The "Hongmen Banquet" set up by Xiang Yu, although it was tense and murderous, and the atmosphere was suffocating, it did not cause any fatalities after all.
But this "Hongmen Banquet" is different, it is bloody, as soon as the "guests" enter, the banquet has not yet been officially held, and the wine glass has not had time to be raised, and the head will fall to the ground.
Who set up the "Hongmen Banquet"?It's Li Hongzhang;Who are the "guests" who are invited to the banquet?He is Gao Yongkuan and other 8 generals of the Suzhou base camp of the Taiping Army.
The later period of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was full of crises. Tianjing was besieged by the Hunan army of Zeng Guofan. On the Suzhou side, it was being attacked by Li Hongzhang's Huai Army and the foreigner Gordon's foreign gun team. Although Suzhou is not the capital of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, its location is also very important, it is the base camp of Li Xiucheng, the king of loyalty, and is the most important food and related materials of the Taiping Army. Therefore, when Li Xiucheng was transferred to Tianjing by Hong Xiuquan to implement the battle plan of "attacking the south and entering the north", he arranged for his son-in-law Tan Shaoguang to guard here.
The situation in Suzhou is dire. Externally, Li Hongzhang's Huai Army and the foreigner Gordon's foreign gun team are very strong and are attacking SuzhouThe traitor was told from the inside, that is, Gao Yongkuan and other 8 generals of the Suzhou Taiping Army. These 8 generals were originally Li Xiucheng's subordinates, and they were all elites of the Taiping Army, who were good at fighting and had made great contributions in the past battles with the Qing army. But when they saw that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was already declining and crumbling, and they lost the confidence to fight and defend, they had the idea of defecting to the enemy. They secretly exchanged letters and contacts with Li Hongzhang and foreigners.
On Yangcheng Lake in the north of Suzhou, Cheng Xueqi and Gordon of Li Hongzhang, a subordinate of Chen Yucheng, the former king of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and Li Hongzhang, who later defected to the Qing army, secretly met with Gao Yongkuan and others to discuss the surrender in detail, with Gordon as a guarantee, and set a strategy for internal and external cooperation. It was agreed that Gao Yongkuan and others would lure Tan Shaoguang to the city wall of Suzhou in the name of observing the enemy's situation, push him down, and then open the city gate to surrender, and let the Huai army and the foreign gun team in.
Tan Shaoguang learned from the intercepted letters that Gao Yongkuan and others were going to defect. Don't dare to move them, because they have heavy troops and guard most of the city gates and areas of Suzhou, and their subordinates will not obey Tan Shaoguang's dispatch, if they move, it will inevitably cause civil strife, making the already grim situation even worse.
After Li Xiucheng learned about the situation, he returned to Suzhou from Tianjing. On the one hand, he wanted to persuade Tan Shaoguang to give up Suzhou in order to preserve his vitality, and then go to Guanzhong to develop again, but Tan Shaoguang was unwilling to give up and vowed to live and die with Suzhou. On the other hand, he went to appease the 8 generals in order to stabilize the situation. However, the 8 generals only expressed on the surface that they would live up to the kindness of the loyal king, but in fact they were still ready to surrender.
Tan Shaoguang has always been honest and honest, and he wants to make more efforts to persuade the 8 generals to change their minds. He set up a banquet in the mansion and invited 8 generals, and he calmly explained the current predicament of the kingdom of heaven, and asked everyone to focus on the overall situation, work together to overcome the difficulties, eliminate the demons, drive away the foreign devils, and rebuild the kingdom of heaven. These rebel generals were already determined to surrender, so they still listened to him, while he was not paying attention, a general named Wang Anjun suddenly pulled out a short knife and stabbed it straight into Tan Shaoguang's neck, and the others also rushed up, cut off his head, gave it to the Qing army, and then opened the city gate to surrender to the enemy. Suzhou fell.
Tan Shaoguang originally wanted to fight with the enemy to the end and live and die with Suzhou, but he never thought that he would not die in the hands of the Qing army or foreigners, but in the hands of his own people.
These 8 generals thought that they had given Li Hongzhang a certificate of surrender, that is, they were meritorious ministers, and they were waiting to be promoted to become rich and enjoy Qingfu, but in fact they only lived two days longer than Tan Shaoguang. What kind of person is Li Hongzhang, he despises these ungrateful and treacherous people in his heart, not only will he not reuse them, but he will kill them quickly to completely eliminate the disaster.
Li Hongzhang set up a "Hongmen Banquet" and invited 8 generals to the banquet. 8 people were so happy that they couldn't close their mouths, this Li Hongzhang is really a lifter, he really pays attention to credit, it seems that he is rewarding and reusing them. They entered the banquet hall, and as soon as they sat down, they didn't even take their chopsticks and their wine glasses, and their heads were cut off by the axe men who were lying in ambush, and blood splashed all over the banquet hall. Traitors get what they deserve.
After killing the eight generals, Li Hongzhang issued an order to kill the Taiping troops in the name of fake surrender, killing more than 70,000 Taiping soldiers and their families. This killing and surrender made Li Hongzhang much criticized.