The Battle of Ili Tacheng: The Ultimate Confrontation between Qing Dynasty and Russia

The Battle of Ili Tacheng: The Ultimate Confrontation between Qing Dynasty and Russia

1860, British and French forces captured Beijing, the capital of the Great Qing Dynasty. At the same time, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, which occupied the south of China, ushered in its final heyday under the command of the late famous Li Xiucheng and Chen Yucheng. This year, Li Xiucheng led hundreds of thousands of troops to capture Suzhou and Hangzhou, fertile soil in the south of the Yangtze River, and all the wealth areas of the Qing Empire fell into the hands of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. While the Qing empire was caught in internal troubles and foreign invasion, Russia also began to fish in troubled waters. They successively occupied more than one million square kilometers of land in Outer Manchuria through the Aihui Treaty and the Beijing Treaty.

Russian soldiers won the fertile land of Outer Manchuria without bloodshed, which further stimulated their aggressive ambitions. Soon after, they extended their tentacles to Xinjiang. 1862 In March, about 30,000 Russian troops (the main force of which is the elite Cossack cavalry of the Russian army) were divided into four roads and launched an all-round attack in the west and north of Yili. The commander of the Russian army is Kolpakovski, Governor of Western Siberia. At that time, although the British and French allied forces withdrew from Beijing, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom still contained the main force of the Qing army in the south.

The northern part of China was controlled by the mobile Nien Army, and the main force of the Qing army was mostly confined to various counter-insurgency battlefields in the mainland. Moreover, the equipment of the Qing army in Xinjiang is backward (only equipped with old-fashioned firearms such as shotgun and old gun), and the training is useless, far from being comparable to the Xiang army and Huai army at this time. In the face of Russia's massive invasion, the soldiers of the Qing army guarding the border stubbornly resisted and fought bloody battles. They were poorly equipped and persisted in fighting despite the disparity in numbers. For example, on June 22, Liang Wen, commander of Erguo Zhulekalun (near Almaty, Kazakhstan), led his troops to bravely resist the Russian attack, killing and injuring dozens of Russian soldiers and repelling the Russian attack. On June 28th, more than 4,000 Russian Cossack cavalry attacked Ektokalen in Tarbahatai area (now Tacheng area). There were only 600 officers and men of the Karen Qing army guarding Yangji, but they relied on fortifications and resisted tenaciously. As a result, Russian troops suffered heavy casualties in Ektokalen. Finally, it took 1 month to lay the small town with heavy artillery bombardment.

10 year 10 On October 20th, Russian troops invaded Kalun, Chyi Chin, which is now the Ili River area. Shao Guang, commander of the garrison, commanded the Qing army to kill 43 Russian soldiers and save Karen. In late July, General Ili Changqing, the highest military and political chief of the Qing army in Xinjiang, led more than 5,000 cavalry from Xibe Camp and Suolun Camp to Horgos Zhule to face the Russian army. In this battle, the Qing army lost-the Russian army has been equipped with rifles and advanced field guns, and the Qing army is still a traditional weapon such as a matchlock gun and a mountain gun. After the war, the Qing court mobilized about 20,000 Mongolian cavalry from the outer Mongolia Zhuolike Tuha and Turhut departments to support Xinjiang, in addition to Chahar and Salar soldiers, with a total strength of more than 40,000. At the same time, Prince Gong? A batch of foreign guns were also transported to Xinjiang, which improved the weapons and equipment of the local Qing army and enhanced the combat effectiveness of the Qing army.

1February 864, Russia once again launched a large-scale attack on Xinjiang. This time, the Russian army launched a pincer attack on the Qing army from the north and south. On the northern line, the Russian army will focus on Tacheng. Lin, an expert of the Qing army, led 6000 people to defend themselves tenaciously until the armistice.

It is precisely because of Xilin's insistence that today's Tacheng is still within the territory of China. On the southern line, the Russian army focused on Ili. Barry Kun, the leader of the Qing army, led more than 10 thousand troops to resist. The two sides fought fiercely for more than a month, and the Russian army made unfavorable progress. Willy Rifkin, commander-in-chief of the Russian army, led his troops to outflank the Qing army. Unexpectedly, Nargi lured the enemy deep, set an ambush in Tielek and Maihe, and annihilated more than 400 Russian troops, which seriously hit the morale of the Russian army. On May 1 1, the new Ili general Xu Ming led 30,000 Qing troops to engage the Russian army in Langankou, which failed to achieve the campaign goal, but it also dealt a heavy blow to the Russian army and curbed its offensive. After that, the two sides began a long confrontation and negotiation.

Just when the Qing army confronted the Russian army in front, the rebellion behind the Qing army disrupted the deployment of the front line. 1July, 864 16, Russian ambassador to the Great Qing Dynasty ignatieff appealed to Prince Gong again. The requirements for demarcation negotiations were put forward.

In the end, the northwest border between Qing and Russia was actually divided according to the ceasefire front of the Qing and Russian armies at that time, that is, "Sino-Russian reconnaissance of the northwest border." Through this treaty, Russia once again seized 440,000 square kilometers of territory outside the northwest.

Later, Russia took advantage of the Agubai rebellion to tear up the newly signed treaty and sent troops to occupy the entire Ili Valley. Until 188 1, Zuo, backed by the elite Qing army, went out to recover the Ili River Valley and snatch food from the Russians, but China finally lost its vast and rich outer northwest. 1862-1864 The Qing-Russian War was the largest war between the Qing Empire and the Russian Empire since the Sino-Japanese War in the Kangxi period. The two sides invested nearly 654.38 million people and launched a two-year war at the northern foot of Tianshan Mountain. Because the main battlefield is in Ili and Tacheng, it is called the Battle of Ita.