Reborn as King of South America

Chapter 357 Gathering of Talents
After Li Weiye's troops were besieged, the French troops in the Beiban area panicked and wanted to abandon the city and flee.

But Qin Chong, who succeeded Lu Mei as the Governor-General of Cochinchina, quickly calmed down and took remedial measures. He appointed General Bo Hua, the commander of the Cochinchina garrison, as the supreme commander of the Beiban area, commanding the French army and most of the newly recruited Annamite native soldiers to be mobilized from Cochinchina, equipped with sufficient guns, artillery and ammunition, and quickly set off for Hanoi.

At the same time, he requested the French government to send a reinforcement team consisting of 2500 soldiers and three artillery companies, of which 1500 people would form an expeditionary force to the Kitasaka area.

On the sixth day after receiving the bad news that Li Weiye was besieged, the Governor-General's Office of Cochinchina had mobilized a total of 500 marines and indigenous colonial troops to go to the Beiban area to assist Li Weiye.

到3月10日，由于援军的陆续到来，北坂地区法军及土著殖民军数量已约达2600人。而在3月5日，法国政府刚刚通过给安南地区增派2500名援军、拨款550万法郎的法案。

Now, the French government, thousands of miles away, also hurriedly sent an expeditionary force to the Beiban area. This expeditionary force included three French infantry battalions with 600 people in each battalion and four native infantry companies with 125 people in each company, totaling about 2000 people. Courbet was appointed as the Navy Commander of Tokyo Bay to strengthen the command of the navy. At the same time, He Luoluo was appointed as the Tokyo Special Commissioner to manage the administrative affairs of the Beiban area so that the French army could concentrate its forces to deal with the Nanyang Army.

As a result, the Nanyang Army will soon face the severe situation of fighting in isolation and an imbalance in naval power.

In order to deal with the French counterattack, Li Mingyuan continued to order the Chinese ambassador to France to intensify negotiations with the French government. At the same time, he also issued combat instructions to the Nanyang Corps, ordering Mei Dongxing and others to take advantage of the gap when the French reinforcements had not yet arrived in Annan.
Eliminate the French troops including Li Weiye and strengthen the defense capability of the Nanyang Corps to prevent the French army from launching a fatal attack on the Nanyang Corps with the assistance of superior naval forces.

After receiving Li Mingyuan's clear combat mission, Mei Dongxing immediately made a response plan.

First, with the permission of the local government, he used the profits from Hongji Coal Mine, commercial transactions, smuggling, etc. to vigorously recruit young and strong men into the army in Annan, Thailand, Songkhla, the mainland and other regions at a rate of four taels of silver dollars per month.

Secondly, in line with the consideration of anticipating the enemy and being lenient, the more the better, Mei Dongxing, while mobilizing the reserve weapons and equipment, instructed the establishment of intelligence stations in Hong Kong, Macao and other regions, and the purchase of more important supplies such as muskets, artillery, ammunition, Chinese and Western medicines, etc.

Finally, without waiting for the assistance and cooperation of the Annamite government forces, they mobilized the available regular troops and Chinese armed forces from all over the country, and launched a general attack on Hanoi within a short period of time, eliminating the French entanglement in northern Annam.

In the mainland bordering Annan, there were still some Han officials in the Qing court who still had a sense of national justice.

They were very dissatisfied with the Qing government's cowardice and timidity, and submitted memorials analyzing the pros and cons, pointing out that France was not something to be feared and that the Qing government should still insist on the correct decision of sending troops to Vietnam to fight against France.

For example, Zhang Peilun, the Left Vice-Minister of the Censorate, proposed:

China is indeed very poor, and France is not very rich. Now the situation between the two sides has changed, and China has a geographical advantage. At this time, the court is still timid and hesitant, and dares not make decisive decisions. When the vassal state of Annan is conquered by the French, the surviving countries such as Korea will inevitably be afraid of the great powers and alienate themselves from the court. It is really a big mistake, and it is too late to regret it. "

He also pointed out that although Mei Dongxing and others had rebellious uprisings in their early years, they no longer opposed the Qing court after arriving in Annan, nor did they return to the mainland to engage in rebellion. Now that the Qing dynasty was in a difficult situation, the country should not make too many powerful enemies, but should take the initiative to repair relations with the Han country and abandon the policy of hostility towards overseas Chinese. Tang Jingsong, the alternate director of the Ministry of Personnel, said: If China does not dare to resist the French, it will be inferior to Mei Dongxing's troops.
"Mei Dongxing's troops were just the remnants of the Taiping Army in the early years. He led thousands of refugees and young and strong men to write letters and defeat the enemy generals. The French were in a mess and were surrounded by Mei Dongxing's troops in several isolated strongholds. They were caught in a dilemma. However, many civil and military ministers of the great Celestial Empire used their maturity and prudence as an excuse and did not dare to send troops to fight the French. Although they had an excuse to deal with the Annan government, they were so cowardly and fearful. Aren't they afraid of being ridiculed by hundreds of millions of people and the remnants of the Taiping Army?"

The suggestions of the pro-war officials were unsurprisingly rejected by the Qing government. Officials like Tang Jingsong who had acted too radically in their memorials were reprimanded for not understanding the court's efforts and having inappropriate thoughts. They were then exiled to the critical Beiban area in the name of investigating the situation in Annan, and left to fend for themselves.

The Qing government's nature of yielding to foreign powers and brutal oppression at home became increasingly apparent in the decades after it suppressed the Taiping Rebellion. First, it gave in step by step in the Far East, resulting in millions of square kilometers of territory being annexed by Tsarist Russia. Then, the little Japan also came up to slap it in the face.
In 1874, Japan invaded Taiwan, and the Qing government subsequently signed the humiliating Treaty of Beijing with Japan. The treaty stipulated that the Qing government would pay 50 taels of silver to the Japanese invaders in the name of "pensions" and payment of "road and house construction". At the same time,
The peace treaty actually contained self-deceiving words such as "The Taiwanese aborigines have once wantonly harmed the subjects of Japan" and that Japan's sending troops was "a righteous act to protect the people, and the Qing Dynasty does not object to it."

A few years later, in 1879, Japan officially annexed the Ryukyu Islands, but the Qing government did not say a word. For the Qing government at that time, the local officers and soldiers had just experienced a civil war and had a certain combat effectiveness, while Japan had only implemented the Meiji Reform for a few years. If the two sides went to war, Japan would undoubtedly lose. As a result, the Qing government did not dare to send troops to fight, which shows its cowardice and incompetence.

From Tsarist Russia that dominated Central Asia, to the small island nation of Japan with a small army, to France that invaded Annam, the Qing government had always adhered to a policy of surrender to foreign countries. In the face of its victory over the white people of Europe with the Han Kingdom in South America, this hurt the hearts of some conscientious mainland Chinese. Since the Qing court explicitly rejected the memorial suggesting aiding Vietnam in its fight against France, young and strong people from coastal areas have been rushing to the Beiban area to join the Nanyang Corps.

On March 3, Pang Zhenyun, a native of Guangdong and Guangxi, led 15 armed civilians to arrive at Halong Port. On March 200, Hu Kunshan, the coach of the Guangdong militia, carried 3 rapid-fire rifles and 17 brave militiamen to defect to the Nanyang Army. On March 17, Zhu Bingqing, the leader of the Guangxi gang armed forces, and Li Tang, a tribute student from Sizhou, successively led 140 to 3 young and strong men across the Annan border and entered the area controlled by the Nanyang Army.

By the end of March, the number of Chinese armed forces who had defected from the mainland alone reached more than 2000. In addition, Mei Dongxing used the funds he had collected to vigorously recruit soldiers in Annan, Nanyang and other places. The number of regular troops in the Nanyang Corps was restored to a large establishment of 5500 people. At the same time, the number of newly-formed Nanyang Garrison troops equipped with old Dreiser rifles and different models reached 3000 people, and the number of reserve militia armed forces reached 5000.

The French ambition to occupy the entire Annam region was obvious. In order to prevent the worst situation in which the French broke off relations and marched into the Beiban area, Li Mingyuan instructed all the highest military and political commanders of the Nanyang Corps to be prepared as early as when he established the immigration transit bases in Quang Ninh and Lang Son provinces.

There was an abundance of food and medical supplies, and ammunition for all types of muskets, artillery, and imitation Gatling machine guns was sufficient to cope with a medium-sized battle lasting one year.

Prior to this, the reason why the Nanyang Corps did not launch a final attack on the French troops retreating in Hanoi City, Haiphong and other places was entirely to use the besieged French troops as bargaining chips to support the consultations and negotiations between the central government and the French government. However, the French government believed that Han State and France were equally far away from Annan and could not deploy large-scale troops to support across the sea. At the same time, the French government also overestimated the combat effectiveness of the French troops trapped in various places in Beiban, and believed that the Nanyang Corps had difficulty in obtaining military supplies and lacked heavy weapons support. It was unable to capture the various strongholds strictly guarded by French soldiers in the short term.

The French attempted to use the trapped French troops as bait to divert the Han armed forces in the Annam region and disperse them outside various isolated strongholds. Then, after the French expeditionary force arrived in Annam, they would cooperate with the besieged French troops to annihilate all the Nanyang Corps troops that had fought fruitlessly and were exhausted, thus eliminating the last armed force of the French occupation of Annam.

The Nanyang Corps would naturally not act according to the French ideas. Just when the French fleet crossed the Suez Canal, Mei Dongxing had completed preparations for the final battle against the besieged French army.

Before the formal issuance of the combat order, in order to boost morale, Mei Dongxing personally summoned more than a dozen armed leaders who had rushed over from the mainland. Among them, Tang Jingsong was the one Mei Dongxing valued the most, because he was the first Manchu central official to voluntarily surrender since the establishment of the Han Kingdom.

(End of this chapter)