Do you know? In what year and by whom were the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom defeated? This question seems to be not difficult - on July 19, 1864, the Hunan army led by Zeng Guofan captured Tianjing, thus marking the end of the Taiping Rebellion.
In the nine years after the Tianjing Incident, although the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom experienced many difficulties, it still stubbornly confronted the Manchus. However, judging from the causes and course of the Tianjing Incident, this peasant regime had actually imposed a death sentence on itself.
The Tianjing Incident was extremely destructive to the entire regime, and it can be said that it was the primary reason for the final defeat of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Although other battles and experiences also had an impact, none of them could be compared to the Tianjing Incident.
So, what fatal problems did the Tianjing Incident bring to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and what unsolvable difficulties did it lead to? Despite all the hardships, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom held out for nine years until the fall of Tianjing.
In the long and arduous process, the strength of the Taiping Army on paper did not decline significantly, but on the contrary, after the restoration of the commander-in-chief system of the five armies and the appointment of a number of outstanding young generals, the overall situation improved markedly.
Therefore, it may seem too arbitrary and hasty to attribute only the defeat of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom to the "Tianjing Incident". So, let's sort out in detail the important military victories achieved in the later period of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
The first was the breakthrough of the Jiangnan camp in September 1858, the victory of Sanhe Town in November of the same year, and then the Qing army's Jiangnan and Jiangbei camps again in 1860, and the opening of the Sufu Provincial Base in 1860, and the capture of Hangzhou in 1861 and the control of Zhejiang.
During this period, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom continued to expand its territory and military strength, and even further controlled the richest region of Jiangsu and Zhejiang in China at the time. However, a closer look reveals that behind all this seeming prosperity lies a false prosperity.
In fact, as early as 1853, after the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom established Tianjing as the capital, the Jiangnan and Jiangbei camps of the Qing army had come into being. Facts have proved that the role of these two field regiments, which are mainly based on green battalion soldiers, is relatively limited, and compared with the real opponent of the Taiping army, the Hunan army, they are obviously not a big trouble.
Of course, the elimination of these two threats has played a key role in easing the blockade and pressure in Tianjing. However, compared with the attack on Jiangnan and Jiangbei's camps, and the subsequent loss of Jiujiang and Anqing, it can only be said that there are advantages and disadvantages.
Looking at the victory of Sanhe Town, this battle, which was praised as the most important military victory in the late Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, not only severely damaged the main force of the Hunan army, but also killed the bravest general in its formation, Li Xubin.
One must build on a firm foundation? "No matter how well the rear is managed, it will not be able to stop the frontal attack of the Hunan army, and all efforts will come to naught. Although Chen Yucheng, Li Xiucheng and other outstanding generals led the Taiping Army to achieve a series of brilliant military achievements after 1856, it is clear which is more important than the huge and irreparable losses caused by the Tianjing Incident.
The Tianjing Incident was a fratricidal battle at the core decision-making level of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, which led to the killing of Yang Xiuqing, the king of the east, Wei Changhui, the king of the north, and Qin Rigang, the king of Yan.
By 1857, with the exception of the Heavenly King Hong Xiuquan, almost all the princes of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom were wiped out.
There are no real winners in this coup. The king of the east, the king of the north, and the king of Yan were unfortunately killed, and the king of the wings had no choice but to leave*** and finally defeated the Dadu River and went to the point of no return.
Although the Heavenly King Hong Xiuquan took power after the incident and seemed to be the only winner, he actually lost the most. In this struggle for power, although he won in the end, he lost the entire country.
Among this group of senior generals, the death of Yang Xiuqing, the king of the East, was the biggest loss in the Taiping Heaven.
Although he was not professionally trained, he had a unique strategic vision and command ability with his innate military talent. He is a unique and unparalleled commander-level figure in the history of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and even Hong Xiuquan is beyond his reach.
The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, which lost Yang Xiuqing, formed a situation of numerous princes and self-respect in the later period. Although Hong Xiuquan tried to pass instructions to make Chen Yucheng the military commander-in-chief of the entire Taiping Army, in fact, Chen Yucheng was unable to dispatch Li Xiucheng's corps, and even some important generals did not take him seriously.
In the summer of 1861, Anqing was in a critical situation, and Chen Yucheng had no choice but to fight against the main force of the Hunan army alone. At the same time, Li Xiucheng's corps in the Taiping Army was leisurely in the mountains and mountains of southern Anhui, and he also recruited troops and horses all the way.
Eventually, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom lost the crucial Battle of Anqing, and Chen Yucheng's forces collapsed.
The brothers Li Xiucheng and Li Shixian achieved a transformation in strength on the south bank of the Yangtze River, with hundreds of thousands of troops, becoming the largest military group in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. In this process, although the outcome is unpredictable, such a development is unimaginable in the era when Yang Xiuqing is in power.
Because at that time, there was no commander who had the strength and prestige like the East King and could command the whole army. This led to the lack of scheduling and command of the Taiping Army in large-scale operations in the later period, and there was no overall planning and cooperation.
Whether it was the Anqing Campaign in the face of the entire Hunan Army Group, or the subsequent battlefield in southern Jiangsu, the Taiping Army fought alone, so it is not surprising that it failed. The cost of the collapse of faith was greater than the military impact of the death of the Eastern King.
The crisis of faith brought about by the Tianjing Incident has a more far-reaching and wide-ranging impact. The main reason why the Taiping army was able to conquer Jiangning, the first important town in the southeast, from the wild land of Guangxi, and the spark of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom quickly swept the entire southern China, was not relying on advanced equipment and a huge number of troops.
In this process, the wise decisions of the six kings of Shouyi and the heroic battles of the old brothers of Liangguang undoubtedly played an important role, but the key is that the members of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, driven and catalyzed by their religious beliefs, have coalesced into an indomitable and unbreakable force.
Before 1856, the military operations of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom were not all smooth sailing, and even God's third son, Feng Yunshan, and God's son-in-law, Xiao Chaogui, were killed on the way to Nanjing.
However, on the road of uniting to resist the "Qing Demon" and striving for peace in the world, the occasional defeat in battle and the sacrifice of some theocratic figures will not have too many negative effects, so this period, whether it is the morale of the army, morale, the people, or the faith, is stable and upward.
However, after the Tianjing Incident, Yang Xiuqing, the Eastern King who was once the spokesman of the Heavenly Father, instantly became the "Eastern Sin" hated by everyone, and Wei Changhui, who was once the fifth son of God, became a "Northern Traitor" who needed to be eradicated in the blink of an eye.
When the sons of God kill each other for power and lust, can ordinary people still believe in God as they did before? The ballad in Tianjing City sings: "If the Heavenly Father kills the Heavenly Brother, it will be in vain", which shows that the collapse of faith has caused the people at the bottom to lose confidence in the future of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
In order to solve this crisis, Hong Xiuquan immediately rehabilitated the king of the east, publicized Yang Xiuqing's killing as a feat of "sacrificing his life to the sky and atoning for his illness on behalf of the world", and set the day of his murder as the "Dongsheng Festival", and passed his son to Yang Xiuqing.
These are Hong Xiuquan's efforts to save the crisis of faith. However, the Wing King Shi Dakai also suffered a heavy blow in the Tianjing Incident. After Shi Dakai, who oversaw the Wuchang army, heard of the drastic changes in Tianjing, he immediately drove lightly and returned to Beijing from the front line in the starry night.
After Shi Dakai returned to Tianjing, he questioned Wei Changhui about the indiscriminate killing of innocents and demanded that he immediately stop the killing to prevent the situation from deteriorating further. But the king of the north, who had already killed the red-eyed, seemed to be the most dangerous person in Tianjing City at this time, not only did he not follow Shi Dakai's advice, but he also moved to kill the "nosy" Yiwang.
Fortunately, Shi Dakai received the news that Wei Changhui was going to attack him in advance, and he escaped the catastrophe by "coming out of the city" overnight. However, when Wei Changhui saw that the Winged King had escaped, he angered his family, and slaughtered more than 2,000 people in the Winged King's mansion, including Shi Dakai's mother and wife.
In order to appease Shi Dakai's anger, Hong Xiuquan had no choice but to "suppress" Wei Changhui, Qin Rigang and other generals, and the Tianjing incident became calm. However, the Heavenly King Hong Xiuquan was busy with court affairs, and Shi Dakai, as a core general, began to fully preside over the work of Tianjing, restoring the Tianjing City after the catastrophe.
However, Shi Dakai's power and prestige gradually rose, causing Hong Xiuquan's suspicions. As a result, Hong Xiuquan canonized the two brothers who had neither military merits nor abilities as kings, and let them join the core decision-making level, and jointly presided over the government with Shi Dakai, forming a check and balance.
But this hit Shi Dakai's enthusiasm for work, and also made him worry that he would follow in the footsteps of Dongwang. Disheartened, Shi Dakai quietly left Tianjing with his guards in June 1857 and embarked on an expedition to establish himself as a gateway.
In order to save Shi Dakai, Hong Xiuquan revoked his brother's prince, and sent the gold medal of the "Righteous King" and a letter of intercession from all the people, but everything was irretrievable, and the biggest situation in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom had been formed.
Shi Dakai's departure was a heavy blow to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, which had recovered from its predicament. He was not only the most popular and militarily capable general in the Taiping Army at that time, but his departure exacerbated the dilemma crisis of "no one in the country and no general in the DPRK".
Moreover, Shi Dakai started a new stove and took away hundreds of thousands of supporters in the army, which was equivalent to dividing the Taiping army troops into two, not only their respective strength was damaged, but also more easily broken by the Qing army.
Before the Tianjing Incident, Wuchang and Jiujiang, the two important towns along the Yangtze River, were in the hands of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. After the incident, the situation became delicate. At that time, the defender of Wuchang was the younger brother of Wei Changhui, the king of the north, Wei Jun, the emperor of the country.
Such an identity made Wei Jun quite embarrassed during the siege of the Qing army. First of all, no one is willing to risk the world's condemnation to rescue the younger brother of the "Northern Traitor". At the same time, the Beiwang family has been nailed to the pillar of shame after the Tianjing Incident and it is difficult to turn over, and overnight, Wei Jun has changed from the admired Beidian Guozong to the family of the criminal ministers that everyone shouts and beats, and he is even more worried that he will be implicated by Wei Changhui and killed.
Wei Jun was isolated and helpless, and was finally forced to abandon the city, and the Hunan army recaptured Wuchang, the capital of Hubei Province and the most important town in Central China, without blood.
The fall of Jiujiang is somewhat similar to Wuchang, but it is more heroic. Although Jiujiang is not the capital of Jiangxi, it is located at the confluence of the Yangtze River and Poyang Lake, which is the key to controlling Hubei and Jiangxi, and is very important to the Hunan army.
At that time, the garrison of Jiujiang was Lin Qirong, who was known as the first good guard of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and he had made the besieging Hunan army suffer enough before the Tianjing Incident. However, during the Second Battle of Jiujiang, which began in January 1857, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was in a period of weakness after the Tianjing Incident and was unable to come to the west, and Lin Qirong, as a general promoted by Yang Xiuqing, the king of the East, was unidentified, somewhat similar to Wei Jun of Wuchang.
For Jiujiang, which was under siege, the surrounding generals took a wait-and-see attitude. Subsequently, Shi Dakai left Tianjing and arrived in Anqing, and the Yiwang was only one step away from Jiujiang at this time, and it was the most convenient force to rescue Lin Qirong.
However, due to Shi Dakai's negative anger and his remaining anger did not subside, in the face of Lin Qirong's blood letter for help sent from Jiujiang, he turned a blind eye and directly led his troops south to Jingdezhen.
In the end, Lin Qirong was trapped in Xunyang City alone for 17 months. In May 1858, Jiujiang City was breached, and Lin Qirong and his 17,000 defenders fought to the end, and finally all of them were martyred.
Wuchang, Jiujiang, and Anqing, which are located in the three important provinces of Hubei, Jiangxi, and Anhui, have a vital position for the Yangtze River defense system of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
However, a Tianjing incident caused the loss of two of these three cities in an instant. With the loss of Wuchang and Jiujiang, Anqing, the western gateway of Tianjing and the last line of defense, was completely exposed to the attack range of the Hunan army, which undoubtedly made it easy for the Hunan army to come back to Anqing when it made a comeback in 1860, and the Hunan army, which was greatly injured, was ready for this war in 1858 after the defeat of Sanhe.
1.The killing of the Eastern King caused the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom to lose its leader, causing the faith to collapse and its combat effectiveness plummeting. The Winged King's exodus was even worse, and with the loss of two key cities, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom had lost almost all of its advantages within three months.
After 1856, the death knell of the Tianjing Incident had begun to sound. 2.The turning point of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom came in 1856, the year when "the head had hair, and the clothes were afraid of white".
At this time, the king of the east was killed, faith collapsed, the cohesion of the army decreased, and the situation became even more serious. The Winged King's departure made the situation even worse, and with the loss of two important cities, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's advantage was almost lost within three months.
Who can truly understand and get rid of the interpretation of the human heart, lust, betrayal, and greed for thousands of years?