Chapter 112: Reinforcing Troops

This was just the beginning; the real action was yet to come.
The enemy troops inside the fortress, whether alive or still breathing, were nailed to its walls. The dead were fine, but several captives who were still alive moaned on those walls for two whole hours before finally dying.
For the hundreds of enemy troops huddled inside the concession, this was nothing short of torture. Yet Captain Bissel strictly ordered, “Do not fire a single shot without my command. Let us remember this day.”
He had no tears, but his heart bled.
On the high walls of the fortress were also his good friends, who could only watch as they slowly died while he was powerless to do anything.
It was a helpless situation, but it was only then that everyone realized the terrifying strength of the Black Flag Army. The corpses hanging on the walls and the breached fortress told them—the enemy was extremely powerful and fearsome.
Some officers had initially planned to take advantage of the Black Flag Army’s retreat and launch a pursuit with naval support, but they abandoned that idea—it would be like throwing meat to dogs.
The corpses remained hanging there until the next afternoon, when another 200 reinforcements arrived from Haiphong. Only then did the French have the courage to retrieve them, though they still dared not leave the concession.
The enemy was a formidable force capable of defeating 160 native infantrymen and a French platoon in half an hour. Such a powerful opponent demanded utmost caution.
The Black Flag Army’s retreat suffered no interference. In fact, thousands of Hanoi citizens, who had assisted the Black Flag Army during the siege or whose homes were burned by the French, voluntarily followed them in retreat. Many of them wished to join the Black Flag Army as soldiers.
After the capture of the Nguyen fortress, all hostile forces temporarily abandoned their hostile intentions. Even the Catholic villages adopted a conciliatory attitude for now.
The transport of troops from the Xiliu Camp and the Black Flag Army continued day and night, removing every important strategic resource from this prosperous city. As Liu Qing said, “Even a hundred French soldiers couldn’t survive in this city without water transportation.”
The French in Hanoi only began their expansion efforts after confirming the Black Flag Army’s temporary retreat. Lacking sufficient labor and supplies, they were forced to use native infantry to repair fortifications, still sticking to a strategy of staying entrenched.
Captain Bissel looked at the ruined city. The scars of this war would likely remain there for decades. He turned to the lieutenant colonel arriving from Haiphong and saluted, “Lieutenant Colonel, I hand over command of the Hanoi region to you!”
It was a difficult task. A faint bitter smile appeared on the lieutenant colonel’s lips. “The French Navy thanks you for your outstanding contributions.”
He knew the immense responsibilities awaiting him—he had taken over a mess.
The original French garrison in Hanoi and a significant portion of the reinforcements were completely defeated in this battle. All these forces needed to be rebuilt, especially the French troops, which required reinforcements and weapons sent directly from France.

The indigenous forces suffered even greater losses—they not only lost troops and equipment but also had their morale crushed by the relentless attacks from the Xiliu Camp. Yet, they were essential for conquering the Tokyo region. Over the years, he had held onto the belief that just 3,000 troops would be enough to conquer this prosperous region with millions of people, but reality showed him how utterly wrong that was. Including the forces dispatched by Li Weiyeh and the irregular troops, the total number of French troops deployed in Hanoi exceeded 3,000. Yet in the face of the Black Flag Army’s attacks, they could do nothing but take defensive actions. Their opponent, the Black Flag Army, was a formidable enemy. To deal with such an enemy, he made a revision: “We need to send 3,000 French infantry from the homeland to fight. In addition, we need to recruit more indigenous troops, at least 3,000.” But would adding 6,000 soldiers along with inland naval vessels be enough to defeat the Black Flag Army and conquer the Tokyo region? The lieutenant colonel shook his head. Yet some believed it—France’s parliament erupted in thunderous applause for Prime Minister Ferri’s proposal. “We have no intention of starting a war. It was the evil Black Flag Army that first attacked our troops. Colonel Li Weiyeh died tragically, and many officers and soldiers were killed. The colonial cause needs support!” Due to limited communication, the battle situation in Hanoi could not be transmitted to France in real time, so the parliamentarians still had the oldest information available. It was May 25, 1883. On May 16, the parliament passed a resolution to send troops to the Tokyo region. They hoped that Li Weiyeh would maintain proactive and steady operations until reinforcements arrived to completely resolve the Tokyo issue. But it turned out that Colonel Li Weiyeh was not as wise as they had imagined. Yet for the prime minister and the members of the ruling party, this was the perfect excuse. They stood up and shouted loudly, “Our soldiers need reinforcements! We need more military funding!” Li Weiyeh was just an excuse. No matter what kind of attacks Li Weiyeh faced, or even without any attacks, there would always be an excuse to start a war. The only surprise was that Li Weiyeh was too hasty. He should have waited until reinforcements arrived in the Tokyo region before taking action, leaving him in a passive position—according to the ruling party and the prime minister, Li Weiyeh could act conveniently once the reinforcements arrived. But this was merely passivity. The parliament was filled with anger, and the lawmakers cried out, “For France, we need Napoleon!” Prime Minister Ferri knew that his campaign in Vietnam had taken the most important step. A radical lawmaker changed his previous views, and he loudly accused his fellow lawmakers, “We must reinforce our troops in Annam. We have sacrificed countless lives and money to reach this point. Vietnam must be firmly under French control.” His face turned red, but Prime Minister Ferri was well aware that this radical lawmaker seemed to be getting close to the Oriental Bank of Commerce, which supported the war in Annam.

The radicals opposed the colonial war and advocated revenge against Germany, while the moderates held the opposite view—this was the politics of the Second French Republic. But now even radical MPs agreed to join the war, which was the best news possible for Prime Minister Fery. With his eyes narrowed, Fery continued to read out his proposals loudly: “We need to send more troops to Vietnam; we need more military funding—for France!” A resolution to send troops to Vietnam had already been passed on May 16, but due to political struggles, the final number of troops increased from 2,000 to 1,700. Fery clearly remembered that “conquering the Tonkin region required 3,000 or 3,500 soldiers.” This was the optimistic view, but Fery also knew that there were already a considerable number of French troops in Tonkin, and the Indochina colony could send reinforcements there easily. “I hope to add a few battalions to the forces in Tonkin. Even if we can’t send French troops, we can send Algerian troops and the Foreign Legion.” Among all French forces, the Algerian native infantry and the Foreign Legion were special. The Foreign Legion had performed incredibly well in Mexico, while the Algerian native infantry could be considered the best among native infantry units. Any colonial native force, including what Lévy considered to be the strong Annamese native infantry, was far inferior to the Algerian native infantry. Their strength and bravery even surpassed those of some French troops, allowing them to play a significant role in the colonial wars. “More troops! More troops!” the MPs responded to the prime minister’s request with shouts: “Destroy the Black Flag bandits!” They believed that 3,000 French troops plus 3,000 native troops would be enough to conquer the country. Unlike the optimism in Paris, Saigon was in a state of terror. Governor Chinh never imagined that the Black Flag forces would have such strong combat capabilities. He had thought that a slight push would be enough to bring down this “rotten gate” of the Black Flag forces. But after reading the battle reports from Captain Bissell, Major Mayet, and others, he felt suffocated. The numbers cited in those reports were astonishing: the Black Flag forces had around 100,000 soldiers, at least 50,000 rapid-fire rifles, hundreds of European-made cannons, and hundreds of machine guns—all of which seemed unreal to the governor. According to internal intelligence he received from the Vietnamese government, no more than 3,000 Black Flag soldiers were paid by the Vietnamese government, and their total strength did not exceed 5,000. They were equipped with only a few rapid-fire rifles, no more than 1,000, and they had none of the modern cannons at all. This made the governor think that the enemy forces in Tonkin were exaggerating the situation. But whether it was an exaggeration or not, one thing was clear: the forces in Tonkin had suffered a heavy blow.

Neither Major General Maye nor anyone else reported specific casualty figures. Even after the governor-general sent two telegrams demanding answers, they still claimed, “Hundreds of French soldiers were killed, many were wounded; exact numbers are still being counted, and the indigenous infantry also suffered heavy losses.” The troops stationed in the Tokyo region clearly did not want to calculate these heartbreaking figures, nor could they keep track of them. The French forces in Hanoi were unaware of the number of wounded and dead sent to Haiphong, nor were they informed of the casualties among the river fleet personnel, while the French forces in Haiphong were equally clueless about the numbers of defenders in Hanoi. However, Governor-General Chinh Thanh knew very well that the situation in the Tokyo region might be extremely bad, unimaginably so, as the troops there requested immediate reinforcements of a thousand French troops and a thousand Annamese indigenous troops; otherwise, they considered abandoning one of the two cities, Hanoi or Nam Dinh. Since Governor-General Chinh Thanh had already withdrawn a considerable number of troops, adding another thousand French troops and a thousand indigenous troops would likely threaten the security of the colony. Although local militias could be mobilized to supplement the indigenous forces, any reduction in French troops could only be made by drawing from mainland France. According to Major General Maye’s report, only one company of indigenous infantry remained in Nam Dinh, and the situation in Haiphong was even worse—almost all troops had been withdrawn. If more troops were taken away, Maye would have to stop armored ships and cruisers from sailing and temporarily reorganize their sailors into infantry units for combat. Yet, the reinforcements of a thousand French troops and a thousand Annamese indigenous troops seemed insufficient for the troops in the Tokyo region, who demanded that the 1,700 reinforcements sent by the French not stop in Saigon but go straight to the Tokyo region, rather than diverting some of them to Cochinchina as originally planned. In addition, they requested the direct recruitment of indigenous infantry from the Tokyo region. Considering that Cochinchina also needed reinforcements and equipment, they even asked to purchase arms from Hong Kong to arm the indigenous infantry. For this, the troops in the Tokyo region enthusiastically praised Manager Craig of the Oriental Bank’s Haiphong branch. This manager had provided the troops with substantial loans, and they had even gone to Hong Kong to purchase arms to rebuild their forces. Governor-General Chinh Thanh could not understand any of this and could only estimate the situation in the Tokyo region based on his imagination. Currently, the French forces plus indigenous troops in the Tokyo region numbered at least two thousand soldiers, and conquering the entire region seemed to require only three to three and a half thousand soldiers. But he knew well that once war broke out, all resources had to be committed. He believed in France; he believed France would not fail. The country had six to seven hundred thousand regular troops, with annual military spending reaching nearly 800 million francs—Liu Yu’s frauds had only caused a loss of just 6 million francs for the Oriental Bank. Once France entered war, it would be beyond the power of any Eastern country to resist. It could easily deploy tens of thousands of French troops in the Far East, along with an equal number of colonial troops and foreign legions, plus tens of thousands of soldiers recruited directly from the colonies.

As for the costs of war, amounts ranging from tens of millions to hundreds of millions of francs are entirely possible. With such a powerful army and such enormous military expenses, no Eastern country could match them. But his question was: “How much will the colonies have to sacrifice for this war?”
He hesitated for a moment when someone rang the doorbell.
Governor Qin Chong hurriedly wrote down his reply: “I fully approve of all measures you take to achieve victory in this war. I…”
He still hesitated at the end: “I will temporarily lend you one million francs from the colonial funds, and the Saigon branch of Oriental Bank of Commerce can also offer whatever assistance it can.”
After finishing the reply, he called out loudly, “Come in!”
The door was pushed open, and a Frenchman appeared: “Your Excellency, I bring the most accurate information on the war situation in Hanoi… as well as a way to win this war.”