In everyone's impression, was the Qing army in the Opium War and even in Eight-Nation Alliance all dressed in cotton armour and used broadswords and spears to fight against Europeans with muskets?

　　But in fact, this stereotype is wrong. In fact, when Eight-Nation Alliance invaded China, the Qing army was equipped with all European equipment. Even during the first Opium War in 1842, the degree of firearms in the Qing army was not low. At that time, many Qing troops abandoned traditional bows and arrows and used matchlock guns to fight, and the firearms equipment rate was at least over 50%.

　　Qing dynasty musket

　　Even in some Qing troops, there are only a few bows and a few pots of arrows, and the soldiers are all armed with matchlock guns and broadswords and spears. For example, in the East Zhejiang counterattack in the First Opium War, Bei Qingqiao, who experienced this battle personally, recorded his own pre-war equipment of the Qing army in his book "An Yin":

　　"When the servant entered the army, he was only at the assistant general Zhu Gui's place, and he saw two bows and two arrows."

　　Bei Qingqiao was greatly surprised and disappointed by this situation, because archery, riding and shooting with a bow was always a national policy of the Qing Dynasty, and was regarded as the fundamental of the country by the emperors. In theory, from the emperor of the Qing Dynasty to the soldiers at the bottom, all of them should attach great importance to bows and arrows. As a result, when it came to the front battlefield, few people used bows and arrows to fight. The number of matchlock guns in various units of the Qing army far exceeded the number of bows and arrows. Almost everyone carried guns and pushed cannons to the battlefield, and Bei Qingqiao was in the front battlefield.

　　"If you don't see the iron crotch before you go, who will insert an arrow at your waist?"

　　The British army in the Opium War also found that the Qing army, as its opponent, was equipped with bows and arrows, but most of them used matchlock guns to fight against themselves.

　　Qing dynasty matchlock gun

　　The reason why the Qing army chose the matchlock gun and abandoned the traditional powerful bow and arrow (bow-clearing) was largely to avoid the pain of practicing bow and arrow. After all, firearms can be learned to use well in a month at most, but if you want to learn archery, you must practice hard, and you can't get a start until three or five years. With the simple and easy-to-use matchlock weapon, the power is quite good (Yong Zhengdi said that the bird's spear is "the most convenient"), the vast majority of Qing troops naturally left their bows and arrows behind, and the emperor paid no attention to how to emphasize "Mandarin riding and shooting". Even though some Qing troops still used bows and arrows, the power of the bows and arrows used by them was lower than that in the early Qing Dynasty.

　　During the Opium War, the British army found that the bows and arrows captured by the Qing army were beautiful in appearance, but most of them were touching and had no power at all, which was not as good as the toy bows in their own country (according to statistics, during the whole Opium War, the British army who died of the bows and arrows of the Qing army did not even have a hand).

　　Some people may think that it is an improvement for the Qing army to give up bows and arrows and use matchlock guns to fight. After all, firearms replace cold weapons, but the problem is that the Qing army can't even use firearms well. It's not a question of whether he has it or not. He has it and can't use it well.

　　In fact, the matchlock gun used by the Qing army is not much behind the flintlock gun used by the British army, but the firing rate and environmental applicability are worse, but they are not far behind. The real difference between these two weapons lies in the fact that the British military's weapon production has been modernized for a long time. Although it has not been completely standardized, the technological upgrading brought about by its industrial revolution has made the barrel of the British flintlock gun better, more straight, longer in effective range and larger in caliber (caliber represents power) than that produced in the Qing Dynasty.

　　And the British have already mastered the scientific proportion of the maximum power of black powder, which further improves the power of firearms. Although China has already explored the scientific proportion of black powder, by the end of the Qing Dynasty, due to corruption, poor organization and other reasons, the quality of black powder used by various armies of the Qing army varied, and many black powder used by soldiers of the Qing army were the worst products, which made the British army who seized it very despised.

　　Moreover, many soldiers of the Qing army don't even understand the custom-made gunpowder. The so-called custom-made gunpowder is to wrap the amount of gunpowder for firing a bullet in a small bamboo tube or paper bag in advance so that it can be used quickly at any time. This technology appeared in the Ming Dynasty, which could greatly improve the loading speed of musketeers, but many soldiers of the Qing army could not even do this simple operation for various reasons. When they use the matchlock gun, they put a certain amount of gunpowder into the barrel by experience, which greatly affects the power of the bullet. Once less gunpowder is loaded, the bullet is bound to be less powerful, and once more gunpowder is loaded, the barrel is easy to explode. In addition, it will slow down the firing rate.

　　However, during the Opium War, the problem of the Qing army did not lie in the weapons used, but in the people themselves. No matter how good the weapons were, no one could do it.

　　The most intuitive examples in modern times are the young soldiers of Saudi Arabia and the "slipper soldiers" of Yemeni armed forces. The young soldiers of Saudi Arabia, who have a lot of money and American equipment to help out, will always be beaten by Yemeni armed forces wearing slippers and fighting with AK47, making the world laugh.

　　During the Opium War, the Qing army was worse than the young soldiers in Saudi Arabia. According to the memoirs of British soldiers and officers who experienced the Opium War, they found that the Qing army was very short of field guns. Even with cannons, it was indiscriminate. The shells it fired were often too far away from the British army and could not hit people at all. The soldiers of the Qing Dynasty who were equipped with matchlock guns always fired their guns in a hurry far away from the British army. Those soldiers basically didn't listen to any orders. They just fired their guns at random in the distance, each playing his own game, and they didn't volley at the British army. They looked fierce and the positions were always filled with smoke, but in fact, the bullets fired by the Qing army were useless, and the firing was very poor, which didn't kill many British troops at all.

　　This situation often puzzled the British army, wondering why the Qing army had to fight with the air. You know, even the British army with better weapons would never shoot at a long distance, because they knew that their flintlock gun had a limited effective range, and shooting beyond the effective range of bullets could not hit the enemy at all. The Prussian army once fired 100 rounds of ammunition at a target 150 meters away with a width of 3.05 meters and a height of 1.83 meters, but it only hit 40 rounds. This is not a humanoid target (there is a gap between people on the battlefield, and the hit rate will only be lower if the bullets hit these places are removed), or it is in a quiet shooting range, without the influence of various factors such as pressure and fear.

　　Although during the Opium War, a large number of brown Bess flintlock guns equipped by the British army were slightly better in performance than those used by Prussians because of technological progress, they were not much better, and the two were basically the same, still within the standard range of flintlock guns, or the most basic design of front-mounted muskets.

　　Brown Beth flintlock

　　Therefore, the British army is very restrained from shooting at the enemy at a long distance, because it is meaningless. The battle scenes of the British army and most European troops are usually like this: several horizontal lines or columns are arranged on the battlefield to form three lines (the line tactics are named after this), and then the drums are followed by military music to advance in the direction of the enemy at a constant speed. During this period, the cannons of both sides roared and took away the lives of some soldiers from time to time. When they reached a position almost 90 meters away from the enemy, The soldiers in the front row of the troops will fire a volley, and after firing, they will switch to the last row of three lines to reload (backward reloading tactics), and the row behind him will take over the position of the front row to shoot. Each soldier's operation is to shoot-retreat-reload-shoot, which will continue to circulate. Of course, they will continue to advance during this period, until they get closer and closer to the enemy, they will launch bayonet charges and decide the outcome in the form of hand-to-hand combat.

　　In history, some British troops were even able to carry the enemy's muskets and cannons and keep firing, with high casualties, without firing a shot until they reached the length of only two connected spears from the enemy (at most ten meters). At this distance, the hit rate and power of the flintlock gun will be promoted to an amazing level. Usually, a volley can kill many enemy people in an instant and make their morale fall into a low tide in an instant. After launching a volley, the British army will immediately launch a bayonet charge, which will directly collapse the enemy troops whose morale is low because of excessive casualties in an instant.

　　Tip: The British tactics mentioned above belong to special circumstances and are not particularly common.

　　However, due to hand-made, rough technology, low quality of gunpowder and other reasons, at the same distance, the Qing army, which had a much worse hit rate than the guns used by the British army, just liked to shoot at the British army at a long distance. The bullets they fired had no effect at all, so they were vomited by many British soldiers during the Opium War.

　　In the war, the British army found that the soldiers of the Qing army who were still very brave in the long-distance shooting stage, when the British army formed three lines and entered the state of queuing and shooting, accompanied by the marching drums, and fired bullets at the approaching Qing army, the Qing army front would loosen and morale would plummet. Once the British army took the initiative to stop shooting and charged the Qing army with a musket with a bayonet, the soldiers of the Qing army who used the musket would suddenly collapse in morale (the musket of the Qing army was weak in melee, even if it was a fork gun, it was not as efficient and useful as the bayonet), and most people did not dare to engage in hand-to-hand combat with the British army at all, mostly turned around and ran away, and then the British army easily won the war, with very few casualties.

　　Even in history, there have been cases where a single British soldier scared away dozens of Qing fort defenders:

　　"He rushed into the open door of the battery, with forty or fifty garrison guns beside him, and was lazily smoking or sitting or lying down. When they saw him, they rushed out of the opposite gate and ran behind the mountain without taking a look at him. -Excerpt from "The Battle of the British Army in China" "

　　Therefore, some people have said that if the First Opium War was fought by the Eight Banners Army before the mid-Qianlong period, the result would definitely be very different. Even if you don't win, the record will never be so ugly. Because the Eight Banners in the early Qing Dynasty would never be afraid of melee, in the war, they would even shoot with the firearms of the Ming army, without firing an arrow, until they were only five steps away from the Ming army, and they would use their powerful bow to accurately shoot some important parts of the soldiers' bodies, such as the face, neck or ribs that the armor of the Ming army could not protect. At this distance, the bow and arrow of the Qing army can completely penetrate the heavy armor. According to Xu Guangqi, it is a dead man. When casualties are caused to the enemy and the gap is opened on the front, the Qing army will take the initiative to give up archery and engage in hand-to-hand combat.

　　However, the Eight Banners Army in the late Qing Dynasty didn't have such a will to fight. They had long since abandoned their armed forces, not to mention the influence of opium smoke. Many Qing troops were able to muddle along even with the twice-yearly exercise and reading ceremonies stipulated by the state, and lacked military discipline. The Eight Banners Army all became bandits, or made a living by doing various sideline businesses, loved smoking opium, and their bodies had long collapsed. Every time they fought, even officers took the lead to escape.

　　Even though the Qing army once had many advanced firearms tactics, such as the so-called "nine-in-ten-in-a-chain" tactics, it could only be found on the pile of old papers because of the corruption of the Qing army. Since the late Qianlong period, many Qing troops have been fighting with matchlock guns from a long distance. After all, their main duty on the eve of the Opium War was just to disperse the people in various places. Therefore, their military equipment was abandoned and their military discipline was lacking, and they almost became bandits.

　　Because we are dealing with civilians who lack weapons and ordnance and have worse fighting capacity, the Qing army doesn't need other tactical tactics at all, and even don't have to master hand-to-hand combat. This leads to the fighting capacity of the Eight Banners, let alone defeating foreigners. Together with the Taiping rebels who are from China, they can't beat them. In the early days of the Taiping Rebellion, they were beaten by Taiping rebels who lacked weapons, and seven Taiping rebels could chase more than 1,000 Qing troops!

　　The performances of the Qing army before and after the Opium War fully showed that after entering modern times, although the battles between the armies were still influenced by many weapons and equipment, the management system, command system, soldiers' training, national spirit and will in the army had an infinite influence on the success or failure of the war.

　　During the Opium War, the Qing army was already rotten, and the management of the army was in a mess. Even without the influence of opium smoke, it was not much better.

　　Of course, in the Opium War, not all of the Qing army pulled their legs. In the battle of Zhapu, the performance of the Qing army was still very brave. They fought back bravely against the British army with bows and arrows and matchlock guns. The British officers who participated in this war said:

　　"No one who saw China's soldiers with their own eyes and defended their positions with such tenacious fighting spirit and determination can fully respect China's brave refusal ... Up to the Battle of Zhapu, China was sent to resist our army, and this time it was the most elite."

　　However, the position of the Qing army still collapsed under the shelling and explosive charges of the British army. In this battle, the British army killed 13 people, injured 42 people and captured 16 people, while the officers and men of the Eight Banners Army in the Qing army killed more than 300 people, Han soldiers killed 600 people, Xiang Yong killed more than 600 people and killed more than 1,500 civilians. This shows the gap.

　　Domestic troubles and foreign invasion, armed forces embarrassed the country, and the secretive Taiping Heavenly Kingdom fooled the people and suffered internal friction.

　　When the Opium War is mentioned, many people often take it as an example and talk about being beaten behind. In fact, the backwardness of decadent feudal autocracy and people's ideas are fatal backwardness. In the event of a war, whether weapons and equipment are advanced or not will play a role, but it is by no means an important factor that ultimately determines the outcome. The history of "millet plus rifle" defeating tanks and artillery proves to the world that backwardness is not necessarily beaten, and it is not necessarily impossible to win! On the contrary, it seems to be powerful. If you are powerful, you may not be beaten. If you are beaten, you may not win.

　　the opium war

　　During the Opium War, the Qing army should disperse its troops, muskets and fires in important towns to prevent the people from rising and rebelling. Even if the Qing army concentrated all its muskets and artillery on the front line, it could not beat the British army, because the weapons and equipment and military training of the Qing army were much worse than that of the British army.