The information we received before was: during the Opium War, how decadent and backward the Qing Dynasty was, how poor the army was, and how to use bows and arrows to fight against foreign guns and guns ..... In recent years, there have been many new sayings: the Qing Dynasty was not so bad and backward, and there were many firearms in the Qing army. The proportion of muskets and guns was quite large, which was not what some people said. The Qing army did not need firearms anyway. Look at the British army at that time, and the muskets used were no better than those used by the Qing army. There was not much difference between the two sides.

　　But these new materials still ignore a very important factor: guns.

　　From the beginning of modern times to the present, guns are the decisive factors in the battlefield on the ground. The gap between the Qing army and the British army is not muskets, bows and arrows, but artillery.

　　During the Opium War, the artillery of the Qing army and the British army were similar in principle, both of which fired iron balls with gunpowder. However, the British artillery is far, far ahead of the Qing army in terms of quality and use ideas.

　　At that time, Britain was already in the period of industrial revolution, and a lot of machines were used. At the same time, there was a key point: standardization. His gunpowder is ground by machine, which is very fine. China's is still hand-made, very rough. He relies on standardization, and 10 factories use one set of standards, and 10 batches of gunpowder produced by 10 factories have the same quality. In China, the gunpowder made by this company has one quality, while that made by another company has another quality. One quality is made today, and another quality is made tomorrow, and then mixed together ... So during the Opium War, the British army seized the gunpowder of the Qing army, which was directly dumped into the sea and could not be used.

　　With machines and standardization, Britain can produce 100 guns in 10 batches in 10 factories a month, and the caliber error is very small. At the same time, 10 cannonball factories produced 10,000 cannonballs in 10 batches, and the caliber error was also millimeter. These 10 thousand shells can be put into those 100 guns at will, and they can be guaranteed to be fired. Together with industrialized and standardized gunpowder, 100 guns hit 500 meters and 800 meters. At that time, China made 20 guns by hand for half a year, and the caliber error was very large. 200 shells were polished by hand, and the error was very large. The hand-polished gunpowder had uneven power. When the shells were stuffed in, they were stuck, and the distance was different, and there was a danger of exploding.

　　Now many people shout on the Internet that machine guns existed in the Ming Dynasty and were invented by Dai Zi in the Qing Dynasty ... How naive! Even if it is really invented, it is just a toy, and the troops can't use it. Without machines and standardization, can we build 10 thousand universal barrels? Can you make a million bullets with an error of a few millimeters? It's impossible. No machine is made by hand, the barrel thickness is different, the bullet size is different, the powder quality is different, and the machine gun is fired at high speed, so it can't be completely jammed?

　　Only by realizing the industrial revolution and completing the standardization and assembly line can we talk about guns.

　　British artillery is also a formal and standardized training, which effectively crushes the Qing army. Not only did it crush the Qing army, but the British artillery was absolutely superior to all other countries in the world at that time. Very fast, very accurate.

　　The performance in actual combat is that the British army fired on the ship, which was farther, more accurate and more ruthless than the Qing army. Wandering on the ship, playing more accurately than the land battery. Often in long-range artillery battles, the British artillery first destroyed the Qing artillery. This is also a psychological shock. It's the same reason that American troops bombed Iraqi troops in the Gulf War.

　　By the time the two armies were in battle, another key function of the artillery came out at that time: disrupting the formation.

　　Until the first world war thousands of years ago, there were strict requirements for dense formation in war. Simply put, whoever is in a mess will lose. The chaotic side will be slaughtered by the non-chaotic side. In modern times, artillery has become an artifact to disrupt the enemy formation. Napoleon is an expert in this field. At that time, the popular routine was to line up in a dense array, carrying a musket and holding a bayonet. Then artillery bombardment. Disrupt the enemy formation by artillery, and when you get close, fire a volley at will. At that time, the accuracy of guns was far from being accurate. It all depended on the density of everyone's standing and the large number of people, and then they went to the enemy's army together to fight, and whoever they hit was counted. At that time, the role of bullets was very low, which was equivalent to ornament. After firing, rush up: hand-to-hand combat.

　　It's not right to think that foreigners are just foreign guns and guns, cold weapons are very weak, and fighting almost doesn't exist!

　　In modern times, Britain, France and Russia all attached great importance to hand-to-hand combat, and even admired it. Rank bayonet first, gun second, gun third. By the first world war, the British army was still doing this routine, charging in crowds and fighting bayonets. As a result, the Germans took out Ma Keqin. Russia's slogan is bayonet is a hero, bullet is a fool.

　　When the Qing army fought the British army, why did it suffer?

　　The British rely on guns to destroy the guns of the Qing army first. Then use guns to disrupt the formation of the Qing army. No matter how powerful the bow and arrow is, it is not as far and powerful as the cannon. Whether the Qing army used guns, guns, bows and arrows, the formation would certainly not be able to withstand the British shelling. Originally, the officers and men of the army lined up closely together to cooperate with each other and cover each other. After several rounds of artillery fire, some people were killed, others were scared away, and the formation was chaotic. Then the enemy will line up in a neat formation and press up step by step with bayonets, which will scare away a group of people again. This is a matter of human nature. Your comrades-in-arms die and run, and the enemy is pressing up. If you don't run, it's hard. It's not an order of magnitude of pressure to tap the keyboard with your mobile phone.

　　When the two sides enter the range of muskets and bows and arrows, usually the Qing army has already begun to rout, and the gap on the guns is too big. At that time, the two armies were against each other, and the use of bows and arrows also depended on intensive personnel, and everyone shot together. Cann't carry the shelling, people run away, and the effect of bows and arrows will be greatly reduced. By this stage, the British troops were firing guns in dense formation, and the Qing army was still insisting on scattered personnel to fight back, whether with guns or bows and arrows, or suffering.

　　Open three rows of guns, the British take advantage, and the Qing army will fall and run again. Finally, the British army remained in formation and attacked with bayonets. Many people don't want to mention this paragraph, which affects the image of Chinese martial arts. But there is absolutely no need: if there is a problem, solve it. Covering up will only make the problem worse. At the stage of hand-to-hand combat, the British army kept its formation, with ten men in a row and bayonets moving forward. At this time, the formation of the Qing army was scattered and only individuals could spread out to fight. Ten people stab you with a knife, and you stab ten people with a knife. What effect can be imagined. A hundred scattered people can't beat ten people lined up. One hundred people scattered and rushed up intermittently, and all of them had to die in the hands of ten people who were always in line.

　　When Qi Jiguang fought the enemy, very few people died, and a large number of them were killed. The reason is the same. The enemy fought sporadically, and the Qigujun fought in small formations. Ten men waited on one, and one by one, which was a massacre.

　　The Qing army fought the British army, but it was disrupted and scattered by artillery in the early stage. The biggest casualties were caused by hand-to-hand combat in the later stage. The proportion of shooting and shooting arrows in the middle is very small. In the whole war, guns and bows and arrows are only extremely secondary factors, so making an issue of them does not solve the problem. In the final analysis, the Qing army lost on guns, then suffered losses on muskets, bows and arrows, and finally was slaughtered on bayonets. Moreover, when fighting, it depends on strategy and temperature. The British army has an absolute advantage in guns. He can keep bombing until he sees you collapse, and his infantry will attack again.

　　Now it's the end of 2021, there's no need to cry, shout and scold for these things, and it's meaningless how the Qing Dynasty was. If there is a problem, solve it. At the beginning, it was not too big for the Qing army to defeat the British army. The British army had played this game all over the world, but the Qing army couldn't beat it, nor could the French army and the Russian army, and the American army, the German army and the Japanese army were also in vain. Nothing can make up for the industrial gap. The tricks you want, such as clearing the field, attacking melee at night, and attacking by fire, are all soldiers of the whole people ... The Qing army and the Qing government have already finished thinking for you: it doesn't work.

　　If the Qing army was well trained, could it shoot the British army with bows and arrows during the Opium War? I'm afraid it still makes no difference. The Qing army may run away after a few rows of guns from the British army.

　　In the Opium War, the British army was widely equipped with the old Browne Bess rifle, which was developed in 1722, and its general range was about 200 meters. The compound bow mainly equipped by the Qing army generally has a range of about 100,200 meters, and the ranges of both sides are basically the same, but if the loading speed is concerned, an experienced fusilier can't compete with an experienced archer.

　　But the difference lies in the lethality of flintlock and bow and arrow.

　　In the era of muzzle loading with black powder, such as matchlock and flintlock, the lethality of even the most common spherical lead bullet has been proved to be very easy to penetrate various kinds of armor, such as plate armor, pierced armor and chain mail, which also contributed to the disappearance of armor in the long river of history.

　　Even in China, under the threat of firearms, the traditional armor has gradually been replaced by the new cotton armor.

　　The reason why the bullet can produce such a great lethality lies in that the lead bullet is deformed after being squeezed by a straight bar in the filling process, and the inflation gas generated by gunpowder gas gives the bullet a high initial velocity, so the bullet often forms a large cavity after hitting the human body, which causes much more damage to the body than the bow and arrow. Basically, if it hits the trunk, it will eventually die because of blood loss, infection and other reasons, even if it does not die on the spot.

　　Relatively speaking, the lethality of the bow and arrow is dwarfed. Even if the arrow sinks into the human body, it can't form a cavity, but it is quickly wrapped by human tissue, which won't cause massive bleeding or other injuries. Because of nervousness and fear, human hormones secrete adrenaline on the battlefield, which actually won't feel pain, and there are few cases where one arrow kills people. In fact, it's not an exaggeration that some valiant soldiers still have many arrows in their bodies on TV.

　　There is another one, that is, the queue shooting tactics commonly used at that time. Generally, the British soldiers will not fire first, but will wait until they are close to the enemy for about 40 meters before they will line up and shoot at the command of the commander. If Wellington asks, they will close to 20 meters before firing.

　　Even if the well-trained Qing army, watching the comrades around him fall down one by one, watching them bleed profusely, their stomachs smashed and their intestines spilled all over the floor, but their bows and arrows could not effectively kill each other, and the array of the other army was neat, like an avalanche, I am afraid that their hearts would collapse and they could not shoot at the British army at all.

　　Why can only use bows and arrows? Compared with the "Sanyuanli anti-British" people, is it that the "Sanyuanli" people are not "well-trained" and have no weapons such as bows and arrows? How did you defeat the British? And the Qing army still has the long-range strike weapon of "carrying and robbing" and the "red cannon" which was bought with a lot of money. Why not use it to fight against the "Eight-Nation Alliance" and rob and burn the Yuanmingyuan after occupying the capital with less than 30,000 people? Why were there so many unequal treaties in Qing Dynasty? Why did the Song Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty all surrender in the civil war? Compared with the New China War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea and the Sixteen-Nation Allied Forces, can you get well-founded proof that your hypothesis is not valid? The fundamental reason is that the structure of the Chinese nation's organized community is mixed and moving, and the culture with functions is "sealed" by the plague created by Dong Zhongshu's villain, so that it can't be used, right? ……

　　This question is very interesting. Many people may immediately think of the contest between cold weapons and hot weapons in the contest between bow and arrow and musket.

　　For example, in 1939, Polish cavalry brandished sabres and hacked at German armored tanks, even without thinking about winning or losing. No matter how powerful the fighters were, they all ended up in the same way in front of tanks-being crushed into patties.

　　In fact, the gap between bows and arrows and muskets in the mid-19th century is much smaller than that between cavalry and tanks in 1939. Cavalry and tanks are essentially different in that one is a body and the other is steel. Bow and arrow and musket are both weapons held by soldiers, and the effective range is not too different. The effectiveness of weapons depends on accuracy, which has a great relationship with soldiers' usual training.

　　Especially at that time, the musket was still a single-shot gun with a front-mounted sliding chamber, and its firing rate was 2~3 rounds per minute, which had no advantage compared with skilled archers, and it was not even as fast as the bow and arrow. It is said that the arrow part of the bow and arrow can be specially treated, such as adding poison, so that the lethality is no less than that of a bullet, and as long as it is shot, it will be fatal.

　　The Battle of Baliqiao, which took place during the Second Opium War in 1860, was that the Mongolian fighters of the elite Qing army, Sengelinqin, fought against the British and French allied forces, and the Qing army was almost wiped out in the end. There have been scenes of this battle in many TV dramas. It can be seen that the equipment of the British and French Coalition forces is indeed better, such as shrapnel.

　　However, this is not an insurmountable gap. As long as we stick to the trenches, we can offset the enemy's firepower advantage to the greatest extent, and then send "archers" who have the "hundred steps to pierce the Yang" arrow method to wait for the rabbit and "destroy an enemy with one arrow". With the strength of the British and French Coalition forces, it is estimated that they will be wiped out before they reach Beijing.

　　However, the Qing soldiers in film and television dramas are not such tactics, but bravely ride horses and rush to enemy positions with knives. On the contrary, the British and French Coalition forces with weapons superiority stick to them in the solid fortifications built by sandbags in trenches. You can imagine the ending. Nearly 10,000 Qing soldiers were almost wiped out.

　　Even in the Boxer Rebellion era, Shanxi Governor Yuxian organized the Boxer Rebellion to stop Eight-Nation Alliance's fighting, which was also obviously improper in tactics. Of course, the Boxer Rebellion was not good at crossbows, but it can be said that the Boxer Rebellion, which was in an inferior position in equipment, still led to the tragic fate of being eliminated by offensive tactics.

　　Of course, machine guns have been used at this time, and the contest between bows and arrows and machine guns is of little significance.

　　In a word, I want to make it clear that, according to the idea of the subject, it is indeed possible for well-trained Qing soldiers to fight against the British army during the Opium War by relying on bows and arrows if they are combined with correct and flexible tactics.

　　At that time, the Qing army was well-trained, especially the fighting capacity of the Qing army who defended the capital was quite good, and the artillery was not worse than that of the British army. The commander was also battle-hardened. The key was improper use of tactics. If the Qing army ambushed the British army on the side, it could defeat the British army even with bows and arrows. In addition, it used decoy to introduce the British army into the city to fight street battles, and the British artillery basically could not play its role. The Qing army could still defeat the British army with bows and arrows.