Zhongwang Li Xiucheng is said to be very beautiful, probably similar to today's Luhan, in fact, what Luhan looks like, I have never known, just to write this article for a while, it looks good.
We can't even know what Li Xiucheng looked like, only a sketch left by the British at that time, and some missionaries described him, it is said that he was handsome, kind, and wore a pair of glasses.
Lee so-sung. Li Xiucheng is said to have been a charcoal burner, illiterate, and destitute, but later he became the most important figure in the late Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
Therefore, every time I see a friend sneering at the dirty migrant workers passing by, I always advise them, don't look down on them, maybe one of these people may also be in the future in the future, when you can't climb high, the world is impermanent, who can know?
But what we want to tell here is not the story of Li Xiucheng, but the story of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the foreigners. Just a year before Li Hongzhang arrived in Shanghai, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom army led by King Li Xiucheng of the British Dynasty had already pointed directly at Shanghai.
But they did not come to attack the city, on the contrary, Li Xiucheng was fully dressed, hung up the cross, held a Bible in his hand, and the people behind him helped him carry a large number of gifts, ready to go into the city to visit the British consul.
He did not lead a heavy army, but only took his captain of the foreign gun team, the Englishman Savage, and more than 100 foreign brothers from Britain, France, and the United States, as well as a foreign gun team composed of several Arabs and blacks, plus more than 1,000 Taiping soldiers.
Hearing this, you must think it's incredible, is he crazy? Not really. A few months ago, a group of Christian missionaries in Shanghai made a special trip to Suzhou to pull the strings for him. Prior to this, he had written two letters to the British Ambassador Plenipotentiary to China, Bruce, expressing his intention for peace and his willingness to accept all unequal treaties that the Qing Empire was unwilling to accept, and to allow foreigners to enter and leave his occupied territories freely.
Speaking of which, everyone may be surprised, don't our textbooks all say that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was anti-imperialist and anti-feudal? How can you flatter foreigners?
This is a long story, we introduced Hong Xiuquan's ** tutor earlier is the American missionary Luo Xiaoquan, so when Hong Xiuquan launched the Jintian Uprising, the entire Western world fell for him.
There are three reasons, first, Hong Xiuquan's uprising was regarded by them as a ** uprising in China, so all the people in Protestant countries, thinking that everyone has the same beliefs, consciously or unconsciously support him emotionally.
Second, the progressive movement in Europe was raging at that time, and the whole society was proud to talk about revolution, and Marx published it just a few years ago.
The Communist Manifesto", so as soon as Marx heard that Hong Xiuquan had launched an uprising, he immediately published an article in the New York Times, characterizing this uprising as a revolutionary movement, which fascinated the entire progressive class.
Third, because they had to fight with the Qing Dynasty and force them to sign a series of unequal treaties, all kinds of propaganda tools in the West were in full swing to smear the Manchu rule of the Qing Dynasty into a black face, so it was natural to regard Hong Xiuquan as a force of justice and a messenger of God.
In particular, Hong Xiuquan's younger brother, Hong Renji, reached a climax after arriving in Tianjing (present-day Nanjing) around 1859. First, because the Second Opium War was going on, the West hated the Qing Empire to the core, and people on the same front were extremely interested. The second reason is that Hong Renji was originally a well-known missionary in the West.
Hong Renji. In his early years in Hong Kong, Hong Renji joined the Lutheran sect of **Christianity, can speak fluent English, he has a close relationship with the **Christianity missionaries who preached in China, and has a good reputation in the circle. In addition, he had just arrived in Nanjing, just in time for the power vacuum of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, just as the Dongwang Rebellion ended, Shi Dakai ran away again, and Hong Xiuquan had no management ability, and urgently needed a capable person to help him solve the crisis. So as soon as Hong Renji arrived, he was entrusted with an important task by Hong Xiuquan and became the second in command of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Sure enough, Hong Renxuan lived up to his expectations and successfully organized a joint operation between Li Xiucheng, the king of loyalty, and Chen Yucheng, the king of England, to eliminate the Jiangbei camp of the Qing Dynasty. Then he published the "New Chapter of Senior Administration", emphasizing learning technology from the British, learning the system from the United States, establishing the country with Protestantism, welcoming missionaries and merchants from various countries to do business in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and willing to form alliances with Western countries to jointly overthrow the decadent Manchu Dynasty.
These articles of his were published by **Christian missionaries** in the mainstream of the West**, such as "The Times", "The New York Times" and a series of newspapers and magazines, and immediately received rave reviews, setting off a strong wave of demand for support for the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom among the Western people.
In addition, after the missionaries returned to China, they publicized everywhere, which aroused the yearning of many people, such as Huaer, who later served as the leader of the Qing army's foreign guns, who listened to the speeches of the missionary Luo Xiaoquan in various parts of the United States and decided to come to China to join the Taiping Army.
But later, he was commissioned by Yang Fang, the earliest banker in China, to form a mercenary army, which is the foreign gun team we are familiar with, and stood on the opposite side of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and later married Yang Fang's daughter, naturalized Chinese, and became a military general of the Qing Dynasty.
Therefore, when the loyal king Li Xiucheng captured Suzhou, a group of ** missionaries in Shanghai were excited, risked their lives, rowed a small boat, and ignored the dead bodies floating on the river, came to visit Li Xiucheng and observe the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom up close.
Then they were very satisfied, the loyal king Li Xiucheng not only followed Hong Renxuan's instructions, warmly received them, let them not have to kneel, and shook hands cordially, but also let them see the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's strict adherence to the ** religion of life, Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism idols smashed to smash, the temple into a church, so that all people must worship God, strictly abide by the Sabbath rules.
Moreover, the loyal king Li Xiucheng told them that he would attack all the way to Shanghai and establish direct contact with the foreigners, and that he was willing to form an alliance with Britain, France, and the United States, accept all their treaties, and together destroy everyone's common enemy, the decaying Manchu dynasty.
So these people were extremely excited, saw the bright prospects for the development of the ** religion in China, and from then on began to run up and down, lobbying everywhere, to match him, and not only that, when they returned to Suzhou again, Hong Renxuan personally came to meet them, and assured them in fluent English that they would eliminate Hong Xiuquan's nonsense teachings, and guarantee that what will be disseminated in China in the future must be the original ** teachings.
For these people, this was their lifelong dream, so they decided to do whatever it took to get Western countries to support the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and this led to Li Xiucheng's readiness to enter the concession area to negotiate with the British representative in China.
But when Li Xiucheng approached the concession, a burst of gunfire suddenly came, which made him inexplicable, didn't he say that it was okay to invite me to negotiate?
At first, I thought it was a misunderstanding, so everyone hurriedly raised the white flag again, raised the cross again, and then shouted in English, but no one answered, but the guns and bullets became more and more dense, knocking down many people, and even Li Xiucheng was shot and forced to flee, what is going on?
It turns out that within the British, there are great differences in the policy of treating the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, although the society is deceived into supporting the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, but there is a part of the British **, but it is pragmatic, they think, it doesn't matter to me what you believe, whether it is righteous or not has nothing to do with me, the only important thing is that whoever can make Britain make the most money, we will help whom, if it is all the same, we will not help anyone.
At this time, the Second Opium War had ended, the Qing Empire had bowed its head and admitted defeat, the agreement had been signed, commerce had returned to normal, and the compensation had been fulfilled. Now**suddenly**to support a stranger, whether it is reliable or not, no one knows, in this case, why bother to make extraneous branches?
As a hereditary aristocrat and an out-and-out conservative, he hated all revolutions and rebellions, especially when he led his fleet up the Yangtze River to Hankou to inspect the implementation of the Entente, he was shocked to see the tremendous damage caused by the war along the way, and instinctively blamed all this on the Taiping rebellion.
Ergin. And when he passed through Nanjing, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was eager to make friends with them and desperately hoped that they would provide ** and support.
degree, so that an arrogant maniac from an aristocratic background is not eye-catching. And he thought they were the Ribas, savage and vulgar, and pretending to be ghosts, and they had all their desires written on their faces, and they were straight to the point, and they were not at all elegant, and he was disgusted. On the contrary, it was the Qing Dynasty's ** red tape, pretending, which was more in line with his upper-class taste and made him feel more comfortable, because as an old aristocrat, he was better at these. This sentiment also affected his younger brother in Shanghai, who harshly rebuked the ** Christianity mission group in Shanghai, especially their leader, John Ejohn, and told him not to go around inciting the British to support the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Moreover, he also had a serious difference of opinion with the British consul in Shanghai, the British consul in Shanghai, Midil.
Midile had a vast intelligence network in China, and he knew that the Manchus had no military power to use except for Tsang.
quantity, so he believed that as long as there was no external intervention, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom would definitely defeat the Manchu Dynasty, so Britain must not be on the wrong side.
Therefore, he was keen to promote exchanges between the two sides, and forwarded the letters written by Li Xiucheng to Bruce twice, but Bruce refused to open both letters, so a strange situation arose, the British consul in Shanghai, Middle, acquiesced in the missionary to invite Li Xiucheng to come to negotiate, but the British plenipotentiary in China, Bruce, refused to contact and did not allow him to enter the concession.
However, the missionaries would not tell Li Xiucheng about these things, and they did not necessarily understand them, so Li Xiucheng rushed to the scene in a hurry, and was shot inexplicably, almost losing his life.
Then another incident happened, also because of too much curry favor with the foreigners, resulting in the Taiping army in the strategic passivity, the British king Chen Yucheng led an army of more than 100,000 from Anqing, planning to capture Wuhan, but halfway through, met the British Pa Xiali, that is, the negotiator who was arrested and beaten by Seng Lingqin. As soon as he saw him, King Chen Yucheng immediately greeted him with the most solemn etiquette and entertained him with delicious food and drink. After he was full of wine and food, Pashali asked him, are you going to act towards **?
Thinking that Pa Xiali had suffered from the Qing Dynasty, and that he was a ** godbrother, he must support the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, so Chen Yucheng told him honestly that we were going to attack Wuhan and explain the battle plan and the plan.
Unexpectedly, after Pashali heard it, he was shocked into a cold sweat, he came here because he heard this rumor, but he didn't expect it to be true. So he decided to stop the Taiping attack.
Why did he do that? Because Hankou was a newly opened treaty port at that time, British merchant ships found huge profits after being here. But the Qing army's defense here was weak, morale was low, and it was certainly vulnerable.
So the British didn't want the Taiping army to attack here, because the war affected business, and after the war, more than half of the people died, who else sold the things to? So Pashali came to stop Chen Yucheng, saying that this is the territory of the British, you can't come.
As soon as Pa Xiali said this, Chen Yucheng suddenly became embarrassed, because after taking Wuhan, the Taiping army connected the entire territory on the south bank of the Yangtze River, and through the Yangtze River, the Qing Empire was divided into two, so that the north-south passage could be blocked and the entire south could be concentrated to conquer the entire south.
On the contrary, if Wuhan was in the hands of the Qing army, then although the lower reaches of the Yangtze River were in the hands of the Taiping army, the Qing Empire could still communicate between the north and the south, and the final victory would be out of reach. Think about Zhu Yuanzhang back then, and only after pacifying the entire Yangtze River basin did he start the Northern Expedition. So in a sense, this is a matter of life and death for the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
However, Hong Renxuan has clearly asked everyone not to conflict with Western countries, so as to win the support of Western countries, which made King Chen Yucheng suddenly lose his mind, so he wrote to Hong Renxuan, asking him to give clear instructions, but he did not get an answer for a long time, and it is estimated that Hong Renxuan can't make up his mind, after all, he wants to get the support of the West too much.
Left and right waited for no news, Chen Yucheng and Pa Xia Li discussed, you see otherwise, I will only fight the territory of the Qing army, I will not touch your concession, and after I occupy it, you can do business better, and even I will give you some compensation, how about it?
But Pa Xiali didn't let go, and threatened Chen Yucheng, so that we might never be friends again, and you don't want to get our support in the future.
In fact, Pa Xia Li never wanted to be friends with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and when he visited Nanjing and negotiated with Hong Xiuquan, he found that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was actually worse than the corrupt Qing Dynasty, and in his opinion, these people were just a group of robbers who had just finished robbing.
Don't blame these British ** look down on the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, they themselves are not angry, in fact, in this kind of life-and-death matter, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom should not have any scruples at all, and at that time, the British Empire's ** was far away in Shanghai, and there were only a few small gunboats in the local area, plus the Qing army's defense was empty, and the reinforcements did not arrive, Chen Yucheng should be desperate, fight down first, and talk about it later.
But Chen Yucheng didn't do that, he didn't understand the British move very much, and thought to himself, Pashali, are you cheap? Monk Greenqin beat you back then, did it give you pleasure? How could you actually speak for Qing Demon?
But in the end, he still backed down, because Hong Renxuan wanted to take refuge in the Western countries too much, and he thought that this was the only way for the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom to win, which had become the national policy of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and he did not dare to disobey.
In the end, after hesitation, Chen Yucheng gave up attacking Wuhan, led the troops to retreat, and lost the opportunity.
Therefore, the final defeat of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was inseparable from the fact that they pinned too much hope on foreigners, rather than self-reliance and self-reliance, so the final defeat was not unjust at all.
Then, the world changed dramatically, the Civil War broke out in the United States, and the British at that time had the main international income.
The source is to buy cotton from the south of the United States, process it into cotton cloth in the United Kingdom, sell it to the Far East, mainly China, and then buy tea and raw silk from China and sell it to the United States.
So the British have to find a way to remedy it, so they have to support the south with their eyes closed, not to mention that it is the most important cotton raw material in Britain, that is, against the increasingly vigorous industry in the north of the United States, which constitutes more and more competition for Britain, and it should also be bad.
Therefore, Britain did not hesitate to support the American South in this war, and immediately gave the United States the treatment of the belligerent countries of the Southern Confederacy.
Before the war began, the British newspapers were all in a posture of decent men and gentlemen, and they were amusement to condemn slavery in the South.
At this time, the ** sympathy of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in Britain set off another wave, demanding to abandon the principle of neutrality, compare the conditions given to the United States, and give the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom belligerent treatment, so that they can smoothly buy ** from Britain and defeat the Manchu **.
However, at this time in China, the situation has undergone earth-shaking changes, due to the development of many new treaty ports, because of the war barrier, the area that could not be traded, now can also do business, Britain to China ** several times, and therefore the Qing government's tariff and gold revenue has also surged, with more sufficient funds for the war, whether it is to pay military salaries or to buy, the hand is suddenly a lot richer.
Of course, on the latter point, the Qing Empire never dreamed that after being beaten and abused, it would be able to make money, obediently, why did you know why you were struggling for a long time? Just close your eyes and enjoy!
Therefore, many pragmatic ** and businessmen in Britain thought, the loss outside the embankment is made up for the embankment, or we don't pretend, and the archway is not needed, just be a bitch, simply stand on the side of the Qing Dynasty, and end the rebellion as soon as possible, so that we can make more money and make up for the losses caused by the American Civil War.
And due to the restrictions of British domestic law, although some merchants are also smuggling and selling to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom** and various other goods to make huge profits, but after all, small fights cannot be compared with the regular ** between the Qing Empire. So there is no need to weigh which is more important.
At the same time, more and more ** missionaries also lost patience with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and felt disillusioned, because he couldn't do anything Hong Renxuan promised.
First of all, he couldn't do anything about revising doctrine. If he returns to the original doctrine of Christianity, then he cannot be the son of the Father, nor can he be on an equal footing with Jesus, and the Father will not issue a decree to him at any time. If you want to modify this article, it will be to kill Hong Xiuquan, and he must kill you first. Secondly, at this time, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom had been corrupted, Hong Xiuquan himself had 50 wives, and an endless number of palace maids, who hid in the palace every day to eat, drink and have fun, and never saw his face.
Although the people in the city of Nanjing, although they no longer had to live a life of separation between husband and wife at this time, they endured countless forced labor, working as cattle and horses all day long, but they were hungry at any time, and the slightest mistake was not to peel the skin, or to be late, or to light the sky lantern, and life was worse than death.
The soldiers of the Taiping Army also lost their ideals. The old group of strong-willed men, most of whom had been killed in battle or had been suppressed in internal purges, and the new soldiers, who had either been captured as strong men or as hooligans, had no faith or morals to speak of.
Therefore, military discipline was gone, and in order to maintain morale, they gradually had to rely on strict punishment and money to lure them, so that they could capture one city at a time.
The city must be crazy ** and robbery, only in this way can the army continue to serve.
The ** missionaries invited by Hong Renxuan to visit always thought about the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom at first, thinking that these were individual exceptions, but after a long time, they found that these were actually the true face of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, so they felt more and more uneasy in their hearts, after all, these people were moral gentlemen, and they all left disappointed one after another, passing on these negative news.
And Hong Renxuan himself became more and more depressed, he found that the gap between reality and ideals was too big, and he was completely powerless, so he began to escape, smoked opium, and took a lot of wives to numb himself.
Once, he even went berserk, slashing to death the iron fan of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the servant of the missionary Luo Xiaoquan, with a sword, and then yelled at Luo Xiaoquan, threatening to kill him, and finally drove Luo Xiaoquan away.
In 1862, when Li Hongzhang came to Shanghai, Luo Xiaoquan also returned depressed, and because of his extreme disappointment, he began to hysterically expose the ugly side of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and these articles were published in the newspapers of London, Paris and New York.
Marx was one of them, he was originally a fervent advocate of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and at this time he also began to publish articles attacking the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom with all his might, he wrote in the "China Chronicle":
Marx. They did not set themselves any tasks other than changing the dynasty. They did not have any slogans, and they terrified the people more than they did the old rulers. Their whole mission seems to be to oppose stagnation and decay with ugly destruction, which has no signs of ...... constructionThe Taiping Army is the embodiment of the devil portrayed in the fantasies of the Chinese. However, only in China can there be such devils.
Such demons are the product of stagnant social life. "Every time I see this passage of Marx, I wonder if the people who carved them on the monument to the people's heroes in the first place listened to Marx's teachings? Under the domination of this sentiment, the West gradually began to side with the Qing Dynasty, and the British Parliament, after a fierce debate, decided to support the Qing Empire.
As a result, both Britain and France began to intervene openly, and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was finally forced to be anti-imperialist and anti-feudal, but they had no chance. Li Hongzhang, supported by the British, and Zuo Zongtang, supported by the French, began to sweep the Taiping army with lightning speed. And Zeng Guofan, who used to talk every day that he would never rely on foreign guns and cannons, no longer restricted his subordinates from obtaining Western weapons, but now he feels that as long as he adheres to the Confucian belief, "middle school is the body, and Western learning is for use" is also acceptable.
He changed from absolute disgust with foreigners to curiosity, and specially met with Rong Hong, a top student of Yale University in the United States, who had left disappointed from the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and deeply believed in his idea of developing China's industry. We often think that the Taiping Rebellion was a complete civil war, completely dominated by the Chinese, but this is not the case, and the truth of history is too far from what some people have instilled in us.
Of course, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom is not the main content of the book, but only a background introduction. After all, there have been a lot of books written about the course of this war, and if we write again, apart from the above cover-ups, there is not much deviation from the others, and this book is going to write another earth-shattering story, the struggle between China and Islam, which is the main line of this book, because most people don't know anything about it.
At the end of 1861, a few Muslims disguised as Han Chinese met with Chen Yucheng, the British king of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and they were surprised to find that this guy who was scolded by the Qing Dynasty as a four-eyed dog had two birthmarks under his eyes, which really looked like a four-eyed dog from a distance, but it was upside down. But they definitely didn't dare to laugh, because this person was one of the right-hand men of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, who had defeated the Qing army countless times, slaughtered countless cities, and killed countless ruthless characters, not to mention that they came to beg him.
Although the sect leader who came was far away in the sky, he could pinch and calculate, he said that the three kings of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the most powerful is the loyal king Li Xiucheng, brave and strategic, we can't calculate him, it's useless to find him, but he will die in the end on this loyal word. The second is the butler's godwang Hong Renxuan, but he is fascinated by the foreign monks and looks down on us dirt buns.
Only this British King Chen Yucheng, although he is a good hand in war, but he has soft ears and a good face, as long as we do our work enough, he will definitely help us achieve great things. But sooner or later, he will die of credulity. When these people saw the British King Chen Yucheng, they first bowed down devoutly, and looked respectful, and then presented gifts, at first some fine mink, lambskin, and Arab carpets.
However, the next gifts made him very interested, including the snow lotus of the Tianshan Mountains, the safflower of Tibet, and the dragon incense of Arabia, he had heard that these were extremely valuable medicinal materials, but he was located in the south, and he had never seen these things, so he couldn't help but be interested, and took it over to take a closer look.
The people who came also began to introduce him attentively, and Chen Yucheng was surprised as soon as they opened their mouths, they all spoke Guangxi dialect, although they were not very fluent, but they added a bit of cuteness, and their good feelings suddenly doubled, and they talked to them curiously, and the more they talked, the more they fell in love.
So Chen Yucheng decided to set up a banquet to entertain them, but these people did not drink, and they were very careful when eating, but they were very good at speaking, and Chen Yucheng put on a high hat one by one, and spoke Chen Yucheng's hometown dialect, so that the soldiers around him could understand, so Chen Yucheng was very happy, and he didn't mind this.
But what Chen Yucheng didn't know was that the sect leader had carefully prepared for this meal for a long time, he knew Chen Yucheng's weaknesses, and also knew their own weaknesses.