The last large-scale cavalry battle in Chinese history was on September 21, 1860, the tenth year of Xianfeng in the Qing Dynasty. On this day, the Mongolian prince and monk Gelinqin led more than 10,000 Mongolian cavalry, as well as about 20,000 or 30,000 Qing soldiers, to fight against the Anglo-French alliance of less than 10,000 at Bali Bridge. In this battle, the ** team performed very heroically, but in the end it was inevitable to fall into a fiasco.
How badly did you lose? According to the book "Napoleon III and the Peak of His Power", the ratio of this battle was almost 1 to 400! The account reads: "The French lost 3 killed and 18 wounded; The British lost 2 killed and 29 wounded. The Qing army lost more than 1,200 men. ”
Some people say that most of the Mongol cavalry who participated in this battle were herdsmen temporarily gathered by Seng Lingqin in Inner Mongolia, and they originally had little combat effectiveness. But in fact, the main reason for the heavy losses was that there was a problem with Seng Lingqin's tactics. Commanding tens of thousands of cavalry to hard-mount the machine guns of the British and French forces, the loss of only more than 1,000 people is already a miracle.
It must be said that Seng Lingqin has long since lost the tactical literacy of Genghis Khan, Jebe, Subutai, and even Batu and Meng Ge. The strength of the Mongol cavalry has always been due to the fact that they will look for fighters, not fight hard.
Actually, if Monk Grinqin and his cavalry had been replaced by another cavalry a few years later, the situation might have been different. Because Monk Grinqin himself was also wiped out by this cavalry. If it weren't for the fact that this cavalry had its own insurmountable shortcomings, they would probably have done great things in history. This cavalry is the Twist Army.
Twisting the army has basically not appeared much in previous textbooks. However, the strength of the Twist Army cannot be ignored, and it can even be said that they are the most difficult civil organization in the Qing Dynasty, and their strength at their peak is not inferior to that of the Taiping Army at its peak.
The Twist Army has actually been around for a long time. In China's Huaibei region, there are often non-governmental organizations composed of a few or a few hundred people. According to the local language, this "one" or "gang" group of people is called "twist", so this kind of organization is also called "twist".
Twister is not a bandit, nor a robber, nor a smuggler, but has done everything in the same vein. The members of the twist usually farm at home, and when there are "activities", they get together and carry out some illegal activities.
Twist is a long-term existence, mainly active in parts of Anhui, Suzhou, Shandong, and Henan provinces. Originally, they were just some sporadic anti-Qing forces, but after the establishment of the Tianping Heavenly Kingdom, the Twist Army also responded with troops, and gradually became another big problem for the Qing **. However, at that time, there was a big gap between the Twist Army and the Taiping Army in terms of scale and organization.
The Twist Army did not have the ideal of being the king and hegemon, and the purpose of their initial army was just to overthrow the oppression of the Han people by the Qing Dynasty and to be able to eat a few more bites. Their leader's name is Zhang Lexing, but he is the son of a landlord who takes chivalry and righteousness as his ideal. After they officially started the army in 1951, Qing ** recruited them many times, but Zhang Lexing was never moved. On the contrary, in 1860, Zhang Lexing accepted the canonization of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and became the "King of Wo". It can be seen that the Chinese people really hate the Qing Dynasty to the core.
In 1862, the Twist Army Rebellion fell into a small trough. On one occasion, Zhang Lexing led a pikeman to march westward, only to encounter the cavalry of the Grimqin. After fierce battles between the two sides, the Twist army continued to retreat. When he walked to the Suzhou area, a traitor appeared in the Twist Army, causing Zhang Lexing **. Later, Zhang Lexing was executed by Ling Chi in the camp of Monk Lingqin.
Since then, the strength of the Twist Army has been greatly damaged, and it can only enter a two-year recuperation period.
In the third year of Tongzhi in the Qing Dynasty (1864 AD), the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's Tianjing defense failed, and the Taiping Army merged with the Twist Army, reorganizing the loose Twist Army into a unified army. At this time, the Twist Army became an army in the true sense of the word.
Since then, the Twist Army has often been active in eight provinces, including Anhui, Shandong, Suzhou, and Shaanxi. Their strength grew, reaching 200,000 at their peak.
The original Twist Army was mainly infantry, with poor mobility, and was usually stationed in several county towns or mountains. Once the Qing army came to attack, they would fight separately and be broken by the Qing army.
But after merging with the Taiping Army, the Twist Army changed its thinking. The Huaibei Plain is flat and very suitable for cavalry combat, so the Twist Army has created a cavalry with high mobility according to local conditions.
It should be noted that the mounts of the Twist Army are not just horses, some are donkeys, and some are mules. In short, you can ride whatever you have, and this is the situation of the Twist Army at that time.
Of course, the Twist Army did have a large number of horses, most of which were raised by the peasants, and the breed was not very suitable for cavalry charges. However, this cavalry is superior to a large number of cavalry troops, hundreds of thousands of cavalry, which also looks very scary.
In addition to the cavalry, the infantry of the Twist Army was also equipped with livestock, which was mainly used to escape in time when defeated. When necessary, it is not uncommon for two people to ride together.
With this cavalry, the Twist Army launched a large-scale mobile battle. They often ran hundreds of miles in a single day, and once the Qing army slackened, they would launch an attack and take their opponents by surprise.
In February of the fourth year of Tongzhi in the Qing Dynasty (1865 AD), the Twist Army started its own battle of revenge!
This time, Monk Greenqin's horse team pursued the Twist Army and came all the way to Wei County, Henan. As a result, when I arrived at the location, I found that the Twist Army had gone south to Yanling. Monk Gelchen continued the pursuit despite his weariness, and as a result, the cavalry and infantry units were disconnected.
Soon, the spies of the Twist Army discovered the loopholes of the Qing army, and the leader of the Twist Army also formulated a strategy and assigned small units to continuously attract the Qing army to the depths. After the Qing army had gone too far, the large army of the Twist Army turned back and used infantry to resist the enemy's advance from the middle lane, while the cavalry launched a surprise attack from both sides.
This move is the killer weapon of the Twist Army, and even Zeng Guofan, who has always been honest and serious, has a headache. Alexander the Great, the world-famous, also used this trick. And the brave and unscrupulous monk Greenqin can be an opponent? As a result, the Qing cavalry was wiped out, and Monk Lingqin was killed. He was buried with as many as 7,000 Qing Dynasty soldiers. This time, it can be said that he avenged Zhang Lexing.
However, the Twist Army also showed its shortcomings of lack of political ability and grand strategy. After this battle, the Twist Army did not take advantage of the victory to expand the victory, but stagnated, and as a result, the Qing Dynasty was able to defend again.
In fact, no matter how many people there were, it still could not change the nature of their guerrillas. The Twist Army Rebellion never took a large city, nor did it establish a solid base, which doomed them to defeat in the future.
After the death of Seng Geqin, the Qing army began to cut off the contact between the people and the Twist army. Their policy of "checking and purifying" is actually what we often call "clearing the wilderness". As long as the Twist Army moves to the top, the Qing Army will concentrate the local strong men, grain and grass, and livestock, and will not let the Twist Army be replenished.
Then, the Qing army also formulated the "Book of Good Citizens", which forced the squires to choose between the Twist Army and the Qing Dynasty. In this way, the results are of course self-explanatory. In the end, the Twist Army was gradually disintegrated by the Qing Army and divided into two twists, East and West. Later, the West Twist was eliminated by Zuo Zongtang, and the East Twist was flattened by Li Hongzhang.
Although the Twist Army ultimately failed, their tactics against the Qing Army were still refreshing. If they were to guard the Bali Bridge, they would never do something as stupid as Monk Greenqin.
However, the Twist Army has not solved the problem of fragmented leadership, so that the army has a serious atmosphere of rogue and does not have a reasonable command system. It is not surprising that it was finally defeated by the Qing Dynasty.
Interestingly, since the Twist Army was exterminated, the cavalry, a classic type of troops, has disappeared in China. ** Although there were cavalry during the Anti-Japanese War, its scale was far less than it was at the beginning, and the tactics were more integrated into infantry tactics. This also made the twisted army a unique sound for the Chinese Han cavalry.
Today, cavalry has completely gone into history. The war in the new era has already undergone earth-shaking changes. However, the highly mobile tactics of the Twist Army, even today, have value for research.