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Li Xiucheng (1823-1864), a Han nationality, was born in Xingwang Village, Dalili, Teng County, Wuzhou City, Guangxi. He was a famous general in the late Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
Li Xiucheng's original name should be Li Yiwen. He participated in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom during the Jintian Uprising. Because of his outstanding military exploits in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, he was given the name "Xiucheng" by Hong Xiuquan, the king of heaven. As the "Loyal King".
Academic research on Li Xiucheng mainly focuses on the confession he wrote after he was captured by the Zeng brothers.
For a long time, because Li Xiucheng's confession was modified by Zeng Guofan, the relevant information handed down was unknown, which made the research on Li Xiucheng stagnant.
It was not until 1962 that things turned around.
This year, the original copy of "Li Xiucheng's Personal Confession" was exposed by Zeng Yuonong (the great-grandson of Zeng Guofan), which caused a sensation in the academic world.
This authentic work has the value of accurate enough historical data to once again focus the public's attention on Li Xiucheng and his autobiography, and brings historians' thoughts back to that era.
At the same time, people can't help but think of a question: Is the loyal king Li Xiucheng of "loyal or not"?
Where does the crime of "disloyalty" come from?
In the 14th year of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom (1864), Tianjing fell, and Li Xiucheng was responsible for defending the entire city.
However, not long after, King Hong Xiuquan passed away, and the young King Hong Tianguifu came to the throne.
However, the accession of the young king could not stabilize the already shaky Taiping Heavenly Kingdom regime. Li Xiucheng and others were finally forced to abandon the city and flee because they were outnumbered.
In order to protect the Young Heavenly King from breaking out of the encirclement, Li Xiucheng replaced the Young Heavenly King's inferior horse with his own horse. Eventually, because his horse walked too slowly, he got separated from the large army and fell into the scope of Qing soldiers .
Although some people wanted to hide his shadow and flee, he was eventually arrested and handed over to the Hunan Army due to reports.
After Li Xiucheng was arrested and imprisoned, he was interrogated by Zeng Guopan brothers.
What is strange is that such a person who was regarded by others as loyally serving the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and escorting the young king to escape, was induced by Zeng Guofan's gentle voice to actually write his own memoirs, echoing the Zeng brothers and expressing his willingness to surrender.
even slandered the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, making future generations think that it was actually worthy of the title of "Loyal King".
At first, Li Xiucheng's autobiography that was handed down was modified by Zeng Guofan, and its descriptive value for the objective events at that time was quite limited, which also caused the academic community to neglect the incident for a long time.
It was not until the original work was handed down that later generations, especially historians, were pleasantly surprised and reinvested in research with great enthusiasm.
So, what exactly did Li Xiucheng write in his original autobiography that excited historians?
Main content of the autobiography
Li Xiucheng's autobiography first recorded the origins of the Taiping Rebellion. also explained the various generals in the Taiping Rebellion and their own achievements. To a certain extent, it praised the "peasant power". In his self-report,
also complained about the brutal behavior of foreign invaders and the Qing army.
At the same time, Li Xiucheng also explained the personality characteristics of various generals in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom regime:
- For example, calling the King of Heaven: "Everyone respects him";
- King of the West Xiao Chaogui: "Brave and strong, the first to charge";
- King of the East Yang Xiuqing: "Military orders are strict and rewards and punishments are clear";
- King of the South Feng Yunshan : "Those who plan to establish the country come up with the plan of the King of the South";
- King of the North Wei Changhui "Smart change", etc.
This reflects Li Xiucheng's views on the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom regime and various The general's approval.
Secondly, Li Xiucheng's self-report summarized what he believed to be the lessons of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's failure, that is, "the king had too many doubts, and the generals killed each other and could not deal with each other unanimously."
From our current perspective, Li Xiucheng's summary of the reasons for the decline of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom regime at that time is relatively accurate.
It was precisely because the major figures in charge of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom regime could not unite externally that the regime began to separate and collapse from within.
Coupled with the collusion between the Qing government and foreign aggressive regimes, it ultimately led to failure.
He mentioned in his self-report that had advised Hong Xiuquan in 1862 to "leave the city alone", that is, to abandon Jiangnan and develop from Wannan and Zhejiang to Jiangxi and Hubei, so as to recharge his batteries in order to make a comeback.
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Looking back on the past, we know that Hong Xiuquan at that time did indeed become increasingly divorced from practice in his later years, using religion to maintain his authority, and it was difficult to listen to other people's suggestions.
Therefore, in his self-report, he also expressed his resentment towards Hong Xiuquan's foolish behavior of "sitting in a lonely city".
Furthermore, his self-report also expressed some of his political views and ambitions.
For example, in his attitude towards the people, Li Xiucheng adhered to Confucianism and believed that the people were the first priority, the country was the second, and the king was the least important.
This also reflects that as a peasant uprising, he can empathize with the interests and feelings of the people, which is rare and valuable.
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He even persuaded Zeng Guofan in his autobiography to "use kindness as a sword" to treat the people and not be too cruel and damage the people's feelings towards the country and the country.
In addition, he had a particularly deep understanding of foreign invaders, revealing that when foreign invaders entered the city, Qing Dynasty officials were groveling, completely ignoring the invaders' plunder and massacre of the country and people.
Of course, in his self-report, he also included his intention to please the Zeng Guofan brothers and his intention to surrender. even listed the "Ten Points for Surrendering", said that the Taiping Rebellion "violated the mandate of heaven", and called himself a "criminal general".
This is also the main reason why later historians considered him "disloyal".
For Zeng Guofan, many contents in Li Xiucheng's self-report are quite sensitive.
Zeng Guofan was a very thoughtful person. As one of the few Han senior officials in the Qing Dynasty, his every word and deed was highly suspicious of the Manchus.
In order to obtain Li Xiucheng's confession, he must use both soft and hard tactics to induce and persuade him. It was inevitable that some of his remarks would arouse suspicion among Manchu officials of the Qing Dynasty.
As for Zeng Guofan, after getting the desired confession, he still executed Li Xiucheng. The main reason was that Li Xiucheng, as one of the main generals in the late Taiping Rebellion, knew the course of the war well.
The corruption and incompetence of Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang and others were all recognized in his mind.
Once Zeng Guofan spared his life, allowed him to surrender, and ordered him to enter the court, Zeng Guofan's scandal might be exposed.
After comprehensive consideration, the cunning Zeng Guofan finally decided to kill Li Xiucheng.
So, what is the purpose of Li Xiucheng writing his self-report? Is it really just a rebellion against the Taiping Rebellion under the coercion and inducement of the Zeng brothers?
What is Li Xiucheng’s self-reported “motivation”?
The motivation of Li Xiucheng's self-report is to summarize the experience and lessons of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. At the same time, it also hopes that the Zeng brothers will put down their butcher knives to retain the power of the people.
In addition, there are two views: pseudo-surrender and true surrender.
First of all, there is a widely circulated view: Li Xiucheng's self-report is a mere "fake surrender" behavior.
Throughout Li Xiucheng's life, he can be regarded as a person who is more sincere in resisting.
At the same time, just as Li Hongzhang deeply admired his "cunning", Li Xiucheng could be regarded as a very far-sighted figure.
After he tried to persuade Hong Xiuquan in the Tianjing Incident to no avail, he did not give up the plan he told Hong Xiuquan.
He believed that under the circumstances at that time, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom still had a future, so he had the idea of pretending to surrender.
- First of all, Li Xiucheng believed that although the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was not as strong as before after suffering the blow of the Tianjing Incident, it still had hope of counterattack.
- Secondly, he knew that there were still conflicts between Zeng Guofan and the Qing royal family. After all, the Qing Dynasty was a regime established by the Manchus, and it was already harsh on the Han people, let alone high-ranking Han officials like Zeng Guofan.
In addition, Zeng Guofan organized local soldiers and had strong enough military strength. It also gave Li Xiucheng the idea of pretending to surrender to please the Zeng brothers, and using his conflicts with the Qing government to recruit helpers for the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
Furthermore, there were still many farmers fighting bravely at that time, which gave Li Xiucheng great courage.
Especially the farmers in the Huaihe and Huaihe areas, the uprising never stopped after the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom established its capital in Tianjing.
Moreover, the brutal behavior of the Qing government triggered more active resistance from the farmers, which was one of the powerful forces against the Qing government and foreign invaders.
The most important thing is: the reason why Li Xiucheng felt confident was because he had a clearer understanding of the various contradictions in society at that time.
Whether it is the contradiction between the people and the Qing government, the contradiction between the people and capitalism, or the contradiction between the Manchu and Qing government and capitalism.
Li Xiucheng understood that as an important general of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, it was meaningless to die.
Through his self-narration, he expressed his respect for Zeng Guofan and the Qing government.
Of course, a lot of ink was also spent on persuading Zeng Guofan to turn against the Qing government, and even persuading Zeng Guofan to become king independently, in order to achieve the purpose of alienating each other and promote his "pseudo-surrender" plan.
In 1977, Zeng Guofan's granddaughter presented Luo Ergang to Mr. Luo Ergang's word-of-mouth record "Li Xiucheng advised Wen Zhenggong to become emperor, but Wen Zhenggong did not dare" , which also proved that it was true.
Despite this, Li Xiucheng's plan still ended in failure. His "sweet words" were not trusted by Zeng Guofan and others.
On the contrary, because his words threatened Zeng Guofan and others, he accelerated the process of his murder.
Of course, there is another view that Li Xiucheng is a kind of weakling. He surrendered because he was greedy for life and afraid of death.
However, this view often has little factual basis and is less convincing.
But no matter which point of view, it is undeniable that Li Xiucheng has the idea of surrender.
Therefore, how should we view Li Xiucheng’s surrender from a historical perspective? Was his surrender consistent with the circumstances? Is it excusable, or should he bear the infamy forever?
Zeng Guofan
surrender
Li Xiucheng's confession mentioned Zeng Guofan's "tolerance" towards him.
mentioned his dissatisfaction with Hong Xiuquan, the leader of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom movement, and also mentioned his "dissatisfaction" with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom movement. In his confession, he even mentioned that he hoped Zeng Guofan would persuade the generals in his team to surrender.
Looking at it this way, Li Xiucheng’s personal confession did indeed show his intention to surrender.
From the perspective of historical materialism, we need to look at Li Xiucheng's surrender from the objective conditions at the time and his own complex thoughts.
Judging from the objective conditions and factors at the time: the fall of Tianjing in 1864 and the Taiping Rebellion were a failure from a situational point of view. Coupled with the historical conditions of his own capture, he may have the idea of surrender.
Under this objective historical condition, the combination of Li Xiucheng's complex thoughts of "foolish loyalty", destiny, protecting the people, and anti-aggression were the subjective reasons for his surrender.
When we analyze this character from subjective conditions, we must first consider his "foolish loyalty", which is an important idea that governs his life's actions.
In 1862, when Suzhou fell, Tianjing was besieged again. In order to implement his thoughts, he sent his relatives to the enemy to surround Tianjing.
In 1864, when Tianjing fell, in order to express his loyalty to the young king, he decided to take the young king out of the siege regardless of the opposition of his relatives until he was captured.
After he was captured, there were only two ways to go, either to fight to the death or surrender.
Under the circumstances at that time, he also believed that the current situation of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was generally not optimistic, and the young master was very likely to be killed, which gave him a pessimistic thinking.
Because the object of his allegiance no longer exists, this pessimistic thought began to guide him to beg for surrender from the Zeng brothers.
It is not surprising that Li Xiucheng, who was born in the common class, has such foolish and loyal ideas. When the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom regime gradually became feudal, feudal ideas continued to corrode Li Xiucheng.
If things go on like this, it is difficult to avoid becoming ideologically a prisoner of the landlord class.
Secondly, Li Xiucheng himself believed in destiny. In his self-report, mentioned that he was good at astronomy and learned it after a teacher taught him in the mountains behind West Lake in Hangzhou for seven days and nights.
But in fact, this is not astronomical knowledge, but an ancient feudal superstitious thought, which believes that everything is arranged by God and has a certain fate.
For example, he believed that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom launched by Hong Xiuquan was a destiny given by God and was destined. His idea of destiny indeed gave him a lot of motivation in the beginning.
But as the situation in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom became more and more complicated, especially after the death of Hong Xiuquan, he felt more and more that the fall of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was also a kind of destiny.
If he continued to resist, it would be considered an act against nature and meaningless. In his mind, begging the Zeng brothers for surrender was just an act of obeying God's will. In this case, it was nothing.
Furthermore, Li Xiucheng has an idea of "protecting the people".
Being considerate of the people and being kind to his subordinates made him a very prominent thought in his life. Long before he was named the "Loyal King" by Hong Xiuquan, he said that after capturing Suzhou and Hangzhou, he must help the people improve their lives.
At the same time, he put his ideas into practice. After Li Xiucheng was crowned queen, she attached great importance to the development of the agricultural economy, realized the difficulties of farmers, and reduced farmers' taxes.
At the same time, he also paid attention to helping ordinary people. Everywhere he went, he always distributed a large amount of money and rice to help the people tide over difficulties.
Especially after the Tianjing Incident, his own family was in danger, but he still gave the remaining rice at home to the poor in the city.
At the same time, the jewelry of his mother and wife in the house were sold and exchanged for military supplies to support the sergeants.
What he did was highly praised by the masses, and he was deeply loved by the people. Everywhere he went, the people would warmly welcome him. The people often said:
There were many good people in the Taiping Army, but there was never one like King Zhong. Such leaders are loved by the people.
This is why after Li Xiucheng was captured, the people bravely organized and avenged the person who reported him by throwing him into the water.
His idea is certainly a good thing, but if it is put into the situation at that time, it will have another effect.
After his arrest, with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in a precarious situation, he was worried that the remaining resistance would destroy the peace of the people. At the same time, the remaining subordinates will also be strangled by the Qing army.
At this time, the thought of protecting the people made him start to have the idea of surrender. He thought that surrender could save subsequent casualties. This was also the statement in his self-report that he persuaded his subordinates to compromise and not resist.
This idea became stronger after encountering Zeng Guofan's interrogation.
Unlike Zeng Guoquan who wanted to torture him, Zeng Guofan had to speak more softly than his brothers in order to obtain his confession, and his words were persuasive. Said it is more applicable.
Especially after understanding that Zeng Guofan was a high-ranking official in the Qing Dynasty, Li Xiucheng felt more and more that after surrender, Zeng Guofan would have the ability to tolerate the remnants of the Taiping Army and protect the health of the people.
As the number of conversations with Zeng Guofan increased, Li Xiucheng even felt that their conversations were very speculative and that Zeng Guofan was trustworthy.
Therefore, in his confession, he also expressed his praise for Zeng Guofan and his hope that Zeng Guofan would persuade his subordinates to surrender and restore peace to the people.
Before his death, Li Xiucheng still thanked Zeng Guofan repeatedly.
If it was to pray for Zeng Guofan not to kill him, why did he thank him again and again before he died?
The result is probably because Zeng Guofan may have verbally promised that he would not kill innocent people indiscriminately.
Zeng Guoquan once stabbed him with an awl to vent his anger, but he did not give in. Instead, Zeng Guofan coaxed him with lies. Step by step, he made him feel that it was possible to place his hope of protecting the people against the invaders on this high-ranking Han official. of.
The last point has to be mentioned Li Xiucheng’s anti-aggression thought.
Li Xiucheng’s understanding of imperialism such as Britain and the United States has gone through a process. At first, due to religious reasons, he regarded him as a biological brother and had serious illusions.
But after the Second Opium War broke out, when they saw that the imperialists they regarded as "brothers" colluded with the corrupt and incompetent Qing government, they launched a siege on the Taiping Rebellion.
This gradually made him realize the nature of the imperialist invaders, and also strengthened his thoughts on guarding against them.
Taking this into consideration, Li Xiucheng was already much more advanced than the leaders of the peasant uprising at the same time, but he hoped to lead Zeng Guofan against foreign invaders by surrendering. Of course, this kind of thinking is unrealistic.
After all, the landlord class has always been the landlord class. Under the social conditions at that time, the landlord class would only collude with imperialism, and it was almost impossible to cooperate with the peasant class.
Although Li Xiucheng's confession contained his good wishes, these visions were not realized after his death.
After obtaining Li Xiucheng's personal confession, the cunning Zeng Guofan brutally killed him in order to prevent Li Xiucheng from exposing Zeng Guofan's deeds and to prevent Li Xiucheng from being exposed, which would lead to a series of subsequent revelations. .
However, the conditions he had promised when inducing Li Xiucheng were not fulfilled. Soon after, the Hunan army carried out a massacre of the people in Nanjing, and the people kept wailing and miserable.
Because Li Xiucheng’s personal confession contained words that were unfavorable to Zeng Guofan, Zeng Guofan made a lot of modifications to it. For a long time, future generations were unable to obtain more accurate information from the modified oral confession handed down from generation to generation.
It wasn’t until Zeng Guofan’s great-grandson, with the responsibility of restoring the historical truth, decided to authentically produce Li Xiucheng’s oral confession that had been treasured in his family for a long time, that gave scholars the opportunity to explore the truth about Li Xiucheng’s surrender.
is already very clear about whether Li Xiucheng really surrendered to the Qing Dynasty and betrayed the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom movement.
If Li Xiucheng really pretended to surrender for the future of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, he did not betray the uprising. He was worthy of his title of "Loyal King" and was always enthusiastic about his cause.
Or perhaps Li Xiucheng really wanted to surrender, also to prevent the remaining tribesmen from being killed, and because he did not want the remaining Taipings to confront the Qing army and bring greater disaster to the people.
Thinking from this aspect, what he did seems to be excusable.
Although Li Xiucheng had made mistakes in his life, had some superstitious ideas, had illusions about Zeng Guofan, the landlord class, and perhaps really regretted the idea of launching an uprising, it was inevitable under the social conditions at that time.
His efforts for the Taiping Rebellion in his life are undeniable. His ideological understanding of the imperialist invaders was relatively advanced at the time, and his care for the masses is also evident.
Therefore, no matter how you look at it, Li Xiucheng is an example of the peasant class uprising, and he is worthy of the title of "Loyal King".
What do readers think of such a controversial person? Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comment area.
