The Jinchuan War, the Southwest Flesh Mill, the old man regrets.
The past and present life of the Qing Dynasty watchtower in Xiangshan, do you have doubts about the Qing Dynasty watchtower at the foot of Xiangshan in Beijing?In fact, this watchtower is a military training facility built near the Eight Banners military camp during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty in order to pacify the large and small Jinchuan.
At that time, the Qing army suffered a lot here. In the later stage of the First Jinchuan War, in order to quell the war on the front line and solve the problem of the commander's responsibility shirking, Qianlong even turned into a murderous demon and successively beheaded the feudal officials on the front line.
The difficulty of the Battle of Jinchuan is unimaginable, especially during the attack on Jinchuantu. In the picture, countless watchtowers are densely scattered in the middle of the album, which brings great challenges to the Qing army.
Although these watchtowers may not look tall, the actual number of them has reached a staggering 3,300. This kind of terrain, even if it is fought by the US military, is extremely challenging. In order to conquer these towers, the Qing army paid a huge price, and the two Jinchuan battles became extremely difficult as a result.
In the Kanegawa area, you can see a watchtower that is 20 meters high and has 7 floors, but this is not the tallest. Imagine how difficult it was for the Qing army to attack 3,300 such watchtowers.
Experience the magnificent view of the Daejincheon and Koganecheon from the perspective of the upside!They are located in the northwest of present-day Sichuan, Dajinchuan is now Aba Jinchuan County, Sichuan, and Xiaojinchuan is now Xiaojin County, Sichuan.
Historically, it was a settlement of the ancient Qiang people, and after the invasion of the Tibetan forces in the Tang Dynasty, Tibetan Buddhism was spread. Due to its remote location, it has been managed by Tusi for a long time, nominally submitting to the ** dynasty, but in fact ** cannot be directly managed.
The watchtowers built by the Tusi of the previous dynasties in Jinchuan to resist the incursion of the surrounding tribes and store materials became a major problem for the Qing Dynasty army when changing the land and returning to the stream.
Today, these watchtowers have become a tourist attraction in the area. During the Qianlong period, there was a Tibetan Tusi rebellion in Jinchuan, and the Qing Dynasty army suffered for the first time and finally had to quit.
However, the emperor's determination to change the land and return to the river did not waver, so he arranged for the construction of watchtowers in Beijing for military training in mountain warfare. After two battles of Jinchuan, which lasted five years and cost more than 70 million taels of silver, it finally won the victory in 1776.
China's control of the southwestern frontier was once seen as Yelang arrogance, an idiom derived from the small state of Yelang in the southwest during the Han Dynasty. At that time, the inhabitants of the mountainous areas near the Chengdu Plain, as well as most of the land in Guizhou and Yunnan, could not be effectively managed.
However, Zhuge Liang of Shu Han successfully quelled the rebellion in the Nanzhong region during the Three Kingdoms period, and selected elites from them to form the Wudang Fei Army, which became the main force of the Northern Expedition of Shu Han.
During the period of the two Jin and Northern Dynasties, the southern regime gradually encroached on the land of the mountainous Yue people and the bureaucrats, and the trump card of the Shu Han - the Wudang Fei Army appeared. The Tang Dynasty was powerful and had a certain influence on the area west of the Dadu River.
In the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang ordered the 300,000 troops who followed Mu Ying and Fu Youde to the south to conquer the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau to carry out tuntian in the local area, and continued to migrate for 200 years, so that the Yunnan region of Guizhou was basically sinicized.
In addition, the Ming Dynasty focused on both military and economic affairs, and launched many large-scale wars in the southwest region, weakening the power of Tusi. Among them, in 1413, Sizhou Tusi was extinguished, and Guizhou Province was set up;In 1600, the Tusi of Banzhou was destroyed, and the Zunyi Mansion and the Pingyue Mansion were set upIn 1630, the rebellion of Shuidong was quelled and Kaiju was established.
The Qing Dynasty attached great importance to the problem of the Tusi tribes in the Jiarong Tibetan area (i.e., the Great and Small Jinchuan), because the stability of the ** directly affected the political trends of the Qinghai and Mongolian tribes and the tranquility of Xinjiang and the entire northwest region.
Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen the control of the first, and the key is to open up the traffic arteries on the Sichuan-Tibet border. Emperor Yongzheng vigorously promoted the reform of the land and returned to the stream, but it was not completed. In 1747 AD, Dajinchuan Tusi Sha Luoben first seized control of Xiaojinchuan by stratagem, and then successively sent troops to attack the neighboring Tusi tribes, constantly encroaching on and annexing, all the way to the ground.
Moreover, he did not listen to the adjustment of the Qing army, which provided Emperor Qianlong with a reason to teach a lesson to disobey Wang Hua's courtiers.
1.Zhang Guangsi confidently led the Qing army into Sichuan, preparing to completely eliminate the rebellion of Jinchuan and Xiaojinchuan. He had reformed the land in Yunnan and Guizhou, and was very familiar with mountain warfare, so he transferred thousands of rattan soldiers from Guizhou.
2.In March 1747, Ji Shan, the governor of Sichuan, ordered the Qing army to attack and go to quell the rebellion. However, due to the fact that the Green Battalion Army had been in a state of peace for a long time and lacked combat effectiveness, it was ambushed by the Jinchuan Army in actual combat, resulting in a major defeat of the Qing army.
3.In the Battle of Jinchuan, which carelessly lost Jingzhou, Zhang Guangsi shouldered a heavy responsibility and was determined to fight to the end. Convinced that he had enough ability and experience to defeat the rebels, he transferred rattan soldiers from Guizhou, who were familiar with mountain warfare.
4.Zhang Guangsi was very confident in the rebellion of Jinchuan and Jinchuan, and he had carried out land reform and return to the river in Yungui, and had a deep understanding of mountain warfare. In order to ensure victory, he transferred thousands of rattan soldiers from Guizhou to prepare to fight to the end.
5.After Emperor Qianlong saw the Qing army suffer a great defeat in the Battle of Jinchuan, he decided to send Zhang Guangsi into Sichuan to suppress the rebellion of Jinchuan. Zhang Guangsi was full of confidence, convinced that he had enough ability and experience to defeat the rebels, so he transferred rattan soldiers from Guizhou who were familiar with mountain warfare.
The Battle of Jinchuan was in the early stages from April to July, and the Qing army advanced rapidly. Zhang Guangsi originally thought that it would only take half a year to put down the rebellion, and he boasted in his recital to the emperor: "It only takes half a year to get the leader of the rebel army."
However, his ** proved to be overly optimistic. After going deep into the western Sichuan Plateau, by August, Zhang Guangsi immediately realized the seriousness of the problem, and they underestimated the enemy situation.
The terrain of the Jinchuan area is dangerous, and forts and watchtowers are often built at the commanding heights, which are difficult to break. The rugged mountain roads and high altitude also made the movement of the army very difficult.
In the era when there were no highways, the Qing army needed to walk for several days to reach the front line, and it could not rain, otherwise there would be a danger of landslides. These factors led to low morale among the soldiers on the front lines and their inability to move the war forward quickly.
During the Jinchuan War, the existence of watchtowers made it impossible to give full play to the firepower advantage, and the artillery of the Qing army was almost powerless against it. Overall, this is a typical back-attack puzzle.
In modern warfare, the Russian army uses four batteries of ZU23 self-propelled anti-aircraft guns and machine guns on BMP2 infantry fighting vehicles to strike at high-rise buildings in cities.
In the 18th century, due to the limitations of technical conditions, the Qing army could not use high-angle artillery fire to attack these watchtowers, and could only capture the mountains through hard battles and find a shooting position that could shoot at the watchtowers.
However, many watchtowers are the highest points in the local area, and there is no shooting angle at all, so the Qing army can only use the method of artillery and human lives to destroy the watchtowers one by one, which makes the combat efficiency extremely low.
The Qing army urgently needed a cannonball in order to be able to inflict effective damage on the watchtowers. At that time, the Qing army used a "mountain splitting cannon" weighing more than 300 catties, but only when it hit the top of the watchtower, it could cause minor damage, and the other parts were unscathed.
The building materials of the watchtowers include wood, stone and earth, and the height is between 15 and 50 meters, and the foundation is very deep. The thickness of the wall gradually decreases from the bottom, with the thickest part being 1 to 2 meters at the thickest point and within 1 meter above the middle.
The perforations on the watchtowers not only ensured a wide field of view and firing range, but also provided good protection for the defenders.
In the Jinchuan area, the offensive of the Qing army encountered serious difficulties. The resistance of the people of Jinchuan to the Qing army, and the fact that the Qing army was perceived as an invading army, made the Qing army's offensive more difficult.
To make matters worse, Zhang Guangsi's senior staff officer turned out to be a spy of Jinchuan Tusi, who gave his attack plan to Tusi Sha Luoben, causing the Qing army's offensive to fail repeatedly.
Under these circumstances, Emperor Qianlong decided to select elite soldiers from the Eight Banners to form a cloud ladder force for attacking the watchtowers. However, the more than 3,300 watchtowers in the Jinchuan area made the Qing army's offensive face great difficulties.
In the thirteenth year of Qianlong, the treasury of the Qing Dynasty was about to be exhausted, and in the face of the dilemma of the war in the Jinchuan area that lasted for a long time and was repeatedly defeated, Emperor Qianlong felt unbearable. After more than a year of fighting, the old bottom of the treasury and his own savings were about to be exhausted.
The war consumes all wealth, and there are tens of thousands of troops on the front, and the front line from Chengdu to Jinchuan needs to provide uninterrupted supplies of food, grass, ammunition, horses, and medical troops. In the western Sichuan Plateau, the danger of landslides and cliffs always exists, and many people unfortunately lose their lives.
These horse teams and camel caravans could not be stopped for a moment, and the large and small Jinchuan areas had become the blood pumping machine of the Qing Dynasty.
General Neqin was ordered to go to the Jinchuan front to supervise the army. He hoped to work out a strategy with General Zhang Guangsi to defeat Dajinchuan. The family of General Neqin was favored in the early Qing Dynasty, and he himself was an important figure in the early Qianlong Dynasty.
However, this trip to Jinchuan became his family's Waterloo. At the end of the 12th year of Qianlong, the Qing army suspended military operations and did not redeploy until the following year.
However, the morale of the Qing army at this time was far less than it was a year ago, and the military operations of the past year had tormented the officers and soldiers on the front, who were rushing every day to prevent harassment by the Tusi soldiers.
Despite the fact that several thousand soldiers had already carried out several shelling and charges, it was not possible to take the watchtowers of Daejincheon.
Ne personally led his troops to Jinchuan and conducted a detailed investigation of the various passes and terrain of Jinchuan. He came to the conclusion that in order to defeat Jinchuan, he must first attack their old lair, the Hanging Ear Cliff.
However, this scheme sounded very risky, as the army had to bypass many pillboxes to reach its destination, and during the siege, the partisans could carry out assassinations on the army.
In addition, firearms and supplies needed for the siege needed to be secured. Even so, he decided to take a chance.
On the 14th, Neqin gathered 40,000 elite soldiers to attack Xiling. He was full of self-confidence and deployed three fierce generals to attack in three directions.
Relatives triumphantly sat in the big tent of the Chinese army and waited for the good news. However, soon after, the news came that the 3rd Route Qing army had suffered a crushing defeat. The two main generals, Mai Guoliang and Ren Ju, were killed one after another, Tang Kaizhong was seriously wounded, and the Qing army suffered a major blow.
It turned out that the Emperor of Beijing commanded the Quartet from above, as if he had the perspective of God, but now when he arrived at the front line, he failed miserably at the first shot, and the successive attacks were ineffective.
The infantry and archers were helpless in the face of the towers. Although the artillery of the Qing army had some effect, it was not enough in number, and it needed to be cooled after a shot, so it would take a long time to build a watchtower, not to mention that there were more than 3,300 such watchtowers in the entire Jinchuan area.
In the face of such a difficult task, the relatives turned into surrenderers, no longer caring about the war, drinking and having fun in the camp every day, as if they did not care. He always emphasized objective difficulties and blamed Zhang Guangsi for the unfavorable front-line operations, and Zhang Guangsi also shifted the blame to his relatives.
The lack of cooperation of the front-line leaders and the bad fighting situation made Qianlong feel unacceptable. The most incomprehensible thing is that the emperor actually suggested that the emperor build a bunker in the Jinchuan area, which is simply incredible.
In the thirteenth year of Qianlong, Empress Fucha died of illness, and Qianlong was sad. The front-line generals Zhang Guangsi and Neqin were taken down by the emperor due to the unfavorable war. Zhang Guangsi** went to Beijing for trial and was executed shortly after.
His relatives were also locked up and taken into Beijing, and in order to punish him, Qianlong ordered him to commit suicide with his grandfather's sword. This incident led to the replacement of almost all the middle and upper-level leaders of the Qing army in the attack on Jinchuan.
However, the end of this war was embarrassing. On the third day of the 11th month of the 13th year of Qianlong, the emperor sent his cronies Fu Heng and the veteran Yue Zhongqi to Jinchuan to take over the position of his relatives.
Fucha Fu Heng, a capable minister in the early Qianlong Dynasty, knew the way to govern the army. He arranged for Manchu and Han officers and soldiers to enter Sichuan, increasing the Qing army to 60,000 troops. In December, Fu Heng personally arrived at the front line of Dajinchuan and immediately began to rectify military affairs, inspect the terrain, and grasp the supply situation.
He was keenly aware that there might be a traitor in the army, and after investigation, he found that Zhang Guangsi's advisers Liang Erji, Wang Qiu and others had been providing information to the rebels and misleading the Qing army's attack.
In this regard, Fu Heng decisively beheaded the two people. He also found that the morale of the troops was low and that the attacking troops often became cannon fodder in battle. In order to change this situation, Fu Heng decided to repair in winter, and humbly listened to the opinions of local generals, went to the front line to investigate, and revoked many measures that wasted manpower, so as to boost morale.
At the same time, he also changed the deployment of troops and strengthened the supply in the rear. In the past, Zhang Guangsi adopted the suggestions of Liang Erji, Wang Qiu and others, and divided 7 lines of troops to attack, resulting in exhaustion on each road.
However, under the leadership of Fu Heng, the Qing army, relying on its absolute numerical superiority, successfully attacked from two directions, successively broke through the outer fortifications held by the Jinchuan army, and formed an encirclement of Lewu, where the Salopun garrison was located.
The defensive strength of the towers in western Sichuan is above the perimeter of Lewuwei, even if the strength of the Qing army is extremely strong, the solid defense of Jinchuan Laohao is not easy to break. Emperor Qianlong advised his brother-in-law to find a suitable opportunity to deal with these thieves in the future.
Kanegawa Tusi Sharoben was a smart man, and he knew the consequences of provoking the emperor. So, he contacted his old friend Yue Zhongqi and said that they were willing to become good courtiers of the Qing Dynasty and no longer resist.
The emperor, seeing that they were willing to surrender, agreed to withdraw his troops, and the First Battle of Jinchuan ended. Although the war was over, the emperor did not forget about Jinchuan.
He personally made a miniature version of the Jinchuan topographic map, and built a new military branch Jianrui Battalion in imitation of the Jinchuan Battle Tower, which specialized in training attacking, artillery, muskets, and dogfights, ready to respond to possible rebellions at any time.
These disobedient thieves, the emperor will definitely make them pay.