Chapter 7 Second force and organization

Weapons and equipment have a materialized form, and their advantages and disadvantages are easy to detect. Therefore, different people have come to the same conclusion: the Qing Dynasty was at a leading position in the Opium War.However, many commentators also pointed out that the Qing Dynasty was at the forefront of the Opium War. In simple numbers, this is true. At that time, the Qing Dynasty had about 200,000 Eight Banners soldiers and about 600,000 Green Battalion soldiers, with a total strength of 800,000.It was the largest standing army in the world at the time. The British army is much smaller, with about 140,000 regular troops, plus 60,000 national troops responsible for internal defense tasks, the total strength is only 200,000.Compared with the Qing army, it is about 1:4.

China and Britain are thousands of miles apart, so it is natural that all British troops cannot be sent to China.In the early days of the Opium War, the total strength of the British Expeditionary Force, based on the combined navy and army, was about 7,000.Compared with the Qing army, it is about 1:110.Afterwards, the strength of the British Expeditionary Force continued to increase, and by the end of the war, there were about 20,000 people.Compared with the Qing army, it is about 1:40. People will naturally draw conclusions from these figures: the Qing Dynasty, which was at a disadvantage in terms of weapons, can make up for its shortcomings through its superiority in military strength. Obvious favorable factors.

However, the above conclusions are only theoretically correct, and the actual situation is just the opposite. From the narrations in the following chapters, we can see that the Qing army, which is superior in overall strength, does not have a great advantage in various battles, and sometimes is at a disadvantage; Can wait for work with ease, sometimes exhausted. Why is this? The key to solving this problem is to study the establishment of the Qing army. The army of the Qing Dynasty was divided into two major systems, the Eight Banners and the Green Battalion.Among them, the Eight Banners can be divided into two parts: the Beijing camp and the garrison.The Beijing Camp has a total of about 100,000 people stationed in Beijing and its surrounding areas.There are also about 100,000 garrisons, which are divided into four categories and scattered throughout the country: 1. To defend the land of Longxing, stationed in the areas under the jurisdiction of the three generals of Heilongjiang, Jilin, and Shengjing (about today's Liaoning); 2. To monitor the Mongolian people in the north and defend the capital , under the jurisdiction of the two capitals of Chahar and Rehe, and the two capitals of Miyun and Shanhaiguan. (now Jiergelangtu, Mongolia), Suiyuan City (now Hohhot), Yili (in today's Huocheng County, Xinjiang), Urumqi, Kashgar (now Kashgar) and other places; Fourth, and most importantly, monitor the provinces in the interior , with six generals in Guangzhou, Fuzhou, Hangzhou, Jiangning (now Nanjing), Jingzhou, Chengdu, Xi'an, and Ningxia, and four lieutenants in Jingkou (now Zhenjiang), Zhapu, Qingzhou (now Shandong Yidu), and Liangzhou (now Wuwei, Gansu) Both are unified.

The main body of the Qing army was the green battalion.Except for the 10,000 people in the 5th battalion patrolled by the capital, most of them were deployed in various provinces.The green camp system in a province is as follows: It can be seen from this that, in addition to the various standards set by the governor and governor, the military system of a province is divided into four levels: promotion, township, association, and battalion, with the battalion as the basic unit. The shortcomings of the Qing army's establishment are mainly manifested below the battalion.The battalion in the green battalion has no fixed establishment, but is determined according to whether the stationed area is important or not, and the complexity of the task. The number ranges from 200 to more than 1,000. Level, the official rank ranges from the third rank to the fifth rank.For example, the Wusong Battalion guarding Wusongkou, an important coastal defense area, has a total of more than 1,100 soldiers because of its very important status.What is more telling is the organizational system below the battalion and its scattered garrison.According to "Baoshan County Chronicles", Wusong is divided into sentries below the battalion, and divided into flood seasons below the sentries.In addition to the 200 soldiers stationed in the Wusong West Fort, the Wusong Battalion has more than 800 soldiers distributed in the county town and 35 flood areas.The defensive area includes most of Baoshan County and part of Jiading County.In each flood area, there are several, ten, or dozens of troops stationed.

Is it because Wusong Battalion's situation is special and the garrison is particularly scattered?On the contrary, judging from the situation in various places, there are not particularly many flood areas in Wusongying.For example, the so-called elite Hunan Township has 4,107 soldiers, "distributed in sixty-seven flood ponds, and nine out of seven hundred and sixty out of seven hundred and sixty out of 760 sentry towers stationed at the gate of the blockhouse".It is not difficult to imagine that its garrison is scattered. Judging from the establishment of the Green Battalion, among the divisions of the governor, Fu, Ti, and town, the Tibiao under the direct control of the admiral is the unit with the strongest military strength, the most concentrated garrison, and the most mobile.However, its situation was not better than that of the aforementioned Wusong Camp.

The Fujian Navy Tibiao is one of the most powerful sea forces of the Qing army, stationed in Xiamen.It has a total of 5 battalions: middle, left, right, front and rear, with more than 4,300 officers and soldiers.Half of them are coast defense forces and the other half are ship forces.As far as the coast defense force is concerned, it has a total of 517 soldiers on Xiamen Island and Gulangyu Island, but they are divided into 10 flood areas, 24 heaps, and more than 40 places such as the four gates of Xiamen City and the water drill platform; The outer mainland, along the coast of Maxiangting (now belonging to Tong'an County), Tong'an County, Longxi County, (now belonging to Zhangzhou City, Longhai County), Haicheng County (now belonging to Longhai), garrisoned 1390 Names, divided into 41 flood areas, each ranging from 3 to 201.As far as the fleet is concerned, there are a total of 67 large and small ships, of which 48 are warships (Dahengyang ships, Tongan ships), and another 19 are paddle boats for coastal patrol; among the warships, there are 13 ships have fixed sea flood areas, and only 35 ships can maneuver to fight overseas.

We cannot imagine the Qing army at that time with the concept of today's army with whole divisions, whole regiments, and whole camps concentrated in a certain barracks.According to the materials I have seen, there is no battalion in the green battalion that is not divided into flood pond checkpoints. Hundreds (I only saw more than 200) were scattered in the key cities and towns at that time. As far as modern military principles are concerned, the dispersion of forces means the weakening of combat effectiveness.We might as well imagine how difficult it would be to gather these scattered small troops in the event of a war.In actual operation, total concentration is completely impossible.

The reason why the Qing army was so scattered was because of its responsibilities. The Qing Dynasty was a highly centralized regime established by force and suppression, and the army was its pillar.However, there was no police in the Qing Dynasty at that time, and the high degree of centralization did not allow the establishment of local internal defense forces; from the perspective of the external environment, although the Qing Dynasty used troops in the border areas several times, and fought against Russia in the Northeast during the Kangxi period, but in the "Fourth After the Yibin service", the Qing army had no strong and fixed opponents.The power to subvert the Qing Dynasty is inside but not outside.These determined that the basic duty of the Qing army was to defend the people and defend the interior.

Therefore, the dispersed garrison of the army has its rationality: 1. Guard palaces and mausoleums in imperial gardens, guard government offices at all levels, guard warehouses and prisons, escort money and food criminals, assist checkpoints in collecting taxes, seize illegal salt and opium smuggling, guard post stations and roads, and implement temporary or relatively long-term tasks assigned by governments at all levels All kinds of errands were performed by the Qing army.And to complete these affairs, it is obvious that a powerful legion is not needed, but a large number of scattered soldiers is needed.The Eight Banners of the Beijing Camp, Supervising Standards, and Fubiao perform a lot of such duties.

2. In order to maintain public order in the city and suppress bandits, the Qing army, in addition to sending troops to guard the city gates and interrogate personnel, also set up piles and fences in the city, patrolling during the day and guarding at night (such as the premise that Xiamen 24 piles are Such, equivalent to the police).This again requires numerous and dispersed soldiers.The city guard associations and battalions, as well as the garrisoned Eight Banners and Green Battalions stationed in the cities, undertake many such duties. Third, and most importantly, in order to monitor the people more effectively to prevent rebellion, in order to enable local officials to find an army that can be used at any time, and to overcome the traffic difficulties at that time and suppress them in time, the Qing army deployed troops in various markets. Large and small flood waters, ponds, cards, and platforms have been set up at important passes, crossings, and steep places, and soldiers have been stationed.These small units are extremely convenient for dealing with rebellions that rise and fall all over the country, because most of the rebels and bandits operating in the countryside are small groups that flee and take advantage of the gaps. If the Qing army concentrates its forces, it is often ineffective. Couldn't even find a trace of it.The main force of the green battalion of the Qing army was thus dispersed.

4. Strong troops have always been a major concern of autocratic dynasties, and the Qing Dynasty, which ruled the Central Plains with ethnic minorities, was even more prepared for a Han armed force (Green Battalion) that was stronger than its own armed forces (Eight Banners). The countermeasure is to use the relatively concentrated Eight Banners to monitor the scattered Green Battalion.Therefore, the dispersal of the Green Battalion was not only due to military considerations, but also out of political needs. The above is only a theoretical analysis, and what happened in the actual operation process can be quoted from the comments of some officials during the Opium War. In August 1840, when the British army arrived in Haikou, Tianjin, Qishan, the governor of Zhili, said: "There are only more than 800 soldiers in Tianjin, and there are only about 600 soldiers in addition to guarding warehouses, prisons and various missions. The rest In the three battalions of Gegu, Dagu, and Haikou along the coast, Gegu only has more than a hundred soldiers, and the remaining two battalions have only dozens of soldiers, and the number of troops is relatively small." Check the two battalions in Tianjin Town, plus Tianjin City Shouying and Geguying have a total strength of 2,400 troops. Comparing with the actual number of the remaining camps, it can be seen that many of them went out to undertake duties. In September 1841, General Baochang of Fuzhou and others played: "The Green Battalion of the Provincial Banner, in addition to being on duty everywhere in the past, actually has 1,040 soldiers." There are 3 green battalions under its jurisdiction (938 from the left battalion, 938 from the right battalion, and 627 from the navy battalion), with a total of 4,463 soldiers." The number of soldiers "on duty everywhere in the past" accounted for more than three-quarters. In November 1841, General Qiying of Shengjing stated: "In Fengtian, there are as many as seven or eight hundred soldiers in each city, as few as three or four hundred, and there are one or two hundred soldiers in the east and west. There are more than 5,200 soldiers, and there are many kinds of errands, and they are in need. In addition, there are more than 900 soldiers needed every year for Karen outside the border, guard paddocks, etc. .Although Qiying did not directly point out the number of soldiers that could be maneuvered, he pointed out the heavy burden of various tasks borne by the soldiers. The establishment of the Qing army clearly shows that it is conducive to the decentralization of "government of the people", and it is not conducive to the centralization of imperial defense.If you look at it from today's perspective, the National Defense Force has the lightest color, and the police have the strongest color.Taking a step back, with a population of 400 million and 800,000 police officers at that time, the ratio of police to civilians was 1:500, which is not too high by today's standards. The dispersion of the Qing army's deployment and the tasks it undertakes determine: first, it is impossible for the Qing army to use all of it for combat. A mobile combat force.In other words, the figure of 800,000 total troops does not have the meaning it should have today in actual operation. From this point of view, what is really meaningful is the number of Qing troops that can be put into battle in the Opium War. The actual warring provinces of the Opium War were Guangdong, Fujian, Zhejiang, and Jiangsu; more specifically, the actual warring places were Humen and Guangzhou in Guangdong, Xiamen in Fujian, Dinghai, Zhenhai, Ningbo, and Zhapu in Zhejiang, and Wusong and Zhenjiang in Jiangsu.The Qing army in the above-mentioned four provinces has a total of about 220,000 soldiers, and the Qing army in the above-mentioned warring areas has about 30,000 soldiers in peacetime.However, needless to say the entire province, even the warring areas, if the entire territory was not attacked by the British army (such as Zhapu, Zhenjiang and other places), it is impossible for all the defenders to participate in the battle.For example, in Xiamen mentioned above, a total of 5,680 Qing troops participated in the Xiamen defensive operation in August 1841, but less than 2,000 of the 4,300 Fujian Navy stationed there participated in the battle. The arrival of war does not cancel the normal tasks of the defenders in various places. On the contrary, the tension of the situation makes the rulers feel that it is more necessary to monitor the people to prevent troubles.Therefore, even in the warring areas, the local Qing army could not cancel all the original flood pond checkpoints and concentrate its forces; it could only deploy some soldiers from these flood pond checkpoints to form a temporary force ready to fight. This is the method used by the generals and governors to deploy troops from the interior of their jurisdiction to reinforce Haikou, and the Qing court also used this method to deploy troops from inland provinces to reinforce the coastal provinces.Here we give two examples: 1. On July 15, 1840, Yilibu, Governor of Liangjiang, learned that Dinghai had fallen, and dispatched 3,550 troops from Jiangsu and Anhui to reinforce Baoshan and Shanghai, involving Xuzhou Town, Shouchun Town, Yangzhou Camp, Langshan Town, and Fushan Camp , Jingkou Left and Right Qibing Camp, Zhenjiang Camp, Changzhou Camp, Taihu Camp, and Gaozi Camp.Each place ranges from 300 to 500 people. 2. On January 16, 1841, the governor of Huguang, Yutai, and others followed the order and dispatched 1,000 troops from Hunan to reinforce Guangdong. As a result, 300 troops were drawn from the promotion bid, 200 troops were drawn from Zhendang Township, 200 troops were drawn from Yongzhou Township, 100 troops were recruited from Suijing Town, 100 soldiers from Fubiao, and 100 soldiers from Chen Yongyuan Daobiao. Just like this, Emperor Daoguang was transferred from various provinces, the governors of each province were transferred from each standard battalion, and the chiefs of each standard battalion were transferred from checkpoints in each flood pond.There are a few or a dozen people here, and a few or a dozen or so people there, and the accumulation of less makes more, and the temporary governor will be appointed to lead the expedition.During the Opium War, Guangdong received a total of 17,000 reinforcements from other provinces, from Hunan, Guangxi, Jiangxi, Hubei, Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan. Zhejiang received a total of 20,000 reinforcements from Fujian, Anhui, Jiangsu, The twelve provinces of Jiangxi, Hunan, Hubei, Henan, Pu, Sichuan, Shaanxi, Gansu and Guangxi.These improvised troops are not familiar with the soldiers, and the soldiers and generals are not familiar with it, which will inevitably reduce the overall combat effectiveness. So, how many troops can be assembled by this method of transfer? During the Opium War, the Qing court ordered the coastal provinces to strengthen their coastal defenses three times: the first time was in July 1841 after learning of the fall of Dinghai (the British army ordered to withdraw when they went south in September of that year); the second time was in January 1841 when they learned of Humen After the war (in July of that year, Yishan lied about the military situation and ordered the withdrawal); the third time was in September 1841 after learning that Xiamen had fallen.The generals and governors along the coast all dispatched soldiers from the interior of the province to reinforce Haikou, and the number is as follows: It can be seen from the above table that, except for the original fortified troops in Haikou, the troops transferred from the interior accounted for no more than a quarter of its total.This number can be regarded as the maximum number of troops to be deployed, because the governors of various provinces have since claimed that "there is no one soldier to transfer", and they are extremely worried that the local "salt lords" and "rotten bandits" will take advantage of this deployment of troops. Machine trouble.Among them, Shandong has the lowest proportion of green battalion soldiers, and on January 28, 1842, Shandong Governor Tuo Hunbu stated: "The number of defense soldiers at each port is only more than 3,000, and the coastal areas are still weak, and the hinterland is empty. ..." Although the defense troops dispatched from Shandong accounted for only one-sixth of its quota, the ruler felt that it was difficult to maintain normal order in the local area, so he could only withdraw some. Because the Qing army in the coastal provinces was not enough to mobilize, the Qing government dispatched troops from the inland provinces to reinforce the coastal areas. The figures are as follows: It can be seen from the above table that in order to support the war, all provinces in the pass and the Northeast region have deployed troops.Only Xinjiang and Mongolia did not draw troops to join the war. The above-mentioned Qing court dispatched a total of 51,000 troops from various provinces in the interior, respectively reinforcing Guangdong (17,000), Zhejiang (18,000 at the highest), and Jiangsu (13,000 at the highest, most of which were originally reinforced by Zhejiang) Army), Zhili (10,000), Jinzhou (1,000), and Wuhu (1,000); if the reinforcements from the coastal provinces and the original fortified troops in Haikou are added, the total number of troops actually mobilized by the Qing Dynasty in the Opium War was about 100,000. Of course, it cannot be said that the Qing Dynasty could not gather more troops, but it is impossible to have a large increase. Although the establishment of the Qing army is very unsuitable for modern warfare, the total strength of 800,000 troops is a huge number after all. After all, 100,000 troops were assembled in the Opium War. Compared with the 20,000 troops of the British Expeditionary Force when it was at its highest for absolute advantage. However, there was one factor that caused a fundamental reversal of the above situation, and this was the British ships mentioned in the previous section. The British army's "ships are strong and guns are powerful" was a consensus reached by the Qing Dynasty at that time, and under this consensus, abandoning the confrontation at sea became an inevitable choice for the Qing army.In other words, the Qing army lost the initiative in the war and could only wait passively on land for the opponent's attack. British ships were not only ferocious means of attack, but also efficient means of transportation, allowing the British army to reuse their limited forces.A battleship used twice is equal to two ships.A soldier fighting twice equals two.Because the speed of land deployment was not as fast as that of the British army at sea, and the Qing army did not know the strategic goals and operational guidelines of the British army, they had to fortify everywhere.In other words, the thousands of miles of coastline across the country are all within the scope of its defense. This constitutes the actual scene of the Qing army's deployment of troops in the Opium War: In order to resist the possible invasion of the British army, dozens of Haikou provinces in Shengjing, Zhili, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong had to send troops to dispatch troops. Artillery defense, among which Humen, Xiamen, Dinghai, Zhenhai, Wusong, and Dagu are the most important, and the number of Qing troops stationed there ranges from 4,000 to 10,000.Since the British side obtained the right to decide the location, time and scale of the battle due to its superiority in ships, the Qing Dynasty wanted to maintain a force equivalent to that of the British army in each battle, and had to deploy troops that might be joined by the British army in every possible battle area in advance. Quite a force. Concentrating troops is common sense in military science, but the passive position of the Qing Dynasty forced it to disperse its troops. This determined that the Qing army, which had an absolute advantage in total force, could not maintain this advantage in actual combat.In the following chapters, we will see that there were 12 large-scale battles in the Opium War, except for the Battle of Guangzhou in May 1841 and the Battle of Eastern Zhejiang in March 1842, which were maintained due to reinforcements from various provinces. In addition to the advantages in military strength, the strength of the Qing army in most of the battles was not far from that of the British army. In the Battle of Dinghai in July 1840, the Battle of Shajiao Dajiao in January 1841 and the Battle of Zhenjiang in July 1842 In the middle, it is the British side that has the upper hand in terms of strength. We discuss the issue of the strength of the Qing army from the level of practical operation, and there is another factor that is easily overlooked, that is, the speed of troop deployment. Since the Qing side could not determine the location of the battlefield and the time of the battle, and the deployment of troops was also constrained by factors such as military expenditures, the Qing court’s troop deployment during the Opium War mainly took two actions: one was after the Battle of Humen in January 1841, The main direction is Guangdong; first, after the fall of Zhenhai in October 1841, the main direction is Zhejiang. At that time, the troop transport basically traveled along the route of the post road, and local officials along the way organized chariots and horses and provided food, grass and lodging.Although the establishment and mission of the Qing army resulted in only one or two thousand troops being dispatched from a province at a time, due to narrow roads and limited local supply capacity, one or two thousand troops could not march in groups. "200 to 300 people.In areas where rivers are navigable, reinforcements can take boats to other areas. Due to limited carriages and horses, most soldiers can only walk on two legs. The speed is so slow that it is not difficult to imagine. For this reason, I made a detailed statistics on the deployment of 19 reinforcements, and calculated the approximate speed of the Qing army’s deployment: about 30 to 40 days for neighboring provinces, about 50 days for every one or two provinces, about 70 days for every three provinces, and about 70 days for every four provinces. Save about 90 days or more.See the table below: Such a slow pace of troop deployment deprived the Qing army of favorable conditions for local operations.At that time, British naval ships sailed from Cape Town, South Africa to Hong Kong in about 60 days, and from India in about 30 to 40 days. Even if they sailed from the British mainland, it only took more than four months.The advent of steam engines and the use of ships greatly accelerated the speed of the British army. In 1841, it took only 25 days for the British Plenipotentiary to travel from Bombay to Macau.Based on this calculation, the British army dispatched ships from Zhoushan in Zhejiang to India to mobilize reinforcements or military supplies, and the round-trip time was almost the same as that of the Qing side dispatching troops from Sichuan to Guangdong or from Shaanxi and Gansu to Zhejiang.The convenient and fast ships shortened the long supply line of the British army, while the poor traffic conditions extended the distance for the Qing army to reinforce.Advanced science and technology have shown their power on the issue of military strength. Such a slow pace of troop deployment made the deployment of Qing troops unable to keep up with the deployment of British military operations. In June 1840, the British army set off from the waters of Guangdong, captured Dinghai, and arrived at Haikou, Tianjin. It took only 35 days; It took 53 days.As for the Qing army, Emperor Daoguang increased his troops to Guangdong before and after the Battle of Shajiao and Dajiao in Humen in January 1841, but only had a weak offensive four months later; in October 1841, after learning of the fall of Dinghai and Zhenhai, Emperor Daoguang , sent troops to Zhejiang again, and nearly five months later, the Qing army launched a counterattack. Such a narrative might be too abstract, let's look at two examples: 1. On October 26, 1841, Emperor Daoguang dispatched 2,000 elite soldiers from Jianchang and Songpan towns in Sichuan to Zhejiang for "conquest and suppression".Until February 1842, the reinforcements of the Ministry rushed to the front line after traveling more than 4,000 miles. Participated in the battle to attack Ningbo on March 10.After the British army captured Ningbo on October 10, 1841, it had been resting for nearly half a year.Comparing China and the UK, what is the work? 2. On April 16, 1841, after the failure of the counterattack in eastern Zhejiang, Emperor Daoguang dispatched 1,000 Guangxi soldiers to reinforce Zhejiang according to the request of the front coach Yijing. On June 29, a total of 550 people from the Ministry's first and second incidents arrived, and 450 people from the last two incidents were still on the way.At this time, the British army had abandoned Ningbo, captured Zhapu and Wusong, and was sailing into the Yangtze River!Yijing quickly sent the department to Jiangsu again.Until the end of the war, the Ministry did not participate in any battles. The Opium War has been going on for more than 150 years. We cannot use today's standards to judge the situation at that time, no matter how natural these standards are in the eyes of today's people.