So why did you win a partial victory over France? There are mainly the following reasons:
1. has the advantage of favorable weather and geographical location.
Qing has no intention of taking the initiative to attack France and has always been punctual. Compared with France, which took the initiative to attack, Qing naturally had the advantage. Moreover, playing in front of your own house is more familiar with the terrain, which is not available in France. These partial victories mentioned above have all benefited from effective advantages.
2. The Westernization Movement has made some achievements.
The Westernization Movement, which began in A.D. 1860, put forward the slogan of "learning from foreigners to control foreigners" and actively studied advanced western technologies, especially weapons. After more than 20 years of development, some achievements have been made. Although it is still at a disadvantage compared with France, the gap between them is not as big as that during the Second Opium War, and the proportion of muskets has greatly increased. Although some local victories themselves kill more people, war is not death or failure, and war never ends with heroes.
France has lost its courage.
1870 France was defeated in the Franco-Prussian War, and its strength was greatly weakened. Becoming a second-rate power has a certain distance from Germany and Britain, the first-class power at this time, and its international status has plummeted. In order to strengthen its own strength and step up its external expansion, the southeast coast and Vietnam bear the brunt. They want to drive the Qing army out of Vietnam, ignore the Qing dynasty and rush to wage war. Failure is inevitable. Even some failed wars, such as the Mawei naval battle, were caused by the command mistakes of the Qing Dynasty. If we had made full preparations, we wouldn't have suffered a fiasco.
In addition, the proper command of the Qing generals and the heroic fighting of soldiers in the war were also the reasons for some partial victories. However, as we all know, the final result of the Sino-French war was that the Qing Dynasty was unbeaten, defeated and France won. The Qing Dynasty forces withdrew from Vietnam, the relationship with Vietnam ended, and Vietnam gradually became a French colony.