In late May 1855, the British and French Far East Coalition and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom mercenary regiment captured Petropavlovsk, the most important military port in the Russian Far East, and the news was only transmitted back to Britain a month and a half later.

British Prime Minister Palmerston was hesitant to deal with the incident, having taken over as Prime Minister in early 1855. Stanley left him. Although Palmerston was a Whig who did not like radicals, he was a man who was happy to make the best of Britain, and in his opinion his predecessor, the leader of the British Conservative Party and the 14th Earl of Derby, Edward Brown. Stanley was still humble in his stance on the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Although the two treaty ports occupied by the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom accounted for more than 60% of the trade with China, Palmerston believed that diplomacy and coercion could definitely bring the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, a local rebel regime that was not much more enlightened than the Qing Dynasty, to its knees.

Although the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom had an absolute military advantage in the Far East, and from the perspective of intelligence analysis, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom completely completed the unification of the whole country within five to ten years, the diplomatic rhetoric that Palmerston believed in was to beat him up first and then explain everything. This is how he resolved the conflict of the First Opium War when he was Foreign Secretary.

However, Palmerston's Foreign Secretary, John Browner. Russell also kindly pointed out that instead of spending a huge price to confront the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, it is better to make the Chinese regret the humiliation of the British in some way, such as sending a navy to threaten the Manchu government in Beijing and force the corrupt Manchu government to sign a new treaty. In this way, in the future, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom overthrew the Manchu Qing government, and as the successor government, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom must face up to the treaty signed between the Manchus and Britain, and Britain will have a great initiative in legal theory.

As for helping the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom train its navy, in the words of the Minister of the Navy, by the time the Yellow Monkeys of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom learned how to sail British warships, the British Imperial Navy had already sailed ironclad steam warships to Shanghai.

After several meetings, Palmerston also agreed with the Foreign Secretary, John. Russell's China policy, that is, to unite with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom to exert pressure on the Manchu government, and the matter could be resolved without resorting to war.

Although the British cabinet wanted peace and avoided new conquests. But they did not know that the decaying Manchus would not give in easily, and they would be forced to open the way to Beijing by force.

Unlike the British, the French were more resolute in their official decisiveness, but their Emperor Napoleon III was a staunch supporter of the Taipings. In the words of this emperor, there is nothing more interesting than seeing the establishment of a new Catholic state in the East. This can be said to be a meaningful portrayal of the difference in thinking between the two sides of the Channel Islands and the Strait of La Manche! The British value material interests. I just want to talk about money, business, exports, moving to Hong Kong, etc.; The French and Napoleon III as idealists. But he is answering what a "crusade" is.

As a Catholic polity, the Second French Empire did want to appease the Catholic conservatives, who were concerned about the fate of the Holy See in Italy's political reorganization. Napoleon III will not forget the "full approval" given by the Pope to the "coup d'état of December 2". Helping missionaries spread the Bible in China through military operations can be seen as a very domestic policy. The Emperor himself, though indifferent to ecclesiastical affairs, wanted the Catholic clergy to push people to vote for him, not to mention the fact that Empress Eugenie was zealously supporting religious interests. If the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom can really establish a state in the Far East. Missionary work to France and to the Holy See would be a very good thing, at least the missionaries who came into contact with the Taiping Army said that it was a missionary paradise under the Taiping Army. The optimism of the French emperor was due to ignorance of the head of the Tenkyo cult and his teachings, but it was undeniable. However, the west hall allowed the missionaries operating in Sufu Province to see the side of the Taiping army.

Marshal Langdon, French Minister of War, summed up the motives brilliantly: "In the eyes of the British merchants in Bangladesh, the Treaty of Nanking became a means for them to continue to poison the Chinese with narcotics and obtain millions of silver taels. France, for its part, requires good faith trade with these regions. It is a pity that the volume of French trade with China is not large, but it has a higher interest in China, that is, sending missionaries; Despite all the dangers and hardships they endured, they were able to establish many Catholic districts in the provinces and even the most remote areas of the Celestial Empire. This is indeed the cause of Christian civilization, and it is a great honour for us to support it. ”

Therefore, France fully supported the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's proposal to train the navy and exchange ships, purchase ships, and build ships, and similarly put forward the request for the construction of Catholic churches in Suzhou, Hangzhou, Ningbo, and other areas occupied by the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Although the king had been separating church from church to church, it was necessary to face up to the spread of Catholicism and Christianity, which had become fashionable in Sufu province.

Chinese people do not have a firm belief in God, they believe more in God, whether Buddhism, Taoism or other sects, Chinese feel that as long as they can achieve their wishes, they do not mind worshipping that bodhisattva. Therefore, in Sufu Province, believing in Catholicism and Christianity was seen as a very fashionable thing, just as it was fashionable to believe in what doctrine was in the early days of the New Culture Movement.

Although the west hall is separated from the government and religion, there are still a large number of believers in the military and civilians, and everywhere they go, the west hall will build a simple chapel for the military and the people to worship. However, because of the change of policy, the king of the west did not invest a penny in these chapels, and the construction of the chapels was completely spontaneous donations from the believers, and most of the money of the king of the west was used to build new schools and the army. Since the French are eager to build more churches, the west hall will not stop them, at least the beautiful churches built by the French are better than the humble chapels built by the military and civilian believers in Sufu Province, aren't they?

However, the policy of Britain and France towards Russia was still the same, and after learning of the fall of the largest military port in the Russian Far East, Britain and France were like a shot in the arm. The same voice is heard in both countries, since the Russians can't beat the yellow-skinned monkey, then are we not even as good as the monkey?

The Crimean War was fought hard. The Russian fortress of Sevastopol has never been completely encircled since the start of the war, and Russian troops can enter and exit freely from the north and east. The coalition forces still used massive artillery bombardment to weaken the fortified defenses. By February 1855, a large number of French reinforcements had arrived on the battlefield, and the French army had increased to 90,000 men. The British had only 11,000 soldiers in good condition, and another 23,000 were either wounded or sick. The Turkish army had 20,000 men and 30 artillery pieces. The French were the main force of the attack. There were also a number of mercenaries, 9,000 German Legions, 3,000 Swiss Legions, and 1,500 Polish Legions, all of which were hired by the British.

By March, 15,000 Sardinian men had arrived on the battlefield. Despite the considerable strength of the coalition forces, the attack is still difficult, and the Russian army has a well-developed defense system. The stone walls of the Sevastopol fortress were not continuous. The Malakoff Fortress is the only stone fortress. The Russians' approach was to make a fence out of sharpened branches, then a deep ditch, followed by a rifle firing position made of branches and dirt. Behind the position was another barrier of tree trunks, and there were traps on the ground, and inside were sharpened branches. In addition, there are a large number of landmines. The Russian army often sends strike teams at night. Kill unsuspecting soldiers in the coalition trenches.

Coalition soldiers, deeply affected by disease and poor logistics, now have to endure one more affliction: pressure from their Far Eastern counterparts. It is rumored that a young general of the Taiping Army in the Far East, who was less than 18 years old, captured the Petropavlovsk military port fortress with a mercenary group of more than 2,000 men, which was garrisoned by nearly 10,000 Russians. And rumor has it that they only took a week. Although all this is hearsay. But the fall of the Petropavlovsk military port fortress is an indisputable fact. Although the soldiers of the coalition army were curious about how the Taiping army did it, the sense of honor of the soldiers made them have no time to think about it, and they had to take the fortress of Sevastopol, which they had been besieging for more than a year, in a short time.

In fact, the allied soldiers did not know that the Petropavlovsk military port fortress was abandoned by the Russians on their own initiative, when Tan Shaoguang's troops occupied the volcanic ridge east of the military port. The entire fortress and even the passages in and out were under the control of Tan Shaoguang's artillery fire. The old fox Muravyov knew that the fall of the military port would be a matter of time before the Russian troops and supplies in the Far East were not sufficient, and he did not want these precious personnel and materials to be wasted in this attrition, so he chose to retreat. He also knew that in order for the coalition forces to maintain the capture of the Petropavlovsk military port, it would have to be put into maritime transport. This kind of consumption is also very huge, Muravyov calculated that when the coalition forces could not bear it, they would take the initiative to give up, and even before the arrival of the severe autumn cold, they would withdraw in advance, no one was willing to stay in the bitter cold of the Far East for a winter, not to mention that the sea would freeze at that time, and the supply of the coalition fleet would have problems sooner or later. Time and bitter cold will allow the Russians to regain lost ground without bloodshed, at least that's what Muravyov intended.

The coalition soldiers on the front line of the Sevastopol fortress began a large-scale assault in early June. On June 17, 1855, the Allied forces launched their fourth large-scale artillery bombardment, with the British capturing Fort Bulge and the French aiming for the fortress of Malakov. The Russian army knew about the offensive in advance, and even knew about the quarrel between Belissier and Bosquet and the details of Belissier's advance of the attack to 3 a.m. The French suffered heavy casualties after the offensive began, and at 8:30 a.m. Belisier ordered a retreat. The British were equally bad, with their troops badly wounded by grape sheets and shotgun bullets as they traversed the 1/4-mile open field. The British suffered 1,500 casualties, while the French lost 1,500 killed and 1,600 wounded.

The failure of this operation was a heavy blow to the spirit of the commander-in-chief of the British army, Lord Raglan, who was already exhausted. Cholera returned to the barracks, and on June 14, 1855, General Escot announced that Lord Raglan was suffering from severe dysentery. On June 28, 1855, Lord Raglan passed away peacefully in his sleep. At this point, the supreme commanders of the British and French armies died of illness at the beginning of the war, and the allied military camps were greatly shaken. On 1 July, Sir Simpson succeeded him as Commander-in-Chief of the British Army, but he was clearly inexperienced and helpless in the face of difficulties. Turkey is struggling on the battlefield in the Caucasus, and Omar Pasha's Turkish army is preparing to withdraw from Crimea to relieve the Caucasian town of Kars. Napoleon III was very unhappy with this, but the siege could only continue. On August 16, Gorchakov concentrated 4 infantry divisions and 2 cavalry brigades to cross the Chernaya River to attack the coalition forces, and only part of the British cavalry and artillery participated in the battle, but the Russian suffered 8,000 casualties, and Zuihou failed in an attempt to break the siege. The British commander, Simpson, was pessimistic about the outcome of the war, which led him to rebuke him from London and compare him with the young commander of the Far Eastern Taiping Army, where his successor was already being discussed.

Simpson had no choice but to make progress before the London order to replace himself arrived, or his honor would be lost to the Atlantic. At 11:30 a.m. on July 8, 1855, the Allied forces began their fifth heavy shelling. Forty minutes later, the coalition forces went on a general offensive, the first time in history that the troops had been calibrated and launched at the same moment. The French MacMahon division attacked the fortress of Malakoff, and in just 10 minutes, the fortress fell into the hands of the French, after which the French repelled the Russian counterattack. The British attack on Fort Lumphorn was again lost. The British troops were pinned down by Russian fire behind the breastwork at the foot of Fort Boss and refused to advance, and soon they turned and retreated. But the loss of the Malakov fortress was fatal for the Russian army, and the coalition artillery could cover the whole of Sevastopol from here, and it was only a matter of time before it fell. That night, the Russian army destroyed all the fortifications and withdrew from Sevastopol with artillery and logistical facilities. After a 13-month siege, coalition forces finally entered Sevastopol, which was now in ruins.

Although the Anglo-French army overcame great difficulties in a short period of time to seize the fortress heavily garrisoned by the Russians for the glory of that soldier, they paid a heavier price than in later history, more than 17,500 British troops were killed, more than 30,000 were wounded, and then nearly half of the wounded soldiers died of poor medical conditions and malnutrition due to lack of supplies. The losses of the French army were even heavier, more than 50,000 soldiers were killed, more than 70,000 soldiers were wounded, and like the British, half of the soldiers did not die on the battlefield, but at the hands of their own logistics officers. The Russians suffered even greater losses, with more than 300,000 soldiers killed or wounded.

The exhausted parties need to negotiate, the war is just a continuation of politics, and the parties need to end the war. (To be continued......)