"Mr. Hannagan, thank you so much for coming. As a sign of my respect for you, I would like to invite you to smile at this 1889 edition gift pistol. Xu Jie, who had already figured it out, turned around and took out a gift box from the cabinet and handed it to Hannagan.

"Mr. Xu is too polite." Hannagan was also stunned, not knowing what he had done to make Xu Jie, who was lukewarm to him just now, become so polite. However, in line with the guiding ideology that it is not a fool to take benefits, Hannagan still accepted Xu Jie's gift after a little prevarication.

"I want to ask Your Excellency a question, what do you think is the biggest flaw of the Beiyang Army?" Xu Jie asked modestly.

"Logistics system, the Beiyang Army has not yet established a modern army logistics system of the Western model. Once you go abroad to fight, for example, to North Korea, the backward and inefficient logistics supply system will definitely deal a fatal blow to the combat effectiveness of the army. Hannagan pointed out sharply.

"Sure enough, he is worthy of being an army expert, and he hits the crux of the problem in one sentence." Xu Jie secretly admired in his heart. In fact, it is different from what people generally know. The combat effectiveness of the army exhibited in Beiyang was not as bad as people imagined, and even Ye Zhichao, who was later ridiculed as a coward, chose to retreat for objective reasons. In the Battle of Pyongyang, Ye Zhichao did not retreat because of timidity, according to historical records, the Qing army and the Japanese army were basically evenly matched in the battle during the day on September 15, and the real rout was caused by the Japanese ambush when retreating from Pyongyang on the night of the 15th. Moreover, Ye Zhichao is a descendant of Liu Mingchuan, a veteran general of the Huai Army, who has always been brave in the war, and will not flee in a hurry when the battle situation is unknown. And there can only be one real reason. Ye Zhichao has run out of ammunition and food.

At that time, Xu Jie found the following sets of numbers when he was looking through the historical materials, the source was provided by Qiu Fengchi, who was in charge of the ordnance supply of the Sheng army, and in that year, the Sheng army stationed in Pyongyang received a total of the following ordnance, 1,200 rounds of 75MM guns, 1,200 rounds of 2-pounder guns, 50,000 rounds of Gatling machine guns, and 500,000 rounds of gun ammunition. And how much of these stockpiles of ammunition are left after 15 days of fierce fighting? 350 rounds for the 75MM gun, 300 rounds for the 2-pounder gun, 100,000 rounds of ammunition, and 0 rounds for the Gatling gun! And what about the combat attrition on the 15th? 750,000 rounds of ammunition and 2,800 rounds of shells (note that Gatling counts rapid-fire guns, and its ammunition consumption does not count shells) Even taking into account the 5,000 infantry at the time of the departure of the Sheng army, each infantry carried 150 rounds, and the 20 artillery pieces carried 50 rounds of shells each. After fierce fighting on the 15th, only 500,000 rounds of ammunition and 600 rounds of artillery shells remained in the army. That is, the remaining supplies are not enough for even a day, and if they are not withdrawn, what should they do ?? (By comparison, the Japanese consumed 2,800 rounds of artillery shells and 280,000 rounds of ammunition in the Battle of Pyongyang.) Of course, the Japanese army's shell consumption was mainly based on 75-level field artillery and mountain artillery, and the bullet consumption was indeed much less than that of the Qing army. There is also a basis for saying that the Qing army fired guns indiscriminately. ）

If it is said that Qiu Fengchi's record alone is a family's words. THE RECORDS OF THE JAPANESE ARMY ARE EVEN MORE TELLING, AFTER THE BATTLE OF PYONGYANG, THE JAPANESE ARMY CAPTURED 18 75MM GUNS AND 516 SHELLS. 2 pounder guns 13 with 209 shells. And the Gatling cannon is 4 guns, and only 117 rounds of spare ammunition are not enough for 4 guns to fight for 2 minutes!!

The impact of such a low amount of ammunition on the campaign was obvious, but the ammunition problem was only a minor problem compared to the food problem. According to the data, in order to support the Qing army in the Battle of Pyongyang, Beiyang has prepared 7,000 stone of military rations for it. But for various reasons, not a single grain of rice was transported to the front of the battle, and in desperation, more than 10,000 Qing troops could only raise food by themselves, but where did the food come from? You know, there were only more than 20,000 people in Pyongyang at that time. According to the statistics of the last Japanese seizures, the Japanese army captured a total of 2,600 stone of grain: 2,600 stone of rice, 302 stone of rice (not yet hulled), 4 stone of barley, 817 stone of corn, 317 stone of wheat, and 102 stone of corn. These things are calculated as one stone and 50 catties. This grain is about 200,000 catties, and based on the calculation of the 15,000 Qing troops in Pyongyang City, it can barely last about 10 days, and it should be noted that these numbers were captured during the Battle of Pyongyang, and the food problem will be even worse when the Qing army retreats on the night of the 15th. Therefore, it is not too much to describe the situation of the Qing army in Pyongyang when it runs out of ammunition and food! (The above information is from "The Sinking Jiawu" written by Chen Yue)

"Beiyang Army, no, the army supply of the entire Qing Kingdom is really terrible. Master Li's troops were completely dependent on the garrison for the supply of logistics. There are no military stations on the logistics line to deliver supplies to the front line, and there are no supply units in the troops at all, so once a war breaks out, the logistics supply will be very weak. At this, Hannagan shook his head and said.

"There are more critical problems, first, if there are multiple troops on a battlefield, the supply of each army is independent, which causes chaos in the supply system. Second, it is difficult for Beiyang to recruit enough civilian forces to provide logistical support for the troops. There is also a lack of a coordinating body to coordinate the entire logistical supply. Xu Jie added.

In the history of the prosperous army, the military resources of the Feng army relied on the garrison to raise funds, and could not be supplied by the national logistics system. The armies do not supply each other. The inability to recruit enough civilian ships for transportation caused the logistics of the Qing army fighting hard in Pyongyang to collapse, and these things needed to be solved by Xu Jie one by one.

After an afternoon of discussion, Xu Jie combined his own memories and Hannagan's experience to finally come to the following conclusions: if Beiyang needs to have sufficient logistical supplies, the following points must be done. First, there is a logistics department in charge of the logistics of the Beiyang Army. Second, each unit has set up a special logistical establishment. Third, there are enough civilian ships and vehicles to replenish (the Japanese army increased the tonnage of ships by 170,000 tons during the First Sino-Japanese War for transportation, while the total tonnage was only 180,000 tons at the beginning of the First Sino-Japanese War). Fifth, it is necessary to formulate a set of rigorous logistical management systems and supplies. (The author doesn't know much about logistics, just take a look, welcome to put forward valuable comments)

Ask for recommendations, ask for collections~~ The next few chapters will systematically analyze the army~~