In 1856, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom successively won great victories in Hubei, Jiangxi, Anhui and other places, breaking through the Qing army's Jiangbei and Jiangnan camps. When morale was at its peak, a major turmoil occurred in Tianjing (Nanjing) city, which changed the fate of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
01
During the Jintian Uprising, Taiping Army leaders were still able to work together in times of trouble, and the relationship was extremely good. "Started from the grassland to form an alliance, they must sleep and eat together, and they share the same flesh and blood; and when they get together in the same room to discuss things, they can make plans when they can, and they are alert. Swift" . Since Tianjing was established as the capital, some leaders have only been arrogant and extravagant, striving for power and gain.
A picture depicting the battle between the Qing Army and the Taiping Army in the late Qing Dynasty
Hong Xiuquan often stayed at home after entering the Tianwang Palace, enjoying a simple and boring imperial life, collecting gold and silver treasures, and never seeing courtiers all day long. He advocated that couples live in separate camps and equality between men and women, but he embraced dozens of concubines.
Dong Wang Yang Xiuqing presides over the overall military and political situation and is keen on personality worship. When he asked the Heavenly Father to descend to earth, Hong Xiuquan would also kneel down and obey orders. Every time he travels, a 36-section dragon lantern is used to clear the way, and there are as many as a thousand people in the honor guard. It is really a red flag waving, gongs and drums are noisy, and it is more lively than the wandering god. Later, Hong Xiuquan even called him "Long Live" in an attempt to monopolize power. .
北王Wei Changhui, on the surface, he was respectful to Yang Xiuqing. As soon as the other party's sedan arrived, he ran forward to greet him and said repeatedly: "If it is not taught by the fourth brother (the fourth son of Heavenly Father) , the younger brother's belly Changnen (dialect, refers to short-sightedness) , "he secretly covets power and has long wanted to unseat Yang Xiuqing."
In September 1856, the Tianjing Incident was about to break out. Wei Changhui followed Hong Xiuquan's secret edict and led three thousand troops to attack the Dongwang Mansion . He cooperated with King Yan Qin Rigang inside and outside to attack and kill Yang Xiuqing and his family. Wing King Shi Dakai, who was on the Wuchang front line, heard about the accident and hurried back to Tianjing. Hong Xiuquan could no longer stop the out-of-control situation and blamed Wei Changhui for everything. Shi and Wei turned against each other.
Shi Dakai only brought a few followers and could not compete with Wei Changhui, so he had to escape from Tianjing overnight. Wei Changhui immediately raised a butcher's knife against Shi Dakai's whole family, and implemented a reign of terror with Qin Rigang, massacring more than 20,000 Yang Xiuqing's cronies, causing panic in Tianjing City.
html In November, Shi Dakai summoned 40,000 of his men in Anqing to cross the river to raise troops to quell the crisis. The arrogant and domineering Wei Changhui had long been unpopular in Tianjing City. He was arrested and executed two days later. His head was sent to Shi Dakai's army. More than 200 members of Wei's party were also killed.
After this incident, only Hong Xiuquan and Shi Dakai remained among the six kings of Shouyi.
Shi Dakai is a rare young leader in the Taiping Army, with outstanding ability and magnanimity. Wei Changhui once killed his whole family, but Shi Dakai did not take the opportunity to retaliate. Instead, after entering the city, he sent people to protect Wei Changhui's father from being implicated. After the Tianjing Incident, everyone recommended Shi Dakai to "handle government affairs" and respectfully called him the "Righteous King" .
There was once a Shi Da who was open in front of Hong Xiuquan, but he did not cherish it. Hong Xiuquan no longer dared to trust outsiders. He had finally ousted Yang Xiuqing and Wei Changhui from power before, but now that Shi Dakai was assisting the government, he still could not rest assured.
Hong Xiuquan made his two unlearned brothers Renfa and Renda kings, taking control of the military and political power. He also asked his brother-in-law Zhong Fangli to preside over the affairs of Tianjing in an attempt to seize Shi Da's military power.
With another internal strife, the next year, Shi Dakai, who was constrained, had to lead tens of thousands of his men to flee Tianjing and never return until the entire army was annihilated in Sichuan in 1863.
A wave of operations was as fierce as a tiger, and Hong Xiuquan became a loner.
After Shi Dakai left Beijing, there was no one in the court and no generals in the country. The important towns outside Tianjing were lost one after another and fell into heavy siege. This cruel war almost ended early.
The power game of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom had to be reshuffled.
02
Under internal and external pressure, Hong Xiuquan cut off the titles of his two brothers, promoted Meng De'en, the founder of the Jintian Uprising, to the chief commander, Li Xiucheng, Chen Yucheng to deputy, and restored the Five Armies during the Jintian Uprising. In the commander-in-chief system, Chen and Li served as the commander-in-chief of the front army and the commander-in-chief of the rear army respectively.
Meng De'en is old and sick, and is only the second in command in name. It is Li Xiucheng and Chen Yucheng who really support the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in the crisis.
Pictures of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom officials drawn by Westerners
Li Xiucheng has been leading troops on the front line. Not long ago, he recruited Nian Army of millions of people, and he is quite prestigious in the Taiping Army; Chen Yucheng is only 20 years old, but he has been on the battlefield for a long time. , was appointed as the head coach of Jiangbei battlefield by Shi Dakai.
They are fellow villagers in Teng County, Guangxi, and they were once fellow townsmen.
As early as September 1851, the Taiping Army passed through Teng County , secretly gathered nearby worshipers, set fire to people's houses, and dragged them to participate in the uprising. Li Xiucheng, also known as and Li Yiwen at that time, was a poor farmer in Xinwang Village. In his own words, "The family was poor and he couldn't escape if he had food." When he saw that the Taiping Army had food, he rebelled.
Chen Yucheng went to the Mongolian College to study when he was young. Later, he dropped out of school because of his poor family and made a living by herding cattle. This is how he met Li Xiucheng, who was older than him. According to historical records, he was handsome and had a black spot under each eye, so he was known as the "four-eyed dog".
They all come from the bottom of society. They usually live a hard life, no one cares about them, and they are most easily incited.
As soon as the Taiping Army entered the village, Chen Yucheng, who was only 14 years old at the time, actively participated. At first, he worked as a valet for the general Luo Outline , and then moved to various places to fight.
After Luo Outline died in battle, Chen Yucheng took over his old department and grew into a fierce general in the Taiping Army.
Chen Yucheng was a natural general. Fang Yurun saw his formations when fighting the Taiping Army. He praised him in his diary:
Chen Yucheng was "young and brave and good at fighting. He led more than 100,000 people to surround Huangmei. More than 100 camps ...Chen Nisu is known as the capable army. Now I can see how he has set up the camp and dispatched the troops. He is quite lawful and true to his words...The bandit camps are all surrounded by red lights like a city, and the rockets are shooting into flowers, reflecting the stars and the moon. It's also a great sight. "
03
Li Xiucheng and Chen Yucheng were ordered to be in danger when the army was defeated.
In 1858, Hunan Army general Li Xubin captured the important military town of Jiujiang. Jiujiang was an important town in the upper reaches of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, straddling Anhui, Hubei, and Jiangxi provinces. The Taiping Army held its ground here for five years.
In the same year, the important town Jiangpu north of Tianjing fell, and Tianjing was besieged and in danger.
In August of that year, Chen and Li summoned the Taiping Army from southern Anhui and northern Anhui to hold a military meeting in Songyang, Anhui.
Young Chen Yucheng personally presided over the battle plan to regain northern Anhui and relieve Tianjing: The armies divided their forces to attack Luzhou, Jiangpu, Pukou and other places to break the Qing army's Jiangbei camp and restore the north gate of Tianjing. Target.
Under the desperate situation, the Taiping Army made a crazy counterattack. Chen Yucheng led the main force to attack frontally. Li Xiucheng's troops took the back road of the Jiangbei Camp. The rest of the Taiping Army also crossed the river to assist one after another, encircling them from all sides. Finally, the Qing army defeated the Jiangbei Camp. They were defeated and more than 10,000 people were wiped out.
After this battle, Tianjing turned its back on danger, and the Qing army had to withdraw from the Jiangbei camp, and the remaining troops were under the unified command of the Jiangnan camp.
The Taiping Army beat the Qing Army to such an extent that the Hunan Army could not stand it anymore.
After the Jiangbei camp was defeated, Li Xubin led his elite troops, which penetrated more than 400 miles into the Taiping Army-occupied area in 32 days. They even defeated Qianshan, Tongcheng, Shucheng and other cities in northern Anhui, approaching Lu. Sanhe Town near the state.
Sanhe is located at the strategic point of water and land. It built dangers along the river and hoarded a large amount of grain and grass to support Tianjing. It was also an important town of the Taiping Army. Hu Linyi, a general of the Qing Dynasty, once said: "This place (Three Rivers) is a water and land route, which is actually the main point of Luzhou. It is stationed with abundant grain and munitions to support Luzhou and Jinling."
November 1858 , Chen Yucheng and Li Xiucheng joined forces again and led the army to rescue Sanhe.
As soon as the battle started, Chen Yucheng's army took the lead and stormed the Hunan Army's camp.
Li Xubin led his army to counterattack, while Chen Yucheng pretended to retreat. Li Xubin didn't know what the plan was and immediately sent troops to pursue him. At that time, the fog was thick and it was difficult to distinguish at close range. The Hunan Army failed to find the Taiping Army, but instead confused itself.
Chen Yucheng took the opportunity to get rid of the Hunan Army, went around behind it, and launched a sneak attack. The Hunan army was in chaos for a while and had to retreat to the main camp. Li Xiucheng saw the opportunity and led his army to outflank them, and the situation was instantly reversed.
Under heavy siege by the Taiping Army, Li Xubin's entire army was wiped out. Although Li Xubin was "a hundred times more courageous, leading the angry horse, and fighting hard", he was unable to do anything, and finally hanged himself to death.
After the Three Rivers War, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom turned danger into safety, and the Hunan Army's vigor was greatly reduced.
How badly the Hunan Army lost in this battle, Zeng Guofan said this in a letter to a friend: After this battle, Xiangxiang, Hunan Province was "recruiting souls everywhere". Comforting, but compared with the sharpness of the past, it is inferior" .
Taiping Heavenly Kingdom situation map
After the victory of Sanhe, the two fellow countrymen Chen Yucheng and Li Xiucheng had a conflict. Li Xiucheng advocated a steady attack to consolidate the existing territory, while Chen Yucheng advocated a counterattack in Hubei and took advantage of the victory to gain another victory.
The Taiping Army rashly advanced westward due to the discord between their commanders. Li Xiucheng was passive and idle, and Chen Yu divided his troops into actions. As a result, they failed at the Erlang River battle on the border of Anhui and Hubei. The Taiping Army's offensive was curbed and they returned to the battlefield again. The state of confrontation with the Qing army along the Yangtze River.
The inevitable internal friction will plunge the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom into a new crisis.
04
In April 1859, Hong Xiuquan's younger brother Hong Rengan traveled a long distance to Tianjing. Hong Rengan was a veteran cadre of the God Worshipers Association. He had been living in Hong Kong for some reason and did not participate in the Jintian Uprising. He did not move north until the Tianjing Incident.
Hong Xiuquan knew that Hong Rengan was doing well in Hong Kong and was well versed in foreign affairs and well-informed. He couldn't help but be overjoyed. Within a month, he promoted him three levels in a row, named him King Qian, and served as the chief military officer of the Central Government. This will make the heroes very dissatisfied.
After the Tianjing Incident, Hong Xiuquan once said in anger that he would never be crowned king in the future, but he broke his promise again. In order to calm the public anger, Hong Xiuquan, at Hong Rengan's suggestion, made Chen Yu the king of England and Meng En the king of Zan, and ordered: "If you don't decide on internal affairs, ask the king of Qian, and if you don't decide on foreign affairs, ask the king of England."
Hong Xiuquan slapped him in the face, but he forgot about another hero, Li Xiucheng.
When Chen Yucheng was crowned king, Li Xiucheng was in an embarrassing situation. The three cities of Chuzhou in Jiangbei, Lai'an, and Tianchang where he was stationed fell one after another.
It rained all night, and Li Zhaoshou, the leader of the Nian Army Li Zhaoshou whom Li Xiucheng had recruited before, also took advantage of the situation and surrendered to the Qing Dynasty . He also deliberately sent it to the old leader in front of the guards sent by Tianjing to monitor Li Xiucheng. A letter of surrender.
In anger, Hong Xiuquan seized Li Xiucheng's mother, wife and children in Tianjing as hostages, blocked the ships on the river, and left Li Xiucheng's army alone in Pukou, across the river from Tianjing.
It was not until he learned that Li Xiucheng was holding on alone and did not surrender that Hong Xiuquan felt relieved and sent someone to deliver a plaque with the words "Eternal Loyalty" written in his own handwriting, conferring Li Xiucheng the title of King of Loyalty.
Later, Hong Xiuquan's relatives were granted the title of king, generals were granted the title of king, and meritorious officials were also granted the title of king. The Taiping kings and lords were everywhere, thousands of them, and officials in a county or township could even have royal titles. It was all chaos. .
Portrait of Li Xiucheng
Li Xiucheng was crowned queen, and she immediately became excited. In 1860, he and Chen Yucheng joined forces again, led the army to sweep across Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and marched to Shanghai, conquering six prefectures and one prefecture including Su, Song, Chang, Jia, and Hu in one fell swoop. When the British and French allied forces invaded China, After the second attack on the Qing army's Jiangnan camp, the Qing army's commander He Chun committed suicide in shame and anger.
At this point, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom got rid of the dilemma of being at a disadvantage since the Tianjing Incident, took advantage of the prosperous land in the south of the Yangtze River, and established Sufu Province and included most of Zhejiang. The of the prefecture and county is of Zhejiang Province.
The conflict between Li Xiucheng and Chen Yucheng also intensified during the victory on the Eastern Battlefield.
When Li Xiucheng captured Suzhou, Chen Yucheng, who was in charge of military affairs in northern Anhui, made a special trip to Suzhou to negotiate with him, saying that he had no place in the south of the Yangtze River and planned to lead troops into Zhejiang. The Jiangnan area was Li Xiucheng's territory, and of course he would not give it up easily.
Chen Yucheng and Li Xiucheng were in a quarrel. Fortunately, Hong Rengan went to Suzhou to mediate in person, so the two did not fight each other. Li Xiucheng made concessions and transferred Danyang in southern Jiangsu to Chen Yucheng.
After that, Chen Yucheng Group guarded Anqing, and Li Xiucheng Group occupied Su and Hangzhou.
Some scholars believe that the relationship between Li Xiucheng, Chen Yucheng and Hong Xiuquan in the late Taiping Rebellion can be said to be "a typical representative of the friction, struggle and cooperation between the central and local power systems" . Especially when Chen and Li join forces, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom reaches a climax. Once the two are at odds, it goes to a trough again.
The Qing army also keenly discovered the inside story of the discord between the generals of the Taiping Army. Li Hongzhang said in a letter to Zeng Guofan: "The kings of Zhong, Shi, Zhang and Qian are all with dogs. Inverse (Chen Yucheng) is different, the outside is afraid of it, but the inside hates it.
05
When a fellow countryman sees a fellow countryman, he shoots him in the back. Not only did Li Xiucheng fail to make peace with Chen Yucheng, he also sided with Chen Yucheng at the critical moment.
In 1861, fell into the Taiping Army's seven-year military stronghold Anqing was surrounded by the Hunan Army, and the situation was urgent.
Anqing City is located on the north bank of the Yangtze River and is under the jurisdiction of Chen Yucheng. It is both the capital of Anhui Province and a military fortress. Anqing overlooks the Yangtze River and guards the west gate of Tianjing. To the east, it can protect the various arteries to Nanjing. To the west, it can serve as a military base for the Taiping Army to march towards the two lakes.
Hong Rengan once said: "If Anqing is safe for a day, Tianjing will be safe for a day."
Chen Yucheng rescued Anqing and thought of a plan to encircle Wei and rescue Zhao. He asked Li Xiucheng, Li Shixian and others to attack Hubei and take Wuhan to the west. , to induce the Hunan army to return to the two lakes. Chen Yucheng's North Route Army advanced rapidly and smoothly. In March, they captured Huangzhou Prefecture and approached Wuchang.
If the Taiping Army had joined forces according to the original plan and took advantage of the empty city defenses, it would be just around the corner to capture Wuchang. However, Li Xiucheng's South Route Army did not arrive until June and let Chen Yucheng go.
On the other side, Zeng Guofan knew that Anqing was "related to the safety of the world", so he did not return to rescue Hubei and continued to cling to Anqing. Chen Yucheng's plan to encircle Wei and save Zhao did not work.
Because Li Xiucheng was late and his rear was in danger, Chen Yucheng left part of his army to defend Huangzhou and led his own army to attack the Hunan army that besieged Anqing, never to return.
Prince Zhong’s Mansion of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, picture source/authorized by Photo Network
When Li Xiucheng recruited troops all the way and led hundreds of thousands of troops, he finally arrived outside Wuchang City, a full two months later than the agreed date. At this time, Chen Yucheng had already sent his troops eastward, and the British consul Jin Zhi'er stationed in Hankou also came to persuade Li Xiucheng not to attack Wuchang.
Li Xiucheng led a large number of people back to Jiangsu and Zhejiang. He controlled millions of people and became the largest local powerful faction in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. However, he ignored the siege of Anqing and only focused on running his own territory. The Zhongwang Mansion he built in Suzhou even It is even more magnificent than the Tianwang Mansion.
06
Chen Yucheng, who withdrew his troops from Hubei, also failed to save Anqing.
In June 1861, when Li Xiucheng first arrived outside Wuchang, the city of Anqing suffered from continuous heavy rains and ran out of ammunition and food. The camp in Jixianguan area in the north of the city was filled with water several feet deep. The defenders in the city starved due to lack of food. Outside the city, Chen Yucheng and other reinforcements were unable to break through the siege army, and the battlefield was littered with corpses.
The Hunan Army led by Zeng Guoquan took this opportunity to attack repeatedly, and finally used explosives to destroy the North Gate city wall, and occupied Anqing in September of that year.
The Taiping defenders seemed to have escaped through the tunnel dug under the city wall on the last night. They had long since disappeared, leaving only the people in the city and some gunners tied to the artillery on the city wall. They were all pale and weak. .
After the Hunan army entered the city, they were shocked to find that all the vegetables, weeds, and even mice and other animals in the city had been eaten. The price of human meat on the market even rose to half a tael per catty.
As for what to do with the more than 10,000 hungry people left in the city, Zeng Guofan wrote to his brother Zeng Guoquan as early as the siege, telling him: "To defeat the city, it is better to kill more, and not to miss the important event by pretending to be kind."
With the fall of Anqing, there is no danger to defend the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and the overall situation of victory or defeat has been decided.
The Taiping Army is about to reach its end
After the fall of Anqing, Chen Yucheng was trapped in Luzhou , and his strength was no longer what it was before.
The capricious Taiping Heavenly Kingdom played king Miao Peilin , secretly surrendered to the Qing general to protect , and designed to betray Chen Yucheng. He sent someone to send a letter to Chen Yucheng, saying that the lonely city was guarded by the military, and the British king was a great hero. Why should he be trapped by petty thieves? Come to Shouzhou to meet, and he will lead an army of 1.2 million to help. Go north to attack Bianjing.
Chen Yucheng was worried about repeating the story of Anqing. After receiving the letter, he thought for a long time. Everyone advised him not to go, saying: "Instead of going to Shouzhou, it is better to go back to Tianjing, see the Queen of Heaven, and reorganize the drum. Why bother?" The remaining demon is not eliminated?”
Chen Yucheng, who has always been conceited, loudly refuted: "Since I started using the army, I will win every battle and win every attack. Although I listen to good words with an open mind, what you said this time is totally contrary to my wishes." He did not listen to the advice and persisted. He is going to Shouzhou to discuss important matters with Miao Peilin.
As soon as Chen Yucheng arrived in Shouzhou, he was trapped by Miao Peilin and dedicated to Shengbao to claim credit.
There are historical records that Chen Yucheng was taken to Shengbao Camp, and the Qing army asked him to kneel down and beg for mercy. Shengbao was once defeated by Chen Yucheng. Chen Yucheng would rather die than give in. He straightened his back, pointed at him and yelled:
This president attacked Hubei three times and went to Jiangnan nine times. He ran away at the sight of a battle and collapsed the 25th Battalion at Baishi Mountain. ,completely annihilated. You lead more than ten horses and run away with your head in their hands. I asked you to spare your life. How can I be worthy of kneeling down to you?
Shengbao gave Chen Yucheng wine and food, persuaded him to surrender, and ensured that he would enjoy all the glory and wealth.
Chen Yucheng shouted: "If a man dies, his ears will be dead, so why talk?" Shengbao's staff repeatedly persuaded him, and Chen Yucheng said with emotion: "Go to me in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom." One person means half of the country has been lost. I have been favored by heaven and cannot surrender!"
In June 1862, Chen Yucheng was executed in Yanjin, Henan, at the age of 26.
Li Xiucheng lost his best partner, and the fate of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom also took a turn for the worse. Hong Rengan later wrote in his confession: "As soon as the British king left, the military strength and military power declined at the same time, and everything collapsed."
07
In March 1862, Zeng Guoquan set out from Anqing, and Peng Yulin's naval forces advanced by land and water from both the north and south, and reached the gates of Tianjing City, blocking the Qinhuai River's access to the Yangtze River.
Tianjing was besieged, and Hong Xiuquan had no one to turn to, so he had to turn to Li Xiucheng for help.
At that time, Li Xiucheng was besieging Shanghai, and the attack was imminent. After receiving Hong Xiuquan's edict, Li Xiucheng told his boss not to panic. The Hunan Army was unable to siege the city, and the strongholds around Tianjing were all in the hands of the Taiping Army. The best policy is to hold on and not fight. After I take Shanghai, I can bring foreign weapons and ammunition to relieve the siege.
Hong Xiuquan was angry, and ordered Li Xiucheng to come back to rescue Tianjing three times a day. The words were quite harsh, which probably meant that you come back quickly, I can't bear it alone. On the one hand, Hong Xiuquan appointed Li Xiu as the military advisor to protect the country, and on the other hand, he directly summoned Taiping troops from all over southern Anhui and northern Anhui to come to Tianjing.
Li Xiucheng had no choice but to abandon Shanghai and hurriedly returned to Tianjing. However, because Hong Xiuquan had too many kings, the Taiping Army had no internal coordination and poor command. Li Xiucheng could not mobilize other armies at all. He worked hard to piece together an army of 150,000 people led by 13 kings, known as the 600,000 army. .
From October to November 1862, Li Xiucheng's Taiping Army and Zeng Guoquan's Hunan Army fought fiercely outside Tianjing City for more than 40 days.
Faced with the Taiping Army's day and night attacks, the Hunan Army fought tooth and nail to resist. Although it lost one-third of its troops, Zeng Guofan lamented that "his heart is exhausted and his courage is broken." Zeng Guoquan was also seriously injured, but he still held his position.
However, the Taiping Army's equipment was backward, lacking military rations and even cotton-padded clothes. When the weather suddenly changed and heavy snow fell, they could only wear single clothes. Their hands and feet were frozen. They were also affected by the Jiangnan Plague, and their combat effectiveness was low.
In this battle of Yuhuatai with a huge disparity in military strength, more than 100,000 Taiping troops could not defeat the 30,000 Hunan troops. The two sides fell into a stalemate, and the Taiping army failed to rescue the siege.
At this time, Hong Xiuquan's operation was too good. He issued an edict to blame Li Xiucheng for his inability to clear the siege. Li Xiucheng believed that the Taiping Army still occupied southern Jiangsu and Zhejiang, so it was better to return to Suzhou to mobilize reinforcements and supplies and then relieve the siege of Tianjing. Hong Xiuquanbut ordered him to immediately lead the Northern Expedition to make up for his past mistakes and recover the northern and northern Anhui areas.
Li Xiucheng could only knock out his teeth and swallow it in his stomach. He followed Hong Xiuquan's blind command and lost hundreds of thousands of troops when he marched into northern Anhui and returned without success.
In December 1863 , when Li Xiucheng returned to Beijing again, the Taiping Army had been defeated across the board, Sufu Province and Zhejiang Province were on the verge of collapse, Suzhou, Changzhou and other important towns were lost one after another, leaving only an isolated city of Tianjing in the Tianping Heavenly Kingdom, "There is no food in the whole city, and many men and women die" .
Li Xiucheng suggested to Hong Xiuquan "Don't leave the city" . Tianjing City really cannot be defended. We might as well abandon the city and move to the mainland to wait for the opportunity to regain our strength.
Hong Xiuquan, however, was so confident that he refused to listen to the advice and angrily said: "I have a huge iron bucket, but I don't have anyone to help me. I say I have no soldiers. I have more heavenly soldiers than water. Why should I be afraid of those who have been demons!"
Hong Xiuquan became even more neurotic. He remembered the " Bible " when the Israelites left Egypt and lived on the food "manna" given to them by God during their 40-year wandering.
He did not know what " manna " was. He only knew that manna was used to describe it in Chinese. He said that he had had a dream, and the wild vegetables in the backyard of the Heavenly King's Mansion were the nectar given to him by the Heavenly Father. He also ordered "Everyone in the city should eat nectar, which can maintain health", "Bring it and prepare it, and I will eat it first.".
The so-called "manna" in Hong Xiuquan's mouth is the clumped wild vegetables . By the time the Hunan Army entered Tianjing, the city was completely deserted, and all the wild vegetables had been dug up by the hungry soldiers and civilians.
In addition to wild vegetables, Hong Xiuquan also ate fried centipedes. The climate in Jiangsu and Zhejiang is humid, and centipedes are more common.
Hong Xiuquan's diet was so wild that in June 1864, due to long-term consumption of wild vegetables and centipedes, Hong Xiuquan became terminally ill, but refused to take medicine, and finally died.
Three days later, Li Xiucheng supported Hong Xiuquan's son Youtianwang Hong Tianguifu to the throne.
On July 19, Zeng Guoquan used gunpowder to blast open the Tianjing city wall, and the army invaded the city. The defeat of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was determined. When
the city was broken, Li Xiucheng's army fought to the death and persisted in street fighting. In panic, he gave up his war horse to the young king to protect his retreat. Afterwards, he took the gold, silver and jewelry and escaped from the city on horseback. However, he accidentally got lost in Fangshan in the southeast outside the city and temporarily hid in a private house.
Later, Li Xiucheng was sent by the villagers to the military camp of the Hunan Army general Xiao Fusi. The big tiger of the Taiping Army finally entered the cage. When Li Xiucheng followed the Taiping Army, he was just making ends meet. Now, this rabble also trades his life for money.
This civil war, considered by some scholars to be the most brutal civil war in human history, lasted for 14 years, leaving wounds that could not be healed for decades, and tens of millions of people died, and it came to an end.
The Taiping Rebellion came to an end.
08
From July 30 to August 7, 1864, Li Xiucheng, who was imprisoned in the Hunan Army Camp, endured the pain and scorching heat, and wrote furiously in the last few days of his life, leaving behind a writing that is said to be 50,000 to 60,000 words long. There is an existing 36,100-word autograph confession that recounts the past events of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
After the loyal king of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was captured, he repeatedly asked the Qing army to stop the massacre in Tianjing (Nanjing), pardon the Taiping Army veterans from Guangdong and Guangxi, and let them go home to make a living.
He also suggested to the generals of the Hunan Army that "If you want to compete with foreign ghosts, you must first buy cannons and prepare them in advance" and let Chinese craftsmen copy them, which coincides with the ideas of the Westernization Movement.
As for why he insisted on defending Tianjing and supporting the King of Heaven, Li Xiucheng left an intriguing answer: "I don't know the truth."
Zeng Guofan personally deleted and revised Li Xiucheng's self-report, and handed one copy to the Military Aircraft Department, and the other to his son Zeng Jize for safekeeping. However, Zeng Guofan still kept the original manuscript secret until his death, and it seemed that there was a deeper secret hidden in it.
html On August 7, Li Xiucheng learned that he would eventually die, so he wrote ten desperate poems describing his loyalty, and then went to die. In the early years, many people believed that these ten fatal lines had been lost. Later, some scholars proposed that the so-called fatal poems should be "Ten Mistakes of the Celestial Dynasty" in "Li Xiucheng's Autobiography".
Why did the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom make mistakes again and again? It was most appropriate for Zeng Guofan to give this question to Li Xiucheng to answer.
References:
Luo Ergang: "The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom", Guangxi Normal University Press, 2004 edition
Xu Zhongyue: "Modern History of China", World Book Publishing Company, 2008 edition
[US] Pei Shifeng: "Autumn of the Kingdom of Heaven", Social Sciences Literature Press, 2014 edition
[US] Shi Jingqian: "The "Son of the Kingdom of Heaven" and his secular dynasty ", Shanghai Far East Publishing House, 2001 edition
Jia Shucun: "Inspection of Chen Yucheng Group", "Anhui History", Issue 1, 2003
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-