2.Divided troops to trek, the Japanese army besieged in four directions.
In accordance with the plan of the base camp, the Japanese army sent reconnaissance troops to detect the reality of the Qing army, and at the same time stepped up the reinforcement of the army from Pusan to Korea by land route with limited mobility.
On August 8, the Japanese reconnaissance team brazenly came to the south bank of the Datong River to spy and was surrounded and annihilated by the Qing army. After the Qing military gathered and sent sentinels to cross the river to give warning. In mid-August, Japanese scouts met the Qing army in Huangzhou, and the Japanese army retreated on its own. The Qing army reported these as repeated victories, and soon withdrew the Huangzhou garrison to Pyongyang.
Based on long-term intelligence and recent reconnaissance results, the Japanese base camp believed that it was basically sufficient for the Fifth Army Division to attack the Qing troops in Pyongyang, and that it would be necessary to increase the number of troops in order to force all the Qing troops out of Korea. On 14 August, the base camp decided to speed up the dispatch of the Fifth Division to Korea on the one hand, and to mobilize on the other hand, to send part of the troops of the Third Division into Korea and form the First Army with the Fifth Division, so that the total number of troops exceeded that of the Qing army and reached 19,600 men. [Li Hongzhang's talent and courage may not be stronger than any of Prince Chihito, Yama Prefecture Aritomo, Ito Hirobumi, and Mutsu Munemitsu, but he monopolizes the powers of the four people, and he is also the commander-in-chief of the Navy and the commander of the Beiyang Theater. 】
On August 19, Lieutenant General Michikan Nozu, commander of the 5th Division of the Japanese Army, arrived in Seoul. In late August, the Fifth Division was assembled in Korea, and its strength once again exceeded the total number of Qing troops in Korea, and on the way to Korea, Yongsan, Imjin, and Sonyongyejin, which were stationed around Seoul, felt that the Japanese army was constrained by many factors and could not fight for a long time, and learned that a large number of Qing troops were already in the process of reinforcement and were about to be in place, so it was decided not to wait for the arrival of the Third Division before deploying, but that the troops of the Fifth Division, which had arrived in Seoul first, marched to Pyongyang in three directions, and joined up with reinforcements from the Third Division in Pyongyang, and launched a general attack on 15 September. Japanese historians commented:
The commander of the Nozu Division, who was suffering from a shortage of food and was worried about the Qing troops strengthening their defensive positions, felt that it would be even more difficult to supply the 3rd Division as soon as the reinforcements arrived, so he decided to attack the 5th Division before the reinforcements arrived. If there is more than two days of fierce fighting, then the ammunition and food will be depleted at the same time, and the only way to retreat is to abandon the siege. ”
At the beginning of September, the Japanese army in Korea began to march separately and traveled long distances to Pyongyang.
All the way: Major General Oshima Yoshimasa led the 9th Brigade, 3,600 men, from the northwest of Seoul on September 1, along the highway from Seoul to Pyongyang, through the Sheren Pass and the Chibi River dangerous pass, to attack the south of Pyongyang.
Second Road: The headquarters of the 5th Division, led by Lieutenant General Nojin Michikan, with 5,400 men, also set out from the northwest of Seoul on September 1, passed through Hwangju and other places, crossed the Taedong River from 12 Po, and advanced southwest of Pyongyang.
Third Road: The 10th Brigade (also known as the Soyong Detachment) led by Major General Limi Shangwen (also known as the Soning Detachment), 2,400 people, set out from the northeast of Seoul from Sonyeong, passed through Suian and Xiangwon to Gangdong County, crossed the Taedong River from the turbulent Liulu River, crossed the Taedong River from Maitiandian, and advanced to the northeast of Pyongyang.
Fourth Road: The 3rd Division led by Sato Masadasa, with a total of 4,700 people, crossed the sea from the Japanese mainland to Wonsan to land (so called the Wonsan Detachment), crossed the Masilling, Feihuling, Liugoling, Kirin Ridge and other dangerous passes, crossed the northern part of Korea, marched to the northwest of Pyongyang, and intercepted the rear road of the Qing army.
After the Japanese army moved north, the area around Seoul and Inchon was immediately emptied, with a total of only 1,500 cavalry and infantry. On 8 September, most of the reinforcements of the 3rd Division of the Japanese Army, escorted by 38 troop carriers and escorted by the Combined Fleet, landed at Inchon from the Yellow Sea outside the base of the Beiyang Fleet and arrived in Seoul on the 14th. [Yellow: 1The Beiyang Fleet was cruising at this time, and it would definitely be able to find the Japanese army, stop the waist and attack the troop carriers, and seriously injure the Japanese army on land and water. 2.The Qing army could be pinned down from the north, increase troops from the water to the southern Korean army, attack the Japanese defenders in Seoul and Incheon, counterattack the rear of the Fifth Division, and destroy the Japanese reinforcements that landed. 】
On September 2, the Huai Qing army went out at night and encountered the Yi army, both sides thought that the other party was the Japanese army, attacked each other for an hour, and suffered many casualties, so the Qing army did not go out of the wall for 7 days, and the result was that the first Japanese army drove to Huangzhou, and the Qing army got some rumors. At the military meeting on the 7th, Zuo Guigui introduced the encounter between the Feng cavalry and the Japanese army in Huangzhou, and proposed to send troops to attack the Japanese army head-on. Ma Yukun supported the proposal. Wei Rugui was afraid that the way back would be cut off by the Japanese landing from the sea because of the delay in the return of support, and Ye Zhichao supported him. The other generals had no idea and were noncommittal.
At this time, the holy decree "repeatedly increased the severity of the telegram", ordering "to advance in the starry night until we reach Seoul", "if we wait for the rabbit, we will inevitably miss the opportunity", "we should quickly attack and suppress it, and strike first", "we must not wait for the enemy's attack before the army arrives, and divide the enemy's troops to cultivate the way, listen to their freedom to come and go, and attack without thinking about the art of half-help." ”
Ye Zhichao was forced to change his mind and immediately decided: Wei Rugui has 4,000 people as the middle road, 2,000 people on the left side and another 1,600 people as the right road, and attacks Zhonghe and Huangzhou in the south; Ye Zhichao's Luyu Defense Army of 3,000 people went north to meet the Japanese army in Wonsan; Ma Yukun and Phong Seung Ah 4,000 people stayed in Pyongyang. [The main force is attacking aimlessly, which is a risky action. Risky and trapped + risky attack, inferior generals are often unfounded, lenient and severe! 】
The next day, when the various units were about to be opened, Ye Zhichao received information that the Japanese army had reached Chengchuan, and the rear road of the whole army on the north road he was responsible for was tight, and at the same time received an urgent telegram from Li Hongzhang, asking for the defense of Huangzhou and other rear roads. Ye Zhichao immediately decided to cancel the decision of yesterday's meeting and make another deployment. Thousands of troops were stationed in Anzhou, Suzhou and Yizhou, and the rest of the troops defended in place. By 13 September, the defensive deployment was basically ready. At this time, the Qing army stationed inside and outside Pyongyang had only about 9,500 mountain artillery, field artillery, and machine guns, and there were still 38 guns. [Fortunately, I didn't attack, otherwise it would have been even worse!] The problem is that the target of the sortie is absurd, not whether it is a sortie or not. 】
On September 12, the vanguard of the Oshima Brigade arrived on the east bank of the Datong River and tried to cross the river, but was stubbornly resisted by the Qing soldiers in the fortress, and the Qing army in Jiangbei also fired artillery support, and the Japanese army was repulsed. On the afternoon of the 13th, the Japanese brigade arrived, charged again, but was still repulsed.
After the 12th, the other three Japanese troops also arrived at the planned position near Pyongyang. The Japanese army traveled long distances and attacked from afar, but the Qing army not only did not take advantage of the fact that its foothold was not stable to break through and annihilate in one fell swoop, but even had very few limited attacks, allowing the Japanese army to set up camp in front of the position and stand in a confrontation. On the 14th, the Japanese army of 16,100 men and 44 mountain artillery pieces completed the encirclement of Pyongyang as scheduled. [Huang: After the Japanese army was deployed in place, the disparity in strength between the two sides was huge, the general trend of the Qing army was gone, and the outcome of the battle was decided. 】
3.The south and west roads were pinned, the north road fell, and the Qing army was confused and won and lost.
On September 15, the Japanese army launched a general offensive on Pyongyang as planned. In terms of troops, the Japanese attack was mainly attacked in the northeast and northwest, and the south and west were contained. In terms of the timing of the start of the war, it was also carried out according to this plan.
The Japanese offensive began with the Oshima Mixed Brigade to the south. At about 4 o'clock in the morning of the 15th, Oshima led two infantry wings and an artillery wing of the all-mixed brigade, with a total of 3,600 men, to the bridge on the south bank of the Taedong River to attack the Qing troops defending at the bridgehead. Ma Yukun led the 1st Battalion of the Yi Army and the 1st Battalion of the Sheng Army of Wei Rugui's Division, a total of 2,000 people, with the cooperation of the artillery on the north bank, to bravely fight back. Ma Yukun also personally led his troops to fight with the Japanese army. At dawn, Wei Rugui personally led more than 200 people from the Shengjun Zhengzheng Battalion on the north bank to cross the river for reinforcements.
In this battle, "all the non-commissioned officers of the two squadrons of the Japanese army were killed", "24 of the artillery squadron commander and below Captain Yamamoto were killed or wounded", 140 of the generals and below were killed and 290 were wounded, and the brigade commander Major General Oshima Yoshimasa himself was also wounded and returned in vain. At around 2 p.m., the Japanese ran out of ammunition and were forced to withdraw from the battlefield. Ma Yukun was preparing to pursue, when he suddenly heard that Yuanwumen had been lost, Ye Zhichao ordered the troops to retreat quickly. The diversionary battle of the Japanese in the western battlefield of Pyongyang began at 8 a.m. The main force of the Fifth Division, with a total of more than 5,400 men, was commanded by the division commander, Lieutenant General Nozu Michikan, and after crossing the river in the upper reaches of the Datong River, it reached the ordinary river in the west of the city. The Sheng army and the Luyu defense army fired at its guns and artillery according to the fortress, and the Japanese army was blocked.
Seeing this, the Qing army sent cavalry out of the city**, the Japanese army occupied favorable terrain, artillery and infantry cooperated with the shooting, and the Qing soldiers fell off their horses one after another. The Qing army organized a second cavalry sortie that was still very serious, with a total of 130 people killed in the two attacks and 273 horses lost. Seeing that the battle was unfavorable, the Qing army held on to the fortress, and the Japanese army did not dare to cross the river, so the two armies made a truce to wait for tomorrow.
Completely different from what Ye Zhichao and others expected, the direction of Yuanmumen, the rear road of the Qing army, was the main direction of the Japanese attack on Pyongyang, where the Japanese army gathered nearly half of the total strength, including two detachments with a total of 7,800 people.
On September 11, the 3rd Battalion of Zuo Guigui's headquarters discovered that the Japanese Shuoning detachment was attempting to cross the river from the upper reaches of the Datong River, so they blocked it. The Qing army had a clear advantage, but was ordered to withdraw by Ye Zhichao on the grounds of an emergency in the south, and the Japanese army easily crossed the river and entered outside Pyongyang. The Qing army had a triple defensive line in this direction, and when they saw that the Japanese army did not attack, they hid in the fortress and did not attack. [Huang: A clever general should have estimated that the reason why the Japanese army did not attack may be waiting for other horses. There was a two-day time difference between the two Japanese troops, and they could be completely broken individually. Relying on the fortress, the left precious troops did not take the initiative to attack, so they sat back and waited for death. 】
On the 13th, the Japanese army in Wonsan arrived in Thuan An. On the 14th, the Japanese army attacked and occupied the mountain north of the city.
On top of several forts. Zuo Guigui went out of the city to fight, but was unsuccessful. The retreat of the Qing army was cut off. That night, Ye Zhichao proposed to break through the siege and flee north, but Zuo Guigui resolutely refused to allow it, and sent his own soldiers to guard Ye Zhichao, not allowing him to escape, and he went to the top of Yuanwumen Mountain to personally supervise the battle.
At dawn on the 15th, according to the predetermined plan, the Japanese army launched a pincer attack on the Qing army's position at Wonmumen in Pyongyang from the east and west from the east and west. The Qing army guarding the Yuanwu Gate, the first is the three battalions of the Feng army led by Zuo Guigui, guarding the Yuanwu Gate, the Peony Terrace and the fortress outside the city, with a total of 1,500 people; First, Jiang Zikang led two battalions and four outposts in Renzi, guarding a total of 1,400 people in the area of Jiziling. The Qing army totaled 2,900 people, and the Japanese army accounted for 27 times the absolute advantage.
The Japanese army heard of Zuo's bravery: so they concentrated the main forces of the two detachments to attack the Feng army with heavy three bases inside and outside the city: the Feng army guarding was less than one-fifth of the Japanese army; The Japanese guns had an advantage, and the bullets could hit a hundred paces away, while the Qing army's guns only had a limited range of sixty or seventy paces, and some of the newly purchased guns were old guns that had rusted and were ineffective. But the Feng army was tenacious, and the battle was quite fierce.
Japan's "Records of the Sino-Japanese War" wrote that the Chinese soldiers "responded fiercely and spared no effort; The smoke of gunpowder covered the sky, the sound of artillery shook the ground", and "all the non-commissioned officers under command were killed in battle......The famous (Japanese) warriors are also slightly diminished." At 8 o'clock in the morning, all the fortresses outside the city of the Qing army were lost. The Japanese army redeployed its forces and attacked Peony Terrace in three directions. At 8:30, Peony Terrace fell.
At that time, Zuo Guigui was supervising the battle on the Yuanwu Gate, and when he saw the loss of Peony Terrace, he knew that the situation was irretrievable, and he was determined to resist desperately. He changed into the imperial court clothes and personally lit the cannon, "the Japanese army made three surprises, and the Qing soldiers retreated three times." In the fierce battle, he was wounded in two places, including the left precious ribs, until the Japanese army died of grenades in the chest and throat. Subsequently, the Qing army in the north was leaderless and was attacked by the Japanese army who secretly climbed the city wall, and was immediately panicked and defeated.
The commander hurriedly hoisted the white flag, and the Qing army fled overnight
The Japanese army did not expect the whole battle to be so fierce, and the resistance to the northern left was seriously underestimated, and in the entire first day of the battle, the Japanese army ** was more than the Qing army, and after capturing Peony Terrace and Yuanwumen, it was almost exhausted of ammunition and food, and it was no longer able to continue to conquer the inner city. The Japanese army was sleeping in the rain outside Pyongyang and was in an extremely critical situation.
However, at this critical moment, Ye Zhichao, the commander of the Qing army, had no courage to consider and take advantage of favorable factors, and as soon as he learned that Zuo Guigui had been killed and Yuanwumen had been lost, he immediately lost his fighting spirit. At 4 o'clock in the afternoon, he sent a Korean to send a surrender document to the Japanese army in the name of the Korean Pyongan Provincial Superintendent, begging for an armistice, ceding the city, and planting white flags at the gates. The Japanese officers took the opportunity to ask to enter the city to negotiate to detect the truth and reality, Ye Zhichao begged for a way back, but the Japanese army did not agree, but did not attack again that day.
That night, Ye Zhichao convened all the commanders to discuss "lightly armed and retreating at night", Wei Rugui and other generals agreed or acquiesced, only Ma Yukun objected. At 8 o'clock that night, Ye Zhichao ordered all armies to abandon their baggage and retreat in the rain at night. The Japanese army expected the Qing army to flee and deployed a roadblock to intercept and kill. In the confusion of the Qing soldiers, they did not distinguish between the enemy and us, and fired their guns indiscriminately, causing many casualties by mistake. That night, the Qing army suffered more than 2,000 casualties in the chaos, and several hundred were taken prisoner, far more than the daytime battles**.
According to some sources, when fleeing from Pyongyang, there were also North Korean soldiers who hated Ye Zhichao's escape behavior and attacked him at Qixingmen, but they failed to hit him because the deserters were too chaotic.
At dawn on the 16th, the Japanese army entered Pyongyang and harvested a large number of **, ammunition, food and other military supplies discarded by the Qing army, a total of 35 large and small cannons, 550 fast guns, 610 other guns, 9,792 shells, 560,000 rounds of ammunition, 1,092 marching tents, 250 horses, 12 boxes of military pay and soldiers' private property ** (containing 67 gold bricks, 43 kg; gold ingots 61 ingots, 53 kg; 14 boxes of golden sand, 30 packs), 100,000 taels of silver, 4,700 stone of grain, gunpowder, banknotes and other military supplies.
In addition, when the Japanese army was cleaning up the relics of the Qing army, they also found a letter from Wei Rugui's wife to him:
The king starts his family and travels to the commander, and the family is not only wealthy, but also self-supporting. And the Spring and Autumn Period (age) is high [Wei Rugui was 60 years old when he aided the dynasty], and he wants to be good and self-planned, and he should not be the enemy. ”
This letter became a joke for the Japanese, and Japan ridiculed this letter through the news, and later it was used as a textbook to warn the Chinese people as a negative teaching material for the defeat of the army and the loss of the country. [The most fundamental reason why Wei Rugui was executed in the future is this. 】
Whether before or during the battle of Pyongyang, the Japanese army was afraid of the Qing army, but they did not expect the commander of the Qing army to be so cowardly, so they boldly pursued. The Qing army fled without stopping. On the way to escape, Ye Zhichao met Nie Shicheng in Anzhou, who was rushing back to Pyongyang from China. After learning of Pyongyang's defeat, Nie suggested "holding Anju and holding on to the deep ditch." Ye Zhichao, who was already frightened, believed that Pyongyang had such a good terrain and had not been deployed for so long and could not be defended, and it was impossible for Anzhou to hold it, so he refused. The Qing army retreated all the way to Uiju and then easily abandoned it, retreating all the way across the Yalu River to the Chinese territory of Jiuliancheng, more than 500 miles from Pyongyang.
At that time, Liu Shengxiu, the commander of the Qing army's reinforcements, led the 15th battalion of the Ming Army, and the 9th battalion of the general Yiketang A led the town to cross the Yalu River from Dalian and Heilongjiang respectively. The Battle of Pyongyang caused the most well-equipped Beiyang Army of the Qing Dynasty to be defeated, and the fighting spirit of the entire Qing Army was greatly lost and collapsed. Japan, on the other hand, easily controlled the entire Korean Peninsula at a very small cost.