Chapter 663 Destroy the Green Battalion First, Then Level Up the Eight Banners
Military Aircraft Department.
In charge, Minister of Military Aircraft Fulehun, Minister of Military Aircraft Qinggui, Liang Guozhi, and Yuan Shoudong were on duty last night, not because of the upcoming National Congress, but because the war in Taiwan was going well, but suddenly it took a turn for the worse.
After the Tiandihui rebellion broke out in Taiwan last year, the Qing government ordered Chai Daji, the former Fuzhou garrison, to serve as the chief military officer of Taiwan. Together with Huang Shijian, the admiral of the Fujian navy, Ren Chengen, the admiral of the Green Camp of Fujian, and Xu Dingshi, the deputy general of the Fujian Anxieties, they led more than 7,000 troops to cross the sea.
chaos.
Two months later, the Qing troops who crossed Taiwan successfully landed at Lukang in the southwest corner of Taiwan, and then launched an attack on the rebels.
At first, the war was not favorable for the Qing army. Xu Dingshi, the deputy general of the Fujian Anxieties, was surrounded by an ambush with superiority set by the rebel leader Lin Shuangwen in advance.
However, Xu Dingshi's troops did not panic like the Taiwan Green Camp because they were trapped in an encirclement. They used the surrounding terrain to form a defense line with muskets and mountain-splitting cannons. The soldiers cooperated with each other and stubbornly refused to defend.
The rebels numbered more than 20,000, but their equipment was not as good as the official army. Although they had a numerical advantage, they were still unable to break through Xu's defense line.
Chai Daji, the newly appointed commander-in-chief of Taiwan Town, quickly led troops to rescue after receiving news of Xu Bu's request for help.
The battle report said that after Chai Daji arrived with his troops, he launched a fierce attack on the back of the rebels. It was said that "the arrows were like locusts, covering the sky and the sun." Xu Dingshi's troops also immediately attacked outwards from the encirclement.
They were overwhelmed, suffered heavy casualties, and were completely defeated.
After the war, more than 3,000 rebels were killed, and thousands more surrendered.
The leader of the bandits, Lin Shuangwen, led the remnants of his troops to retreat to Zhuluo County, but they were attacked by the soldiers and civilians of Zhuluo County, resulting in numerous casualties, making it impossible for Lin Shuangwen to use Zhuluo as his base.
Feeling the loyalty of the soldiers and people of Zhuluo County to the Qing Dynasty, the Military Aircraft Department reported the matter to the emperor. In order to commend the loyalty of the people of Zhuluo County, Qianlong in the palace changed Zhuluo County to Chiayi County, which means "to praise their loyalty".
This defeat also caused divisions within the rebels. Many key members of the Tiandihui became timid, fearing that they would be uprooted by the Qing army, so they led their troops to break away from Lin Shuangwen, including Yan Yan, a fellow countryman who introduced Lin Shuangwen to the Tiandihui.
Yan Yan was previously named the Master of the Punishment Hall by Wan Yunlong, the leader of the Tiandihui, for assisting Lin Shuangwen in launching an uprising.
The deputy marshal of the rebel army, Lin Zhenguo, surrendered immediately after being captured by the Qing army and revealed a lot of details about the Tiandihui. He even claimed that Lin Shuangwen dared to launch an uprising in Taiwan because he had the support from within the Qing army.
The evidence is that after Lin Shuangwen returned to Taiwan from the mainland, he not only brought a lot of money, but also a lot of weapons.
This information attracted great attention from the Fujian side, and Yu Wenyi, the governor of Fujian, tried it personally. However, Lin Zhenguo only knew that there was someone behind Lin Shuangwen, and that this person had a high status in the Qing court, but he did not know who it was.
In the end, he could not survive the punishment. He made nonsense that the person who secretly supported Lin Shuangwen was a senior official of the Qing army in Fujian. Yu Wenyi was so frightened that he quickly ordered Lin Zhenguo to be beaten to death.
I didn't dare to report it at all, because it would put everyone in the Fujian officialdom in danger.
Not daring to report it to the court, but really suspecting that there was a conspiracy among Fujian officials, Yu Wenyi began a secret investigation with the support of Debao, the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang.
So far, there is no result.
After winning the first battle, the Qing army across Taiwan made persistent efforts and won three more battles in June and July. Although they did not defeat many enemies and failed to surround the bandit leader Lin Shuangwen, they effectively dealt a blow to the Tiandihui uprising.
With great momentum, nearly half of the cities and villages occupied by the rebels were recovered.
Chai Daji, the commander-in-chief of the Taiwan Army, gave a more detailed report to the governor of Fujian, saying that although Lin Shuangwen's rebels had many rebels, most of them had no intention of opposing the Qing Dynasty, but were only coerced by the rebels or seeking asylum.
Therefore, a strategy of suppression and appeasement was proposed. On the one hand, one should resolutely attack the core of the thieves, and on the other hand, he should be lenient to those who surrendered. In this way, the thieves would collapse in a short time.
Yu Wenyi agreed with Chai Daji's appeasement strategy. In just over a month, more than 10,000 thieves came to surrender one after another. Many places began to contact the Qing army, hoping to gain their protection and were willing to provide money and food support for the government and army to suppress the thieves.
Debao, the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang, said happily: "The bandits in Lin have rebelled against their relatives and separated from their relatives. Taiwan will be settled in a few months at most."
Ren Chengen, the admiral of Fujian Green Camp, reported that although the rebels were nominally composed of members of the Tiandihui, in fact most of them were from Zhangzhou, Fujian.
However, it was not the officers and soldiers who were more tenacious in fighting the rebels and even refused to surrender, but the Quanzhou people.
Ren Chengen analyzed that the main reason why the Quanzhou people helped the government and army to fight against the rebels was that they were afraid that the Zhangzhou people would harm their interests after they ruled Taiwan.
Therefore, it was proposed to vigorously recruit Quanzhou people and focus on attacking Zhangzhou people.
Careful research also revealed that the leader of the bandits, Lin Shuangwen, repeatedly asked the rebels not to be enemies of the Quanzhou people, saying that they should unite to fight against the Qing Dynasty. However, the Tiandihui was originally a group of rabble without any program, and the Zhangzhou and Quanzhou people had been in Taiwan for hundreds of years.
The conflicts between the two houses were irreconcilable.
As a result, most of the Quanzhou people, who accounted for one-third of Taiwan's population, defected to the Qing army. In addition, the Tiandihui rebel army suffered successive defeats and internal divisions. The original number of people was reduced from 100,000 to less than 20,000, and was defeated by the Qing army.
The pursuit has nowhere to go. No matter from which angle it looks, the chaos in Taiwan will soon be settled.
Debao, the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang, even wrote to the court, believing that a governor should be established in Taiwan to increase the court's control over Taiwan and prevent the Han people on the island from becoming enemies of the court at every turn.
At this juncture, the war situation suddenly changed significantly.
First of all, there was an urgent report from Fujian Navy Admiral Huang Shijian from 800 miles away, saying that pirates from foreign warships had attacked the grain and grass transfer point of the Qing army in Penghu, destroyed 4 of our warships, and killed more than 20 of our Qing soldiers.
After that, Yu Wenyi, the governor of Fujian, forwarded an urgent report to Ren Chengen, the admiral of Fujian Green Camp. Ren said that he had received a tip that the leader of the bandits, Lin Shuangwen, might be fleeing in the Fengshan County area in southern Taiwan, so he led his troops to exterminate them.
However, during the battle with the bandit soldiers, a bandit army with black flags suddenly came from its flank. In addition to the Han bandit soldiers, there were also many dark-eyed Gaoliang red-haired Xiyi soldiers at the front. Their number was no less than
Hundreds of people, armed with muskets and artillery, are far more sharp than our Qing soldiers.
The black flag soldiers were very brave and good at fighting. Not only were they equipped with a large number of firearms, but the bandit leader was also fearless of death. He repeatedly led the bandit soldiers into the battle with arrows, sticks and blunderbuss.
Ren Chengen could see clearly that the bandit leader was very young. During the charge, his crown and feathers were shattered and his robes and hakama were worn out, but he was not even injured at all.
Under his leadership, the Black Flag rebels became more and more courageous in fighting, and the officers and soldiers could no longer resist and had to retreat.
Subsequently, the rebels used the black flag bandits as their backbone and mobilized a large number of thieves to storm Tainan, where the capital city of Taiwan is. Although Ren Encheng led all the soldiers in the city to defend, the thieves were too powerful and they finally gave up Tainan and retreated five days later.
Chiayi.
The loss of Tainan allowed the already struggling rebels to gain momentum again. The Black Flag Army even threatened to drive all the Qing troops into the sea, then counterattack Fujian and march north.
What does it say, "Destroy the Green Camp first, then defeat the Eight Banners. The only Chinese soldier is the Black Flag!"
In view of the complete defeat of the Qing army in Taiwan and the possibility of total annihilation, Debao, the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang, could only ask the imperial court to send reinforcements quickly and send more Manchu troops and imperial guards to come, otherwise it would be difficult to quell the chaos in Taiwan.
The Military Aircraft Division held discussions, but other than the possibility that the Taiwanese rebels might collude with the Westerners, there were really no regulations on how to dispatch reinforcements.
Because there is no way to draw out reinforcements.