Huai Jun was established in 1862. In the spring of that year, Li Xiucheng of the Taiping Army led his troops to march eastward and forced Shanghai. Su and the gentry were forced to call for troops at Zeng Guofan in Anqing. When the Hunan Army Generals Zeng Guoquan and Chen Shijie were unwilling to go, they sent Li Hongzhang to enlist them.
At the beginning of its establishment, the Huai Army had 13 battalions with a total of 6,500 people. The soldiers were partly transferred from the Hunan Army and partly recruited by Li Hongzhang in Anhui.
The main generals of the Huai Army
military organization
The basic combat unit of the Huai Army is the battalion. Each battalion has 1 officer and has 5 posts under its jurisdiction, which are divided into "front, rear, left and right" posts and "pro-soldier" posts. The outpost consists of 6 to 8 teams, each with 10 to 12 soldiers. Except for the battalion officers and assistants, the entire battalion has 500 soldiers. From the perspective of modern military establishment, a battalion in the Huai Army has the same number of people as a battalion in the modern army. The post is equivalent to a company, and the squad is equivalent to a squad. The entire battalion has no platoon organization. The military commander above the
battalion is called the commander, and the troops under the command are collectively called the "battalion head." Each battalion head has a dozen or even dozens of battalions. Each battalion is named according to the commander’s name. The troops of the Huai army general Liu Mingchuan were generally called "Mingzi Camp" or "Mingjun", and Zhou Shengchuan's troops were called "Shengzi Camp" or "Shengjun" .
The early equipment of the Huai Army
Because the Qing Dynasty pursued the policy of shutting down the country and weakening soldiers, the pace of military technological innovation has been stopped since Kangxi. Therefore, as late as the mid-19th century, the firearm level of the late Qing army was still only at the same level as the Ming Dynasty. There is even worse than . The equipment of the Huai Army in the early stage was only a combination of hot and cold weapons. Among the 38 teams under the control of the first battalion, there were 19 guns and guns (2 teams of split hills, 8 teams of guns, 9 teams of small guns), and 19 teams of swords and spears. , There are 127 firearms in the whole camp, including 99 small guns, 24 guns and 4 guns.
lift gun
small gun, namely shotgun, also known as bird blow or wire gun, is a matchlock gun made from imitation of foreign firearms in the Ming Dynasty, weighs about 8 kilograms, has an effective range of 120-150 meters, and a rate of fire of 1 per minute One to two shots. The carrying gun is a large shotgun, weighing about 23-24 kilograms, with a range of more than 200 meters, and four people need to carry it. As for the mountain splitting gun, Taiwan scholar Wang Ermin believes that the gun is a front-mounted smoothbore gun improved on the basis of the Ming Dynasty Hongyi gun. It weighs more than 300 kilograms. The shells are so-called "groups". Each gun can hold 100 to 300 pellets. It blows out to kill and injure the enemy, with a maximum range of about 1 km, and can only be cast once in a few minutes.
These firearms not only have a short range and low power, but also have a slower reloading. If you completely fight based on this, your own army can easily be defeated by the enemy's charge. Therefore, when the firearms are fired, they need to be protected by swords and spearmen. Because of this, the Huai army can only adopt a steady and steady defensive tactics for attacking the Hunan army.
mountain splitting gun
These weapons and equipment are 2-3 centuries behind the West. Not only can firearms such as shotguns, guns, and mountain splitters not be able to compete with the rifled rifles with internal engraved rifled rifled and copper caps, and even is equipped with smooth-bore firearms. The Taiping Army cannot take advantage of . Li Hongzhang discovered this problem shortly after he led his army into Shanghai, and started the process of military reform of the Huai army.
first changed to
time: 1862-1868
In late February 1862, Shanghai Guanshen hired seven British merchant ships to travel upstream to Anqing to meet the Huai army.
At this time, defending Shanghai is the 50,000 green camp of Jiangsu Governor Xue Huan, a small number of British and French troops stationed in Shanghai to protect the overseas Chinese, and the foreign gun team led by American Waller and composed of Chinese and foreign mercenaries—— Ever-victorious army. The powerful force of Changsheng Army's new firearms left a deep impression on Li Hongzhang. Immediately proceeded to purchase Western-style firearms and began to retool on a large scale. After
rifle
, the Huai Army had a battalion of 28 Yanggun teams and 10 Shanshan artillery teams. Each battalion equipped with more than 400 rifles, more than 400, and less than 300, which was two to three times that of the Hunan Army's continental battalion. There were 40 rifles, which was 10 times that of the Hunan Army's continental battalion. In terms of performance, most of the foreign guns at that time used inflatable bullets and fired with a copper flash hider. They could fire about 3 bullets per minute, and had an effective range of two to three hundred meters. They were easy to load and not affected by the weather. It is better than the old shotgun and lift gun. Therefore, in terms of firearms, the Huai Army's combat effectiveness is far higher than the Hunan Army. Most of the foreign guns equipped by the Huai Army can be purchased and transported through Hong Kong. However, due to the restrictions on the export of weapons by the British and French governments, it is still difficult to purchase new artillery, which makes Li Hongzhang have to get closer to the leader of the Victory Army. Ask him to help purchase purchases abroad. At that time, the Western artillery used on the battlefield in China was mainly made of bronze front mounted smoothbore guns, which were divided into long and short bombs. The long bomber is similar to the modern cannon. The length of its barrel is about 16-25 times the caliber. The specifications are distinguished by the weight of the shell. There are 12 pounds, 24 pounds, and 32 pounds. Light guns under 12 pounds are mostly used in field operations, with an effective range of 1,000 meters and a maximum range of 3,500 meters. Heavy artillery over 24 pounds is used for siege or fort equipment. When the Huai army attacked Suzhou in August of that year, the 24-pound front-loaded smoothbore gun
made of bronze,
, used these new artillery to destroy the fortifications of the Taiping Army outside the city of Suzhou, and then collapsed the walls of Jiaxing and Changzhou. The victory of the war was guaranteed.
In the spring of 1865, the Huai Army was ordered to mobilize Sanhejian to suppress the Nian Army's uprising. At this time, the whole army had more than 60,000 men and equipped with 40,000 foreign guns. By the time the Nian Army's uprising was suppressed in August 1868, the Huai Army had replaced all foreign guns and eliminated the mountain splitting guns, taking the lead in the modernization of firearms in the Chinese army. The second time
was changed to
Time: 1868—1884 After the
Nian Army uprising was extinguished, the Huai Army should have been disbanded, but with Li Hongzhang’s efforts, although the various departments of the Huai Army made tailoring, they still retained more than 50,000 people from the 89th Battalion. The elite forces of the People's Republic of China were dispatched to the four provinces of Zhili, Shandong, Jiangsu, and Hubei to serve as defense forces, taking on the responsibility of suppressing rebellions internally and supporting national defense externally. At the same time that the Huai Army was on the political and military stage of the late Qing Dynasty, it was a period when the world's military technology advanced by leaps and bounds. In the mid-1950s, the French and German troops were the first to be equipped with breech guns that used Mini bullets. After the 1970s, metal fixed-loading bullets that integrated gunpowder, bullets and copper caps were promoted, which further simplified the rifle loading procedure and greatly improved the performance of firearms. The rifles of this period have been able to reach an effective range of 500 meters. With a rate of fire of 10-20 rounds per minute, machine guns that fire hundreds of rounds per minute even appeared on the battlefield. For the
artillery, the application of inflatable projectiles also made the breech gun enter the practical stage, thereby improving the shooting efficiency of the artillery. The advancement of metal smelting technology has made the artillery material transition from bronze to steel, which means that the barrel can withstand more charges, have a longer range and better durability.
The Franco-Prussian War broke out in 1871, and both sides used new rear-mounted rifles. Through exchanges with foreign officers in the Huai Army, Li Fengbao, the envoy abroad, and German businessman Smid, Li Hongzhang learned that although the new western rifles are expensive, they are indeed powerful.
After 1875, the Western arms market was further opened to China. At this time, better-performance Winchester, Mauser, Hatchkiss, and Lee-style rifles were successively imported into China, and the Huai Army stepped up replacements. Only one year in 1875, Li Hongzhang ordered 26,000 rifles from the German Mauser company. By 1884, the Huai Army's continental battalion was equipped with Mauser, Hatchkiss and other continuous-fire rifles with magazines, and the cavalry was all equipped with Winchester 13-fired rifles.
Mauser rifles
By 1877, the Huai Army purchased 114 Krupp breech steel cannons, and established 19 new artillery battalions based on the German artillery battalion. Each battalion was equipped with 6 steel cannons and 144 soldiers were recruited. With 155 horses, it can perform combat tasks independently. Around 1888, the Huai Army purchased a record number of more than 370 guns. In addition to Krupp, it also purchased guns of Armstrong and Grusen brands. The third time
changed to
time: 1885-1894 after the
Sino-French war, the development of world firearms entered a new situation. In 1884, the French chemist Paul Serge synthesized a new type of fuel- smokeless powder .
First, when smokeless gunpowder burns, no black smoke is produced, and the ambush position of the shooter is not easily exposed, and soldiers are safer on the battlefield.
Second, the gas produced when smokeless gunpowder burns is three times that of black powder. The bullets using this propellant can increase the initial velocity by nearly 50%, which means that the range of the firearm is increased and shootingIncreased accuracy.
Third, the use of smokeless gunpowder will not cause the barrel clogging when using black powder, and the rifle is more reliable to use.
Fourth, according to the kinetic energy theorem, the energy of a bullet is proportional to the square of its mass and velocity. The increase in the initial velocity of the bullet means that the mass can be appropriately reduced, and it also means a reduction in the weight of the rifle and an increase in the amount of ammunition carried by the soldier. By the end of the 1880s, countries around the world turned to trial-produced and equipped smaller-caliber continuous-fire rifles with better performance.
On the other hand, in 1884, the British Maxim invented a machine gun that uses the energy of gunpowder and gas to brake continuously, and its bullet firing rate reached an astonishing 600 rounds per minute. After switched to smokeless gunpowder as a propellant, this high-speed weapon has shown its skills on the battlefield. In 1893, the Zimbabwean police used 4 Maxim machine guns to repel a fierce attack by 5000 Zulu soldiers, killing more than 3000 people. In the Battle of Omdurman in 1898, 11,000 Islamic dervishes were massacred by the British army in front of the Maxim machine gun position.
Maxim machine guns are astonishingly powerful.
In the Battle of the Somme in World War I, the Germans used Maxim machine guns to fight offensives from the British and French forces. In one day, they killed 60,000 British soldiers. The amazing killing effectiveness of the Maxim machine gun changed the face of war. The "Encyclopedia of Arms and Equipment" even wrote: "The appearance of Maxim machine guns marked the end of an era." When France first equipped small-caliber rifles with smokeless ammunition in 1886, it implemented strict confidentiality control. It not only controls the export of firearms, but also keeps the formula of smokeless gunpowder secret. Even Germany, which has the most developed chemical industry in Europe, only imitated smokeless gunpowder in 1889. The road for
ordnance imports was not smooth, and Li Hongzhang turned his hopes on ordnance counterfeiting. In 1885, Li Hongzhang had a keen interest in the Makkimi machine gun, which was still in the experimental stage, and formulated the Jinling Manufacturing Bureau to imitate it. In 1888, Jinling Manufacturing Bureau produced imitations. In 1890, the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau successfully imitated the British small-caliber rifle and named it "Xinli" .
In the development of smokeless gunpowder, Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau applied for the purchase of a machine for making smokeless gunpowder, and hired foreign experts to come to the factory to guide technical research, but the cost was high, so the Huai Army’s main equipment was purchased from abroad in the late 1980s Large-caliber Mauser rifles, Hatchkiss rifles, Gatling machine guns and Krupp artillery, and the small-caliber firearms imitated by the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau are only installed in a small area.
Summary and insights
Japanese Murata rifle (single shot, black powder)
Huai Army "Xinli" rifle (smokeless gunpowder, 5 bursts)
Looking at the history of the Huai Army’s firearms replacement, you can see from the musket gun. From the purchase of breech guns to the introduction of continuous firing rifles, the Huai Army has always followed the development trend of world military technology, and some new firearms were even installed before Western countries. Japan was the most powerful enemy of the Huai Army in the Sino-Japanese War. At this time, only Murata-style single-shot rifles and bronze artillery that fired black powder were used in large quantities. The overall level was far inferior to that of the Huai Army. But it is not just equipment that determines the outcome of the war.
In the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, China was completely defeated and defeated by Japan with home advantage, equipment advantage, and military advantage. The problems behind it are indeed worthy of emotion and reflection.
