A brief account of Li Hongzhang's suppression of the uprising

Li Hongzhang himself arrived in Shanghai with the first batch of Huai troops on March 10. Half a month later, he was appointed acting governor of Jiangsu Province, and was appointed on 10/2. In February of the following year, he became Minister of Commerce and Trade, and "rumbled straight from then on", and began his courtship course in the political arena of the late Qing Dynasty for 40 years.

When Li Hongzhang took office, the situation was extremely grim. At that time, Shanghai was the largest trading port in China, where Chinese and foreign countries were mixed and wealth was concentrated in the south of the Yangtze River. When the Huai army arrived, it coincided with the second large-scale attack of the Taiping Army. Whether we can keep Shanghai and develop in Xu Tu is the biggest test before Li Hongzhang. Li Hongzhang remembers the teacher's teaching that "training and learning to fight are the foundation of life, and managing official affairs and westernization is ignored." The "Chinese and foreign defense bureau" set up by Shanghai officials and gentry hoped that foreign mercenaries would resist the Taiping Army and flatter foreigners in every way. They and foreign troops disapproved of Huai Army, and "they all laughed and called it a beggar". Faced with this situation, Li Hongzhang encouraged the soldiers to say that "the army is expensive and can fight, and the enemy will be defeated." Soon, in the second half of that year, the Huai army fought three fierce battles in Hongqiao, Beixinjing and Sijiangkou independently. Li Hongzhang personally commanded the front line and successfully held Shanghai, which immediately made Chinese and foreign people sit up and take notice of the Huai Army.

After gaining a firm foothold, Li Hongzhang further consolidated his position by "inspecting officials, consolidating the army, raising salaries and compiling foreign countries". In terms of personnel, he replaced a group of comprador officials represented by Wu and Yang Fang with a group of pragmatic westernization officials such as Guo Songtao. At the same time, the Huai army shogunate was established, which was different from Xiang shogunate, pragmatic and capable, and familiar with westernization. In the military system, he learned the power of western ordnance from actual combat, which led to the idea of "bearing the burden of humiliation and learning a foreigner's secret law". Less than a year after the Huai army arrived in Shanghai, it "completely changed the old system of Xiang army and imitated foreign troops" and became a new army equipped with foreign guns and trained by foreign coaches, greatly improving its combat effectiveness; At the same time, Li Hongzhang also took a series of measures to surrender and subdue everything, and strengthened his own strength. In less than half a year, the Huai army quickly expanded to 50 battalions, with about 20 thousand people. Since then, it has further expanded dramatically. On the eve of the attack on Tianjing, the total strength of the Huai army has reached more than 70 thousand. In terms of military expenditure, Li Hongzhang adopted the policy of "dividing the customs, paying the military supplies of the Chinese and foreign defense bureaus and Zhenjiang defense forces with tariffs, and paying the Huai army with Li Jin". With the progress of the military and the growth of the Hunan-Huai army, Lika was overweight layer by layer, thus ensuring the source of reimbursement. In foreign relations, Li Hongzhang used Hurd, a foreigner, and Pan Zengwei, a gentry, as lobbyists, skillfully quelled Chang Gordon's riot caused by Suzhou's murder and surrender, and finally skillfully dissolved Chang, initially showing his diplomatic skills.

On November 18th, the first year of Tongzhi (1862), Luo, garrison commander of Changshu Taiping Army, surrendered. Li Hongzhang took the opportunity to lead the Huai army to launch a campaign of recovery and stability. After repeated fierce battles with the Taiping Army who came to counter the rebellion, the Huai Army finally conquered Changshu, Taicang and Kunshan. After initially clearing the periphery of Suzhou, Li Hongzhang made a three-way marching plan, with Cheng Xueqi in the middle and leading from Kunshan to Suzhou. Li Hezhang and Liu Mingchuan from the North Road attacked Jiangyin and Wuxi from Changshu; The South Road attacked Wujiang and Wang Ping, cutting off the road of Zhejiang Taiping Army reinforcements. In the second year (1863), in July, Cheng Xueqi's troops arrived at the gates of Suzhou, and Li Xiucheng, a loyal monarch of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, led an army to help from Tianjing, and fought the Huai Army on the north road of Qiaojiao, Wuxi, and the Taiping Army was defeated. At that time, King Gao Yongkuan, commander of Suzhou Taiping Army, wavered and secretly contacted Cheng Xueqi to offer the city. On the fifth day of November, Gao Yongkuan and others killed King Mu Tan Shaoguang, commander of the guarding city, and surrendered in Kaesong. However, after the Huai army entered the city, the eight-failure king of the Taiping Army led his troops to live in half the city, unwilling to shave and disarm, but demanding official titles and preparation. Therefore, Li Hongzhang took Cheng Xueqi's advice, lured and killed eight generals, and the rest were dismissed. Although the murder of Suzhou aroused Gordon's dissatisfaction and once caused a heated discussion, as far as Li Hongzhang was concerned, it eliminated the hidden danger of "changing elbows and armpits", as he said in his letter to his mother, "This matter is too inhuman, but it is related to the overall situation and has to be done." After receiving the newspaper, Zeng Guofan praised Li Hongzhang as "nimble and nimble".

Since then, the Huai army has won successively. Tongzhi for three years (1864), Changzhou was conquered and lord protector Chen Kunshu of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was killed. The Taiping Army in southern Jiangsu was basically wiped out.

At that time, the Xiang army could not attack Tianjing for a long time, and the Qing court repeatedly urged Li Hongzhang to lead the Huai army to attack. Considering the relationship between Li Hongzhang and the Tseng brothers, getting one's hands on Jinling will be regarded as stealing merit and offending the Tseng family. Therefore, when he was in the Soviet Union, he often stayed put, turned around and invaded Zhejiang. As a result, the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang was annoyed, and he played the court from the upper left, accusing Li Hongzhang of "cross-border looting." As a result, the two of them have forged a lifelong hatred. On May 13, Li Hongzhang heard that Xiang's siege tunnel was about to be completed, and because of repeated urging by the court, he sent artillery teams and 27 battalions including Liu Mingchuan, Pan and Zhou Shengbo to attack Tianjing. 15, Ceng Guoquan presented a letter of advice from Li Hongzhang to send troops, urging people to say: "He is the last person, and it is difficult to make friends with others for two years." Everyone said, "I am willing to do my best!" " The next day, Xiang finally conquered Tianjing. Afterwards, Zeng Guofan once expressed his gratitude to Li Hongzhang with his hand: "My foolish brother is humble and Laizi is safe." Jiangsu was purged, and Xiang and Huai generals were all promoted to ranks. Li Hongzhang was awarded first class Su Yibo and a pair of eyes.

After the failure of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang adopted different attitudes on the question of whether the Xiang Huai Army would stay or not. Less than a month after capturing Tianjing, Zeng Guofan dismissed most of the Xiang army under his command. At that time, the Nianjun uprising in the north was in full swing. Zeng Guofan ignored the Qing court's order to instruct him to take care of Anhui military affairs again and resolutely disarmed. Because of a "low morale", more importantly, Zeng Guofan was worried that Gao Zhen would take the lead and bring himself fatal disaster. Li Hongzhang, on the other hand, said: "Our division and Hong Zhang should always keep up with military affairs and leave Hunan, Huai and Yong to prevent and suppress the north and south of the Yangtze River. Once the overall situation is stable, he can also go on an expedition to other places. " He further saw that "the current trouble is at home, and the long-term trouble is in the west." Therefore, his intention to maintain the Xiang-Huai Army is not only to "treat foreign invasion from within" but also to "defend against foreign invasion", which is obviously superior to Zeng.

In the fourth year of Tongzhi (1865), on April 24th, the commander-in-chief of the anti-Nian army was completely annihilated in Heze, Shandong. The Qing court appointed Zeng Guofan as an imperial envoy, went to the north to supervise the division, and took Li Hongzhang as the acting governor of the two rivers, responsible for logistics matters such as troop redeployment and salary increase. Because most of the Xiang army has been abolished, most of the troops led by Zeng Guofan to the north are Huai army. At first, there were only twenty-seven thousand people in the Ming, Sheng, Ding and Shu armies, and about eight thousand people in Liu Songshan's Xiang army. Later, Li Zhaoqing, the sixth brother of Li Hongzhang, was ordered to recruit 2,000 cavalry, and 27,000 more were transferred from the Huai Army's Yang Dingxun, Liu, Wu and other departments, plus a new battalion newly raised in Liu Mingchuan, with a total strength of more than 60,000. As soon as Zeng Guofan arrived at the front, he adopted the policy formulated by Liu Mingchuan and Li Hongzhang, and decided to "take one soldier and have no enemy", and heavily stationed in four towns: Linhuai, Anhui, Zhoukou, Henan, Xuzhou, Jiangsu and Jining, Shandong. One province is in an emergency, and three provinces save aid. Later, Zeng Guofan divided his forces in the areas of the Canal, the Yellow Sea, Shahe and Jia Luhe, and implemented the policy of "painting rivers around the land". But on the one hand, at that time, the Nian army was in full swing, and its operations were fast and changeable, dry and blocked, and it was difficult to work. On the other hand, Zeng Guofan could not effectively command the Huai army. So, after a year and a half, Zeng Guofan's inspector failed, and the Qing court had to change Li Hongzhang as an imperial envoy on the first day of November in the fifth year of Tongzhi (1866), so that Zeng Guofan still returned to the post of governor of Liangjiang.

Zeng and Li hang up the tape. The Huai army continued to expand, and the first army was expanded to 19 battalion, named Wu Yijun, and the words "Kui" 2 battalion, 1 battalion and "Feng" 7 battalion were added. In addition, the 3rd Battalion of Tang Renlian Cavalry was seconded. The total number of Nian troops reached 70,000. 1 1 When Li Hongzhang arrived in Xuzhou on March 23rd, the Nian army had split in two. Lai, Ren Zhu and others led the Nian Army to stay in the Central Plains, while Qiu Yuancai led the Nian Army into Shaanxi. Li Hongzhang first decided to spare no effort to deal with the Dongnian Army. Although we still adhere to the strategic policy of "static braking", in view of the lesson that Zeng Guofan's defense is too wide and it is difficult to work, we changed it to the tactic of "choking the ground and restraining it", that is, trying to "crouch the Nian army in the deep water of the mountain, abandon the ground and lure it, and then the provincial armies will join forces and besiege it on three sides."