Chapter 5 open sesame

The success of the Wuchang Uprising, no matter from which aspect, was somewhat accidental.First of all, when the uprising broke out, there was a feeling of being hit right.If it wasn't for the exposure of the revolutionary party's organs, the party leaders fled and died, and the party roster fell into the hands of the governor of Huguang Ruicheng. It is said that the old man wanted to find people according to his plan, and Ruicheng executed the three revolutionaries on the spot. The rumor of "suppression" has been further implemented, which is tantamount to helping the Revolutionary Party do the best mobilization. It is really hard to say whether the uprising can be so furious and have so many new troops participating.After the success of the uprising, Wuhan, which was in the place of the "Four Wars", was not attacked or besieged by the Qing army for about half a month, which greatly encouraged the "ulterior motives" everywhere and gave them the opportunity. When the soldiers overwhelmed the border, various places became independent one after another, and bad news spread frequently. Even if the Beiyang Army took down two of the three towns in Wuhan, the situation was over.Yuan Shikai, who took over the power of the Qing Dynasty, had no choice but to negotiate terms with the Revolutionary Party and betrayed his boss out of a calculation of interests.

Before the Wuchang Uprising, the reason why the revolutionaries were not optimistic about Wuhan was that they believed that Wuhan belonged to the place of the Fourth World War. Even if the uprising was successful, it would be easily besieged from all sides and could not persist.Unexpectedly, the uprising that blossomed at the center not only survived, but also radiated the revolution to the maximum extent, and achieved great success in one fell swoop.In addition to the reason why the Manchus destroyed the Great Wall by themselves and the Han bureaucrats were unwilling to help, a big factor was that the revolutionaries accidentally bumped into a treasure house with money and guns, and shouted "Open Sesame" ", the door really opened.

At that time, the new army in Wuhan had a total of more than 11,000 people in one town and one mixed association, and there were not many patrol battalions, which could basically be ignored.Before the uprising, about two standard (groups) were transferred to Sichuan to suppress the road protection movement (two battalions were in Yichang).There are less than 10,000 troops remaining.The uprising broke out, and there were five battalions and two standard (regiments)—a regiment composed of a cavalry regiment and a bannerman did not respond to the uprising. Soldiers, the person involved recalled that there were 4,000 people, but in fact there were less than 3,000.However, the rebel army was relatively fierce, and the troops that did not respond to the uprising were not wiped out (banner regiment), but after some sporadic resistance with the town commander (division commander) Zhang Biao, they dispersed by themselves, and did not respond to the rebel army. threatening.However, Wuhan is so big, with only 3,000 people, it is almost impossible to defend it.According to the situation, it is necessary to expand the army, and to expand the army requires money and guns.At that time, without political mobilization, no one would not take money to serve as a soldier.If the revolutionaries captured Wuhan as an empty city with no money and no guns, these revolutionaries, who have always been poor and boring, really have no choice.Relying on revolutionary enthusiasm is useless, because less than half of the 3,000 people who revolted had ideals and enthusiasm.Fortunately, what Ruicheng left to the rebels was a city with a lot of cash and weapons.There are more than 1.2 million taels of silver in the vassal treasury (the treasury of the chief minister); more than 700,000 foreign coins, more than 800,000 taels of silver, and 400,000 copper dollars in the copper coin bureau; 2 million copper dollars in the official money bureau , 8 million official notes, 20 million unstamped official notes, 2.4 million foreign dollar notes, 200,000 taels of treasury silver, 300,000 foreign currency, and a total of 4,000 financial deposits in Hubei More than ten thousand yuan.Moreover, there are still a large number of scrapped copper cannons in the Hanyang Arsenal, which can be used to cast copper coins.Money is not a problem. It is difficult to expand the army without armaments.However, Hubei has a history of more than 20 years since Zhang Zhidong compiled and trained the self-strengthening army to the Wuchang Uprising, and has purchased a lot of weapons over the years.More than 10,000 79 Mausers were sold from Germany, and 15,000 65 rifles were bought from Japan. In addition, China's largest arsenal is in Hanyang, and Hanyang manufactures tens of thousands of rifles.In addition to being equipped with the army, most of these guns are stored in the arsenal.Curry also has some mountain artillery, field artillery and fortress artillery. The only regret is that there are not many Maxim machine guns.Such a large number of firearms is more than enough to equip several divisions.In this way, the rebel army expanded to five full brigades in a short period of time. Almost all of the original 3,000 people became officers. Became the association (brigadier).In a short period of time, the rebel army grew to more than 20,000 people, more than twice the size of the entire Wuhan army before the uprising.On the fourth day of the uprising, the revolutionary army claimed to have 8,000 men, while the outside world said they had 25,000 men.

Although it is a revolutionary uprising that is fully justified today, not many people voluntarily join it. As long as people are recruited as soldiers, they have to be paid.Because the officers are all originally revolutionary, the money can be less, no matter the size of the officer, they are all 20 yuan a month, but the soldiers can't be less, 10 yuan a month per person.After the money was issued, many recruits took the money home.In the eyes of these people, even if they participate in the revolution, they are nothing more than serving as a soldier to eat food and find a job to earn money to support their families.Judging from the old photos left over from that year, many soldiers of the Revolutionary Army still have braids behind their heads.Therefore, without money, soldiers cannot be recruited, and without guns, recruiting is useless.Of course, such recruits were recruited without training, and even if they had guns, they were of little use.Most of the soldiers, wearing military uniforms, can't even load and shoot.Looking at the old photos at that time, the positions of the revolutionary army did not pay attention to skirmish lines at all. The soldiers were lined up densely and crowded together to shoot. casualties.But if this is not the case, the soldiers may disperse.At that time, some people thought that although there were more people in such an expansion of the army, and the veterans were scattered everywhere, the combat effectiveness might not be as good as the original 3,000 people.But the facts have proved that it is precisely this kind of military expansion that has become a major event.The new army has been training for several years, but the whole country is still in a state where it is not very good at fighting new types of warfare. All the new army and the old army have never been in battle. When it comes to fighting, the first thing that comes to mind is weapons and soldiers.As soon as they heard that the rebel army in Wuhan already had five associations, the governors of Hunan and Jiangxi immediately felt overwhelmed.The obedient Henan people sent two battalions of the new army and one patrol battalion to the north of Wuhan. When the leaders heard that there were a large number of rebels, they were too frightened to fire a single shot. They immediately sent people to contact the rebels. Falsely claiming to surrender, pretending to be a snake.It was not until the end of October that the two towns of the Beiyang Army arrived, and the Qing army's counterattack officially kicked off.For more than half a month, under the clamor of the newspaper circles in Shanghai, Tianjin, and Beijing, people all over the country were either panicked or rejoiced.The strength of the Wuhan Revolutionary Party members has been severely magnified. The newspapers even rumored that the Wuhan Revolutionary Party has gathered more than 30,000 people, and all of them have received years of new military education and have excellent firearms.Even the bureaucratic and wealthy businessmen in Beijing fled to the Tianjin Concession before Yuan Shikai arrived.During this half month, uprisings took place in various parts of Hubei, and even neighboring Hunan and Jiangxi became independent successively.When the defense of Wuhan began, 14 of the 18 provinces in the interior became independent, and the Qing Dynasty was over.Obviously, if the Qing army counterattacked immediately after the uprising, it is hard to say whether the uprising army could hold Wuhan.The reason why the Qing army did not do this was that they had to be fully prepared and mobilized sufficient troops before taking action. To a large extent, it was because of the size of the rebel army after the expansion of the army.Although the Beiyang Army is well trained, it is an army that has never fought a battle after all. Such an army can only mechanically consider the enemy's strength and firepower when fighting.The five alliances of the rebel army, which actually had little combat effectiveness, fully played a role in deterring the Qing army, leaving enough space and time for the rebels.Of course, such a rebel army will definitely be useless in future battles with the Beiyang Army. Even if some of them have revolutionary enthusiasm, and later came to command Huang Xing, the leader of the Revolutionary Party who claims to be a soldier, they can only retreat steadily. .But it doesn't matter, as long as the whole country changes, the victory of the Beiyang Army in one place will not save the Qing Dynasty's life.Chen Kuilong, a member of the Qing Dynasty who once served as the governor of Hubei, later said with emotion that at the beginning of the incident, he had proposed to send troops to quell the chaos quickly, but the central government delayed for a long time and lost the good opportunity, so the matter could not be done.In fact, the court's inability to act quickly was due to the silver in the Wuhan treasury.