, although the battle with the French army was still dominated by defeat, how to say it, they were also defeated by experience and experience.

How to turn a big defeat into a small defeat, how to reduce the number of casualties as much as possible.

In this way, although the French army continued to win victories on the surface, their advance was becoming slower and slower.

In October, they even suffered the first tactical defeat since the invasion of Vietnam, an infantry company that went deep alone was surrounded by more than 800 Vietnamese new forbidden troops commanded by Wang Xuanchuan, and in the end, although not all the troops were annihilated, but there was not one in ten, and only a dozen French soldiers in their early 100s escaped, although they also carried out fierce resistance before being defeated, resulting in more than 300 casualties of the new Vietnamese forbidden army participating in the encirclement operation.

But in any case, it was a great victory for the Vietnamese.

The battle became a strategic turning point for the French invasion of Vietnam. (To be continued.) )