Chapter 119 Horsetail Military Port

The remnants of the Changhua Mixed Brigade immediately reported to Taipei that the Mixed Brigade was attacked by unidentified militants! The brigade commander was killed in battle! The mixed brigade was surrounded by the enemy in Changhua County and asked the Guards Division to immediately send reinforcements to relieve the siege.

After receiving the report, Yidong Youheng, the governor of Taiwan, and Beibaichuan Gong, the commander of the Guards Division, were surprised. They immediately judged that the unidentified armed forces should be the French army!

The attacker only attacked the Japanese army in Baguashan with long-range firepower, and the Japanese army did not observe the attacker. However, the Japanese army has a good reason to judge the attackers as the French army. The attackers are powerful and well-trained, especially the accuracy of artillery shooting. There is no such army in Asia! This is by no means a local resistance force in Taiwan, let alone the Qing army. In the Sino-Japanese War that ended not long ago, the Japanese army was clear about the reality of the army, and the Qing army had no such artillery!

Such an army can only come from the West! Among Western countries, France is the only one that is most likely to intervene in Taiwan!

France has always coveted Taiwan!

Ten years ago, during the Sino-French War, France landed in Taiwan and occupied a part of Taiwan. At that time, they wanted to take advantage of the situation to annex Taiwan. Later, the Qing army defeated the French army at Zhennanguan. France was defeated and had no choice but to spit out Taiwan.

After the end of the QingJapanese War, the Qing Dynasty ceded Taiwan to Japan. Li Hongzhang once went to the French consulate to lobby France to intervene in Japan's monopoly on Taiwan. The French also sent a strong note to Japan.

Comprehensive judgment, it is reasonable for France to suddenly intervene in Taiwan.

This made Yidong Youhengton feel seriously out of position. On the one hand, he ordered the Guards Division to immediately assist Changhua and report to the base camp. At the same time, he requested the base camp to send more troops to Taiwan to resist the armed intervention of the French!

Yuki Ito's report spread to Hiroshima, and the base camp was shocked! In the Sino-Japanese War, Japan paid a heavy price. The only thing it got was Taiwan. If France really sent troops to Taiwan and drove the Japanese army out of Taiwan, Japan would be in vain.

The Japanese government immediately made a serious protest to the French consulate, accusing France of violating Taiwan by force and trampling on Japan's sovereignty - according to the Qing-Japanese agreement, Taiwan is already Japanese territory!

However, the French rantly rejected Japan's protest. The French replied that France did have warships wandering in the Strait of Malacca, but the French army did not enter Taiwan, and the French warships did not even enter the Taiwan Strait! The attack on the Japanese army in Changhua has nothing to do with the French army. The French government ignored Japan's protests!

France's tough attitude made the Japanese believe that the French army had secretly intervened in Taiwan. According to intelligence, in the late Sino-Japanese War, after the Japanese army occupied Penghu, the French troops stationed in Annan were ordered to enter the first-class combat readiness. The French ambassador to Annan also proposed to the French government that the French army in Annan cross the Strait and seize Taiwan before the official handover of Taiwan. Tang Jingsung, the president of Taiwan's democratic country, also sent a messenger to the French army in Annan to request the French army to assist Taiwan!

At that time, the French did not clearly agree to Tang Jingsong's request, but it was completely possible for them to sit on the mountain and watch the tiger fight. When the Japanese fought with Taiwan's democratic army, they would have another secret warehouse to reap the profits!

Moreover, some information shows that just two days before the Battle of Changhua, three French merchant ships had docked in Lugang. At that time, the Japanese army had not yet occupied Lugang and could not figure out what these three merchant ships were doing. Although the Japanese navy in Penghu found these three merchant ships, because the other party was French, they did not take action against the merchant ships. Move.

Now, the Japanese believe that the problem is with these three merchant ships!

The Battle of Changhua must have been played tricks by the French. Even if it was not the French army, it must have been funded by the French!

It's just that the Japanese can't catch the handle of the French. The base camp asked the Japanese army to further clarify the situation. However, the Japanese army in Changhua was stunned by this sudden attack, and the Japanese army in Changhua City did not even see the shadow of the enemy. Because of the heavy losses, the Japanese army of a brigade that attacked Changhua was almost completely destroyed, and the remaining Japanese army could only shrink in the city, dare not come out, and could not figure out the situation of the enemy outside the city. The Japanese army in Changhua was preconceived and insisted that the attacker was a Frenchman!

The base camp is finally convinced that the French have fully intervened in Taiwan!

Japan paid a huge price in Shandong and Liaodong. It finally got Taiwan and will never allow Taiwan to change its owner. In order to ensure the occupation of Taiwan, the base camp transferred the Second Division, which had just concluded the Shandong Campaign, to Taiwan. In the battles of Shandong and Liaodong, the first division of the Japanese army were almost completely destroyed. The third, fourth and sixth divisions suffered heavy losses and damaged their vitality. The fifth division was stationed in North Korea. This was originally a mutilated division and was unable to take care of it. Only the second division could fight in Japan. This division suffered little damage. Lost, retreated from the battlefield in Shandong.

The Japanese army's strength in Taiwan has reached two integrated divisions, reaching 45,000, and the total strength of marines is close to 40,000.

......

September 1, 1985, Fuzhou, Mawei Port, South Turtle Island Battery.

Mawei Port was once the military port of Fujian Marine Division, the first modernized fleet of the Qing Dynasty.

In the early years of Tongzhi, the Qing Dynasty set up the Fujian Shipping Bureau in Mawei to train naval talents and build large warships. In the 13th year of Tongzhi, the Fuzhou Ship Administration Bureau built 2 small cruisers, 10 gunboats, and purchased 3 gunboats from abroad, with a total of 17 warships, which began to take shape. In 1879, in order to strengthen the defense of the Taiwan Strait, the Qing court issued an edict on July 4, 1879, ordering the Fujian Ship Administration Bureau to train the navy, and the Fujian Marine Division announced its establishment. At that time, the Beiyang Marines didn't even have a shadow.

Fujian Marine Division is the earliest modern navy in the Qing Dynasty and even in Asia. Mawei Military Port is the first modern military port in the Qing Dynasty that can accommodate large cruisers. When the first self-built cruiser of Fujian Shipping Bureau was launched, Japan's modern shipbuilding industry had just started and was struggling.

Although the main warship of Fujian Marine Division is still a wooden shell structure and cannot be compared with Western armored warships, this is a welcome progress for the Chinese navy. If it continues to develop according to this momentum, it will not take long for the Qing Dynasty to build its own iron-clad warship, and its naval power can compete with the Western powers, and it can be said to be a fantasy for the Japanese navy to catch up with the Qing Dynasty.

However, in the Sino-French War in 1884, Fujian sailors, together with Mawei Military Port, were destroyed!

In August 1884, the French Far East Fleet suddenly launched an attack on Mawei Military Port. The weak Fujian sailors hurried to respond to the battle, and the officers and soldiers resisted bravely, but the wooden warships could not resist the French armored warships after all. In the naval battle, 9 warships of the Fujian Marine Division were destroyed, two ships sank, 19 transport ships were all sunk, and 700 people were martyred. The fledgling Fujian navy was almost completely destroyed. The French army not only sank almost all the warships of the Fujian Marine Division, but also destroyed all the forts of Mawei Military Port and the Mawei Shipyard, the first warship manufacturing plant in the Qing Dynasty.

The failure of the Battle of Horsetail not only destroyed the fledgling navy of the Qing Dynasty, but also destroyed the fledgling shipbuilding industry of the Qing Dynasty. It has created an opportunity to catch up for the development of the Japanese navy!

Fujian navy has been lost and it is difficult to become an army. Since then, the Mawei Military Port has gradually been abandoned and become an ordinary barracks. This cradle of the former modern Chinese navy has finally faded out of people's vision. When the Beiyang Marine Division was at its peak, no one remembered the Fujian Marine Division and the once glorious Mawei Military Port - although most of the generals of the Beiyang Marine Division were trained by the Fujian Shipping Bureau in Mawei.

The South Turtle Island Fort corresponds to the north and south of the North Turtle Island Fort, locking the mouth of the Minjiang River. After the Battle of Mawei, the Qing court spent a lot of money to build these two forts, which were equipped with Armstrong cannons, forming a guard against the Mawei military port. Among them, the southern fort is the main fort with a barracks on it, which is the headquarters of the Mawei garrison.

Three days ago, a strange army took over the North and South Turtle Island Fort. This army was dressed in a gray military uniform completely different from the Qing army, armed belted around its waist, and had no braids under the big brim hat!

When this army arrived, the Qing army stationed on the fort thought that the Japanese soldiers had come. For a moment, the alarm was made. The officers and soldiers loaded the bullets and entered the preset position of the fort. Before they could open fire, the headquarters of the two forts were taken by the other side. They were taken captives and ordered the defenders of the fort to lay down their weapons.

Just when the officers and soldiers thought that a disaster was coming, Guan Dai came out of the headquarters happily and announced that the new Fuzhou general Wu Peifu Wu had arrived and sat on the fort. The original defenders of the fort still returned to their posts and served as vigilance, while the army without braids gathered on the north and south fort.

Only then did everyone know that this strange army falling from the sky is the legendary Zhang Jun!

The pipe belt announced that the news about Wu Peifu and Zhang Jun's arrival in Fuzhou will be beheaded if anyone leaks the news.

In the next three days, the troops in gray military uniforms and without braids continued to enter the Mawei military port, some from land and some from the sea. The knowledgeable Qing army even found that the ships of the Beiyang Marine Division appeared in the troop transport ship. In three days, more than 20,000 people gathered in Mawei Military Port.

According to the order of Wu Peifu, the general of Fuzhou, all the news about Zhang Jun is kept secret. This is a well-trained army. Tens of thousands of officers and soldiers are hiding in the military port without any noise. The people around the Mawei military port are completely unaware that thousands of troops and horses are hidden in this small military port that has long been forgotten.