In China's feudal dynasty for more than two thousand years, there has never been a corruption and incompetence in any dynasty that is comparable to the late Qing Dynasty. In fact, from the beginning to the fall of the Qing Dynasty, most of the true rulers of the Qing Dynasty worked hard to govern. Unfortunately, the inside was already rotten, just like a big tree, with the middle part necrotic, and the roots and branches and leaves could not survive.
In addition to its own internal corruption, external factors are also very important. For example, the invasion of Western powers and the large and small peasant uprisings mainly composed of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom movement, forced this riddled country to withdraw from the stage of history and be replaced by a new regime.
The peasant uprising in the late Qing Dynasty was the most common among all dynasties. In addition to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom movement that was large enough to destroy the empire, the peasant movement broke out in 18 provinces across the country, and the scale was also quite objective. Therefore, even without the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom movement, there will be corresponding peasant uprisings, making it difficult for the Qing government to continue to rule the 40 million Chinese.
If the scale of the previous peasant uprisings was based on the scale of the previous peasant uprisings, Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was enough to replace the Qing government, but the vigorous Taiping Heavenly Kingdom did not actually cause substantial harm to the Qing government. After the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom established its regime in Nanjing, it seemed that it was already satisfied with its current achievements, and it was difficult to go further. Coupled with the Qing government's counterattack and the sublimation of internal contradictions, the prosperous Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was destroyed in the long river of history.
Many people think that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom has the opportunity to establish a new regime, but ultimately the inability to achieve essential progress is because the internal contradictions have not been resolved, resulting in a significant reduction in strength. This is one reason, but it is by no means the fundamental reason that allows the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom to be destroyed. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's growth to decline was actually affected by many factors.
1 Internal conflicts have made the Taiping Army lose its cohesion
The demise of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Internal conflicts are the key. Yang Xiuqing and other places have directly reduced the strength of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. You should know that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom has always been very strong in combat, especially its leadership ability, which is incomparable to the regular army of the Qing Dynasty. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom had a lot of battles, so their practical experience was really rich, and the generals were more particular about military tactics and were fully capable of overthrowing the Qing Dynasty. But if internal contradictions are not resolved, it means that it will automatically split, which gives the Qing government enough time to make strategic adjustments and put the Taiping Army in a passive position.
internal conflicts eventually dispersed their troops. Hong Xiuquan was still too kind and directly let Yang Xiuqing and other troops go, reducing the Taiping Army's strength by hundreds of thousands at once. The Qing soldiers took this opportunity to defeat them one by one, and finally brought the Taiping Army to the road of destruction.
Internal contradictions were the beginning of the Taiping Army's decline from prosperity, and also laid the groundwork for their future failure. Although after that, because of the rise of a group of young generals such as Li Xiucheng , the Taiping Army returned to its brief glory, but in the end, it was just a matter of exhaustion and a return to its full future!
Taiping Army is a group of people of mixed skills and uneven levels. If they are not well united and cohesive, they will basically not have much combat power.
2 The error of strategic thinking is not favorable to the people
In Chinese history, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom movement is different from all peasant movements, and it is very different, mainly reflected in religious beliefs.
Every time the peasant uprising has a banner, opposing tyranny and practicing the way for heaven, attracting more people to join, and making this movement meaningful. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom also has such a slogan. After all, in essence, they are still peasant movements and must represent the wishes of a larger number of workers.
Before the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the peasant movement, including the country's regular army, relied more on the constraints of ethics and morals rather than the constraints of ideological and strategic ideology. The rule of morality in Chinese history has spanned a long time, and it has been very exciting.The so-called ideological education started from the late Qing Dynasty. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom can be said to be the founders. They applied ideological education very well, which made the farmers at the bottom willing to sacrifice their lives and rushed to the forefront, which made the regular army of the Qing Dynasty very troubled.
The ideological education of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom is more religious. Hong Xiuquan also regarded himself as the leader in this movement. In other words, what they want to change is not only the corrupt government today, but also the ideological cognition of China for thousands of years. In other words, the Taoism , Buddhism, Taoist ideology , and Confucian ideology that we have always believed in must be destroyed in this movement, and there will be no trace left.
Although it is understandable to change the mind, after all, in the war years, nothing can be compared with siege. But in other peasant uprisings in history, there is still a certain bottom line while conquering cities and land. Some things are more important than life, so even if you occupy the city and break through government agencies, you cannot do those things. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom doesn't care about these, and the first thing to go to the city is to destroy the ancestral temples and burn ancient monuments. China's traditional culture for thousands of years is facing catastrophic destruction in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom movement. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom burned more calligraphy and paintings, ancient books, etc. than the eight-nation coalition forces in Beijing, which destroyed much more than the eight-nation coalition forces in .
At the beginning, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom burning and killing could have a bit of a deterrent effect, but later it turned into an indignation from the whole country, and even the people of our own could not bear it. Therefore, their intention to change traditional ideas to achieve the path of fooling the people was not working, and failure became an inevitable outcome.
3 The rise of the Hunan Army launched a targeted strike against the Taiping Army
While the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was in chaos, Chinese history entered the Second Opium War period. Faced with internal and external troubles, the Qing government was really troubled at this time. Whether in the face of invading foreign powers or local peasant uprisings, the late Qing government had no advantage. The nation that once conquered the world on horseback and was brave and good at fighting, after more than 200 years of comfort, today's Qing soldiers cannot ride horses or draw bows, let alone fight.
It was after seeing the incompetence of the Qing government that the Western powers drove the warships and cannons directly to their doorsteps. Faced with the bullying of the great powers, the Qing government had no choice but to cede land and seek compensation for compensation.
When facing the attacks between the Western powers and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the Qing government also solved the internal problems first. After all, they knew that what the Western powers wanted was money, and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom wanted to destroy his country. Therefore, we can see that the Qing government had completely different attitudes in the face of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the Western powers. They focused all their energy on suppressing the Taiping Army, so that when the Eight-Nation Alliance entered Beijing, our emperor could only flee in a hurry and then cede land and make compensation for peace.
Opium War , China's military's combat effectiveness was basically zero, and even if they distributed the most advanced weapons at that time, they would not use them. Think about it, the government's regular army could not defeat the farmers with hoes, and still hoped that they could deal with the Western powers with strong ships and powerful guns? Therefore, when the regular army is unreliable, the Hunan Army founded by Zeng Guofan is crucial. Moreover, when Zeng Guofan founded the Hunan Army, he targeted the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. They set the target of attack on quelling civil strife, rather than facing Western powers. If they faced Western powers, the Hunan Army would not have any advantage.
For the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Zeng Guofan trained an army that could win battles, which quelled the civil strife for the Qing government, but this could not stop the demise of the Qing Dynasty.
The Qing Dynasty may have been destined to be dead, or the balloons were not over. When the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom had the opportunity to unify the world, conflicts occurred within them first, and then the Hunan Army rose, allowing the shaky dynasty to continue to survive.
After all, the lean camel is bigger than a horse. Although the Qing government is corrupt, it is the orthodox ruler after all. The king and father in the minds of 40 million people. Even if it is extremely corrupt, it must be maintained with all its strength.
The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom used all its strength as soon as it debuted, and some of it was useless. For those who have accepted Confucianism for thousands of years, it was just a matter of bullying their teachers and destroying their ancestors and digging their ancestral graves. Who can agree to such a thing? Therefore, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, which seems to be invincible and invincible, is actually difficult to go far, because at the beginning, some directions were already wrong. Not taking the interests of the people as the landing point will only be a big dream.
