Chapter 208: Determination (Part 1)

A personal suggestion—this is a polite way of putting it; bluntly, it means Liu Yu wants to make unilateral decisions!
But everyone just smiles inwardly—they know they only have the right to speak, not the power to decide. Moreover, the victories over the past month have given them great courage and confidence.
The more they learned about the Qing army, the more confident they became in their own victory. Especially those who were well-informed about the Qing army, like Pan Dingxin, were utterly confident: “Let the commander make the final decision!”
Liu Yu, however, smiled and said, “We can’t rely on one person’s decision. Let’s first examine the strength of the surrounding enemy forces.”
On a large-scale map, several enemy forces that the Black Flag Army might encounter soon were marked—this was also the source of the generals’ confidence.
For in terms of quality and even quantity, the Black Flag Army had an advantage.
With 24,000 core soldiers and 15,000 semi-combatant irregular troops, they controlled an entire province—a military venture that would be considered extravagant in any dynasty, but not so much in the Qing Dynasty. Such a deployment could truly be described as luxurious.
The root of all problems in late Qing lay in the military, which rendered any possibility of reform impossible.
Late Qing’s fiscal revenue, including taxes and customs duties, amounted to about 70–80 million taels per year. Of this, around 6–7 million taels had to be set aside as debts. Approximately 80% of the fiscal revenue, or around 60 million taels, was spent on maintaining the military, with only 20% left for the extravagant needs of Manchu and Han elites. Thus, any possibility of reform was out of the question.
Of the 60 million taels spent on the military, nearly half was consumed by the ineffective Eight Banners and Green Standard Army troops. The Eight Banners troops outside the capital numbered about 300,000, costing over 10 million taels per year.
The Green Standard Army had 644,000 troops, requiring 9.96 million taels in annual pay. However, the actual number of troops was less than the quota, with only around 400,000 effective troops. Theoretical pay for these troops should have been around 5–6 million taels, but in reality, it exceeded this amount: “The Green Standard Army remains useless, still costing 14–15 million taels per year.”
The existence of these two ineffective military forces wasted half of the military expenditure. As for the combat-effective provincial troops, according to records from the Ministry of Revenue, there were over 540,000 such troops, requiring about 34 million taels in annual pay.
But everyone knew that many of these 540,000 troops were fictitious. Combat-effective forces like the Huai Army and Yi Army numbered no more than 200,000, and even among those, only a small fraction were truly useful. When distributed across provinces, their numbers were even more meager.
Take Guangdong as an example: in 1878, it had only 9,000 land and naval troops. Apart from the Fang Yaochao unit, which was “fierce and unafraid of artillery fire,” the rest were “mostly old local militia.” By 1883, when Zhang Shusheng returned as governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, he noted that there were only over 6,000 trained troops in the province. “With such a large province, it’s impossible to find a fully trained army to defend against enemies,” he lamented. He even expressed surprise that Guangdong generals didn’t know how to use modern weapons.

This could still be considered a brave battalion of high combat capability. As for the Guangdong Green Banners and the Eight Banners, they were nothing but a waste of military funds. Zhang Shusheng had no choice but to transfer five battalions of his own Wu Yi Right Army from Wusongkou. Later, when Peng Yulin took charge of military affairs, he also brought in 4,000 soldiers from Hunan who were skilled in using foreign guns and cannons, along with the Yi Army battalions.

These 6,500 troops could be regarded as the biggest threat to the Hei Qi Army’s campaigns. In addition, after Zhang Zhidong became the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, he also transferred the best equipment from various front and rear-loading foreign guns of the Shanxi defense battalions during his tenure as governor of Shanxi to equip the Guangdong brave battalions.

In history, Zhang Zhidong showed his tendency to start strong but end weak. As soon as the Sino-French War ended, he reduced the five combat-effective battalions of the Wu Yi Right Army to one battalion and incorporated it into his Guang Sheng Army of five battalions. But in this timeline, although the Guang Sheng Army was formed, the combat-effective Wu Yi Army remained intact.

Regardless, troops like the Wu Yi Right Army and Peng Yulin’s Hunan Army were only comparable to new units expanded from the core forces of the Hei Qi Army. There were only slightly over 6,000 such troops in the entire province. As for third-rate units like the Guang Sheng Army and Chao Yong, they were only on par with the miscellaneous troops recruited by Pan Dingxin, numbering only 7,000 to 8,000. As for the remaining troops, they could be described as insignificant.

In Hunan, the weapons of the existing brave battalions were outdated, and “the local people were not yet accustomed to using them; the front-loading guns they used kept breaking down despite repeated repairs.” Only the Suigong Army brought in by the new governor had better equipment, consisting of 11 cavalry and infantry artillery units with nearly 5,000 troops. During the war against the Nian rebels in Hubei, there were 600,000 to 700,000 troops in land and river forces. By 1872, however, only 11 infantry battalions with 7,900 troops remained, along with 240 large and small gunboats totaling 3,700 troops. More were later disbanded, and it wasn’t until the outbreak of the Sino-French War that more than ten new battalions were hastily recruited. But “Hubei’s Green Banners still used traditional guns,” with Hubei’s brave battalions being slightly more advanced, mostly using front-loading guns with only a few rear-loading guns.

The Qing troops in other neighboring regions were even less noteworthy. In Jiangxi, there were hardly any brave battalions, only some Green Banners and Eight Banners forces barely maintaining order. In such an important region as Anhui, Guo Baochang’s Zhuo Sheng Army once had 17 cavalry and infantry battalions totaling 7,000 troops, but now there were only 2,000, with each battalion having only 125 rear-loading guns; the rest relied on mountain-cracking cannons and swords and spears.

In other words, no matter which direction the Hei Qi Army attacked, they would have a numerical advantage on the battlefield. Not to mention their advantages in quality and weapons, they could crush a large force of the Qing army before the Qing forces could react.

Liu Yu’s confidence was based on this very foundation: “In the past, when Genghis Khan was conquering the Central Plains, he once said to Mu Huali, ‘North of the Taihang Mountains, I will handle it myself; south of the Taihang Mountains, you should do your best.’ These were bold words. Today, though I am not talented enough, I also want to follow in their footsteps…”

He said solemnly, “I will handle the large rivers in Hunan and Hubei myself. As for the southern provinces of Guangdong and Fujian, it depends on the generals here… My Hei Qi Army will use four brigades to attack the eastern provinces, while I, Liu Yu, will use four large infantry battalions as the core force to cross the river northward…”

“Four battalions?” Pan Dingxin gasped. “Won’t you bring more troops?”

Liu Yu said calmly, “That’s enough! With the newly arrived Maxim machine guns, six per battalion and twelve for the direct command, that’s thirty-six machine guns. Add twenty rapid-fire guns, along with the full complement of officers from both regiments—enough to cross the Yangtze River at full speed!”
Liu Suiyun interjected, “It’s still just a large camp with four infantry companies, plus the machine gun company—only twenty combat units in total…”
Liu Yu smiled and said, “The direct command has three machine gun companies and six artillery companies. Add the cavalry, supply, and engineering companies, and there are already thirty-two units in total!”
“With thirty-two top-notch units at hand, what’s there to fear?” Liu Yu declared firmly. “That Wu Dacheng is nothing but a gnat trying to stop a train!”