In mid-August of the fifth year of natural selection (the twenty-sixth year of Qianlong's reign)
The Manchu garrison stationed on the outskirts of Beiping City was defeated again in battle with the Yi army, and had to retreat back to the city to defend the city, waiting for reinforcements to arrive.
Although the Manchu and Qing armies in the capital were defeated one after another, it did not mean that they were completely useless.
In the early Qianlong period, there were not many potential powerful enemies of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, such as Xiaohezhuo in the northwest, the old Zhungeer tribe, the chieftains from various places in the west, etc.
As a disciple of the Eight Banners who was trained at the foot of the emperor and in the important place of the capital, Qianlong was naturally concerned. Therefore, their degree of corruption is not too severe, and they still have the fighting power they should have.
The real use of the Eight Banners in the Capital was in the late Qianlong period. The surrounding powerful enemies had basically been pacified. What was left were the uprisings of the people who had become insensitive under Qianlong's rule and could be manipulated at will. These people basically did not have much fighting power. , in the long-term stability of high welfare, they become vulnerable.
You can get a glimpse of the White Lotus Rebellion that broke out in the late Qianlong period and the early Jiaqing period. At that time, the Eight Banners soldiers were unable to win against the White Lotus cultists who were civilians and only had hammers and hoes in their hands. In the end, they had to rely on the Green Camp, which was not completely rotten, to settle the matter.
Of course, the so-called combat effectiveness of the Eight Banners soldiers does not mean that they are truly invincible.
In fact, the fighting effectiveness of the Eight Banners of the Qing Dynasty limited the Ming army's military pay. Before entering the customs, the only reason why they had strong combat effectiveness was that, first, they were forced by their own living conditions, and second, most of the Ming army had their own selfish motives and had no intention of fighting them to the end.
After entering the customs, the Eight Banners' combat effectiveness dropped rapidly. This is an indisputable fact.
But the Manchus were lucky! Those officers and soldiers of the Ming Dynasty who could fight were killed by their own people, and those who were still able to fight were also gathered back by them. The rest were naturally not enough for them to fight.
The entire process of the late Ming Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty was nothing more than a process of defeat by both sides, but fortunately, they were defeated a little slower than others, so there is a saying that they are invincible in combat.
This is enough to prove this point behind Wu Sangui in the "San Francisco Rebellion", but the Manchu Qing Dynasty's luck was really good, and they dragged Wu Sangui, who was a strong enemy, to death, so that the matter ended like this.
Of course, this does not mean that the Eight Banners soldiers in the capital have no combat effectiveness at all. On the contrary, if you let them go out to quell other unrest, there will be no problem, such as dealing with unorganized local peasant uprisings.
But for turmoil with a little bit of military organization and battlefield experience, they began to struggle.
For example, in the battle to pacify the Jinchuan and Jinchuan areas, it took more than ten years of fighting. In the end, it was finally settled by using money and the huge resources of the entire empire to bring down the Jinchuan and Jinchuan areas.
You have to say that the Eight Banners had no fighting capacity. In the end, they won the battle, and it was the heroic fighting of the Jianrui Battalion transferred from the capital that was the key to victory.
But you have to say that they are very powerful in combat! Not necessarily.
The premise for the Eight Banners' strong combat effectiveness is to defeat the enemy without any advantage. Once they encounter the Yijun who are well-trained, armed with long guns and cannons and with a strong will to fight, the Eight Banners' combat effectiveness will obviously not be enough.
What's more, while they are fighting the Yijun, they have to be on guard at all times to see if the Green Camp who are traveling with them will stab them in the back? That's even worse.
Of course, Qianlong did not fail to train a new army, but the number of the new army was limited after all, and the guys in the new army were naturally no problem against other armies, but there was no way to deal with the Yi army.
The army also pays great attention to the overall morale when fighting. Sometimes the new army is fighting quite well, but the friendly troops around it are completely defeated and flee.
On the battlefield, once one side is defeated, the other soldiers of the defeated side will inevitably be affected, causing a great loss of morale. Therefore, the Manchu Qing's new troops often fled with them due to the defeat of surrounding friendly forces. If they did not follow them, they would only be wiped out by the Yi army.
As a result, the Eight Banners soldiers in the capital were beaten by the Yi army and retreated all the way back to Beijing through Langfang.
During this period, due to the defeat of Shanxi Zhangjia Agui, Fu Cha Fu Heng could only transfer all the troops stationed in Handan back to Xingtai, with Yangquan where Zhangjia Agui was currently stationed and Hengshui where he was currently stationed. They formed a triangular defense in order to delay the advance of the Yi army as much as possible and gain time to relieve the siege of the capital.
In terms of strategic deployment, neither Zhang Jia Agui nor Fu Cha Fu Heng or Fu Cha Mingrui made any major mistakes, but they ignored the issue of what the people wanted.
The Han people in the Qing Dynasty were not much better than the Han people in the Yuan Dynasty. For example, in Mancheng, which was even worse than the Concession, the Manchus only needed to pay some money to kill the Han people. Shaving one's hair makes one susceptible to tyranny.
Therefore, the vast majority of the Han people are extremely disgusted with the Manchus, especially the poor and oppressed civilians at the bottom, so that the people regard "anti-Qing and restoration of Ming" as a heroic act. The entire history of the Qing Dynasty has been constantly The "anti-Qing and restoration of Ming" movement broke out.
Qianlong's attitude towards the Han people has always been based on contempt, suspicion and precaution.
Regardless of how benevolent and harmonious Qianlong was by the iron triangle in later generations, Ji Xiaolan was so witty and resourceful that Qianlong adopted his advice with admiration.
But the fact is that Qianlong was going to Jiangnan. Ji Xiaolan warned Qianlong that going to Jiangnan would put too much burden on the people in the Jiangnan area and that he should learn from the experience of his predecessors. As a result, Qianlong scolded him, "Because of your excellence in literature, I entrusted Sikushu to you. It’s really just about advocating for excellence and hoarding it, so how can you talk about state affairs arbitrarily?”
No matter how hard the Han officials tried, they could not be trusted by Qianlong in the eyes of the Manchu officials who could be called "slaves". After all, they were their own people, so that all the important positions in the court were dominated by Manchus. Most of the officials just give them status and support them so as not to cause trouble.
The Yi army besieged Beiping City for three days. Under the bombardment of heavy artillery and airships, the troops defending the city felt that they were in a precarious situation. Many green battalion generals who defended the city were forced by the Eight Banners officers to go up to the city wall to die, and were treated differently. As things progressed, even the bannermen of the Han army in each banner were jealous and insulted.
In fact, the people of the Han Army Banner have always been disliked by others among the Eight Banners of the Qing Dynasty. In the seventh year of Qianlong's reign, he even issued a strict decree that except for those who had the merit of serving the dragon, other bannermen of the Han army should serve the people under the flag and no longer be given preferential treatment.
As a result, with the exception of Guangzhou, the bannermen of the Han army in other areas were forced to leave the banner and gave up their status and welfare to the bannermen of Manchu and Mongolia. Even the Eight Banners in the capital were no exception.
If Zhang Rui's rise had not required a large number of Eight Banners soldiers to expand military strength, perhaps there would have been very few Han Banners left in the current Eight Banners army in the capital.
It was already very dissatisfying to suffer injustice from the imperial court, but now that they were treated differently, the people of Han Army Banner could not bear it.
Finally, on the fourth day of Yijun's siege, under the guidance of spies in Yijun City, most of the Han army flags and green camp generals who defended the city chose to surrender to Dayi, and then opened the city gate to allow Yijun to enter Beiping City.
Looking at the Yijun troops at the gate of the city, the soldiers of the Eight Banners guarding the city resisted desperately at first, taking advantage of the close-range sneak attack in the battle in the city alleys, making the surrendering army and Yijun who were leading the battle unable to bear any sacrifice. Small price to pay.
However, the Yi army did not hold fire sticks after all. Especially under the firepower of mortars and machine guns, they quickly eliminated the Eight Banners soldiers blocking the streets.
Hearing the deafening shouts and gunfire, the remaining Eight Banners soldiers felt that the situation was over.
They can no longer defend the capital.
So they fled the team one after another. Some fled directly from the city, while others rushed back to their homes in Mancheng, hoping to take advantage of the war to take their families away from the capital.
August 21, the fifth year of natural selection (the twenty-sixth year of Qianlong's reign)
The outer city of the capital fell, and when Fucha Mingrui retreated, he ordered people to set fire to the Forbidden City and Old Summer Palace. However, it was quickly extinguished by the combined efforts of the palace maids and eunuchs guarding it, without causing much damage.
The reason why these palace maids and eunuchs did not flee out of fear of war is because the Yi army has always had a good reputation among the people due to the peace between Da Yi and the Qing Dynasty in the past few years, so they were not afraid of Da Yi's soldiers, and even Looking forward to serving it in the future
The emperor of Wu Dayi.
