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Capture the evil

Just when Zhao Gang successfully brought Yung Wing under his command, the Japanese extended their magic hand to Taiwan. As early as early as 1895, Japan wanted to get involved in Taiwan, and at that time they organized troops to accept it. Who knew that human calculations were not as good as God's calculations. The Russians almost killed the Japanese with a knife behind the scenes. After that, the wars continued, and they still couldn't breathe.

Originally, when Japan faced the Northeast, the two strong enemies of Russia were a little difficult, and there was no hope for Taiwan. Unexpectedly, the Northeast and the Russians fought again. The Russians were defeated by the Northeast Army, and the strength of the Northeast Army was greatly damaged. Then the Northeast Republic rushed straight to fight against the Qing army. Judging from the results of the battle, after losing a large number of elite troops, the Northeast Army's combat effectiveness decreased. More than 100,000 people against tens of thousands of people, they actually lost their troops and suffered heavy casualties before they fought. This reassured the Japanese.

The Russians' overestimated provocation not only did not cause harm to Japan, but on the contrary, Japan obtained millions of square kilometers of East Siberia and hundreds of thousands of Russian slaves, uprooted the Russians' power that they had worked hard for hundreds of years. Considering the influence of the severe cold and supplies, it would probably take decades to restore their previous strength to the polar bear.

The impact of this victory was not only the improvement of national honors. The European and American powers, who were originally unwilling to provide loans, have now changed their attitudes. France even proposed that France contributed its capital and Japan contributed its manpower and material resources to jointly develop East and West Siberia. The first loan of 3 francs has been officially issued, but this is enough to make up for the losses of the war.

What happened next made the Japanese completely relieved. The north and the south fought fiercely in Wuhan. Although the north was stronger than the south, its expansion was too violent and its relatively prosperous economy, the north had no more energy to take care of the rest. Once the north defeated the south, or the north and the south had a peace talk, it would become impossible for Japan to take over Taiwan. Under the influence of this understanding, the Japanese finally decided to formally send troops to Taiwan on December 3, 1896.

The Republic of Taiwan is a historical miracle, unlike Taiwan today. At that time, the purpose of the establishment of the Republic of Taiwan was to preserve the treasure island of China, but beautiful wishes may not necessarily be able to contact with beautiful fruits.

After taking office as "President", Tang Jing sent his wife's luggage back to the mainland, and also remitted 400,000 taels of silver to Shanghai for the first time. He then raised the silver several times. He lied that he ordered arms, but most of the silver was unknown afterwards. In Tang Jing's words, they had already "passed in the camera".

At the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the "Democratic Republic of Taiwan" wanted to rent Taiwan's mines, land and other rights in exchange for the protection of Taiwan by the great powers. The idea was too naive. Even if the Japanese occupied Taiwan, they would not dare to harm the original interests of the great powers. Then how could the great powers break up with the Japanese for these interests? If the great powers cannot occupy Taiwan in the future, this move would drive away wolves and lead to endless troubles.

What is even more infuriating is that after selling these mines at a low price, most of the money they earned disappeared without a trace. Tang Jing was the most suspected here, and it also seriously affected the morale of the Republic of Taiwan.

If we start from reality, there are still many difficulties in the entire island of Taiwan at that time: first of all, the military's factions are complex, including the Hunan Army, Huai Army, Guangyong, Chaoyong, Black Flag Army, Local Brave, and local Braves, as well as the local bandits who are recruited from local bandits, which are really diverse and do not belong to the rule of each other. In terms of discipline, it is even more worrying.

In addition, there were many conflicts between the various armies, between the military and civilians, and between officers and soldiers, and armed fighting occurred from time to time. Secondly, Tang Jing refused to send extra effort to reject Liu Yongfu, allowing the famous general who was frightened by the French soldiers to guard the irrelevant Tainan, and the rogues who made a living by gambling and robbers, the so-called "heroine" Wu Guohua, led his troops to guard the important places. This person was once commissioned by Tang Jing to recruit soldiers and brave soldiers and took away a large amount of military pay, but only brought back more than a dozen camps to scattered soldiers and brave soldiers.

Although he started to have a strife. Liu Yongfu was originally very good at fighting, but because of Tang Jing's suspicion, he was squeezed to Tainan. Another famous anti-French general, Lin Chaodong, was also transferred to Taichung by Tang Jing because of his disagreement with Admiral Zhang Zhaolian. The Great Wall really destroyed itself, and the ancients' words were correct at all on the United Nations of Taiwan.

Especially when the Japanese army had not invaded Taiwan for nearly two years, this internal struggle reached a peak. Liu Yongfu was transferred to Taichung and stationed with Lin Chaodong. His military pay was half less than that of the direct troops, but even such a small amount of military pay could not be paid on time. The brave and warlike Black Flag Army ran away because of this.

It was not until mid-1896 that for some reason, the flag army secretly paid double wages, which stabilized the people's hearts. Later, Lin Chaodong saw that Liu Yongfu had a solution, so he simply defected to Liu Yongfu, and took a portion of the deputy commander's salary and lived a leisurely life comfortably.

Every few days since then, hundreds of people come to join the Black Flag Army. Lin Chaodong has seen it occasionally a few times and was shocked.

It was murderous, but his every move was neat. It was actually a first-class main force wherever he was placed. It was actually a disguised civilians to surrender to the super miscellaneous army, which was really strange.

Lin Chaodong asked Liu Yongfu several times, but Liu Yongfu didn't say anything. Lin Chaodong asked anxiously and said something to leave. Liu Yongfu had no choice but to point to the northeast. Lin Chaodong then understood. He knew that he was well treated there, so he devoted himself to help Liu Yongfu train troops. The Black Flag Army, which originally had only 18 (Lin Chaodong's 10th Battalion, Liu Yongfu 8th) had expanded to the 36th Battalion before the war, and its strength was much higher than Tang Jing's 24 battalions.

Tang Jing was unaware of these. He was originally a Jinshi in the fourth year of Tongzhi. In the eighth year of Guangxu (1882), French colonialists sent mercenaries to invade Vietnam. The ultimate goal was to use Vietnam as a springboard to attempt to invade China. Both the Qing Dynasty and the government and the country were shocked.

On July 29 of this year, Tang Jing, who was 41 years old, resolutely wrote a letter to Emperor Guangxu, proposing that in order to "suke the vassal states", he would "voluntarily" leave Zhennan Pass to fight the arrogant French invading army.

After Tang Jing left Beijing, he first went to Guangdong to visit Zeng Guo, who was then the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi. Zeng Guo was quite cold to Tang Jing. The "Draft History of Qing Dynasty" only briefly recorded as "the introduction of his investment in Yue", which was probably because he once thought that Tang's volunteering to enter Yue was a sensationalist but disapproving. The next year (1883), Tang Jing went to Yunnan and met Cen Ying, the then governor of Yunnan in Kunming. He was sent by Cen to Baosheng at the junction of China and Vietnam, and worked with Liu Yongfu, the leader of the Black Flag Army at that time.

When Tang Jingchu met Liu Yongfu, he proposed to Liu three strategies to resist the law and resist the aggression. The best strategy was to use Baosheng and other ten Vietnamese prefectures as bases to expand to other places; the middle strategy was to attack Hanoi in the entire Black Flag Army to fight for military pay supported by China; the worst strategy was to stay on guard Baosheng and wait for the opportunity.

Liu Yongfu followed Tang Jing's opinions very much and decided to adopt his central strategy. In May of the ninth year of Guangxu (188), Li Weiye, the French naval colonel who had been besieged by the Black Flag Army for a year, led the French army out of the city to counterattack. Before the war, Tang Jing wrote a manifesto to boost morale, listing the various atrocities since the French invasion of Vietnam, declaring that the Black Flag Army aided Vietnam and resisting France was a just move by Yingtian to keep pace with the Black Flag Army. He called on the Vietnamese people to fight side by side with the Black Flag Army. The manifesto was written in righteous and stern and singular, which greatly encouraged the fighting spirit of the Chinese and Vietnamese soldiers and civilians to win.

During the battle, Liu Yongfu set up an ambush at the Paper Bridge west of Hanoi, defeated the French army, killed Li Weiye and his deputy Lu Mei, and won an unprecedented victory. After the war, Liu Yongfu was appointed as the deputy admiral of the Three Borders for his merits, in charge of the three provinces of Xuan Guang, Xinghua and Shanxi in Vietnam, and was responsible for crossing the two sides of the Ningfuliang River. Tang Jing was also awarded the fourth-rank official title by the Qing court for his merits.

In October of the tenth year of the Guangxu period (1884), Tang Jing brought the army of Jingzi and Cen Yuying to his army, Pan Deji, and entered the Sanjiangkou, the gateway of Hanoi. In November, the French army attacked Liu Yongfu, Wu Fengdian's troops, and Tang Jing led his subordinates Tan Jingde and others to rescue. The "Jingzi Army" fought side by side with the Black Flag Army, besieging the French army in Xuanguang City for April. The French army was panicked and unable to stay all day long. At this time, the French army was even more volatile and the dangerous city was difficult to defend. Seeing that the victory of the people of China and Vietnam in fighting against the French invading army was about to be successful, the corrupt Qing government actually compromised the armistice with the French army on February 22, 1885, the Gregorian calendar (April 1885), thus creating a strange example in the history of war: China actually won but lost; France really won but lost.

After the Sino-French War, Tang Jing was transferred back to the country and was promoted to the second rank for merit. He was given a flower feather and was given the title of Huojiachun Batulu, in charge of the demarcation of Sino-Vietnam borders. In October of the same year, he was transferred to Taiwan to hold a relatively high-level official position. From then on, Tang Jing embarked on a journey that was completely opposite to his previous life path.

In the 13th year of the Guangxu period (1887), Tang Jing officially joined Taiwan as a member of the Taiwan Daoist in Fujian, and replaced his predecessor Shao You. With the strong praise and movement of his master Zhang Zhidong, he had a prosperous official career and became one of the few vassal officials in the Qing government with real local power.

In addition to him, his old acquaintance Liu Yongfu was also transferred from the original position of the General of the South Ao to the General of Taiwan to assist in Taiwan's military affairs. However, because the Tang and Liu and the other two had been incoherent since they worked together on the Sino-Vietnam border, Tang Jing took advantage of the power to exclude Liu Yongfu to Tainan.

However, the smooth career became dark after the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895. What future can a country have? Tang Jing, who had no future, began to go further and further in his money. On December 3, the day when Japan announced its troops to Taiwan, Tang Jing accepted a huge sum of money from the Japanese Bank of China. He was as anxious as a dog who was stranded. He took his concubine to the US Taxation Department in Taiwan for asylum and requested protection, and was able to flee to Xiamen on the German ship "Ada".
Chapter completed!