Peasant Uprising and Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement in Qing Dynasty in Original History
The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom (1851-1864) was renamed the Heavenly Kingdom of God and the Heavenly Father, Heavenly Brother and Heavenly King.
From the end of 1850 to the beginning of 1851, the leading group composed of Hong Xiuquan, Yang Xiuqing, Xiao Chaogui, Feng Yunshan, Wei Changhui and Shi Dakai launched an armed uprising against the Qing Dynasty in Jintian Village, Guangxi. After the establishment of the "Taiping Heavenly Kingdom", Jiangning (now Nanjing) was captured in March 1853, with its capital here and renamed Tianjing. In August 1864, Tianjing, the capital of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, was captured by Xiang Army, and Tianguifu Hong, the son of Hong Xiuquan, the young king, was captured. In 1872, Li Wencai, the last Taiping Army unit, was defeated in Guizhou.
jintian uprising
Hong Xiuquan went to Guangzhou to take part in the imperial examination many times, but unfortunately they all came last. In 1844 (twenty-third year of Daoguang), he and his cousin Feng Yunshan and his brother Hong Rengan absorbed some Christian teachings from Liang Fa’s Good Words to Advise the World, and later baptized themselves. Hong Xiuquan and Feng Yunshan went to Guixian, Guangxi to preach, and Hong returned to Guangdong soon. Feng stayed in Guangxi to develop, and the number of local believers increased.
In the summer of 1850, Hong Xiuquan issued a group camp order, asking the congregation to organize troops in Jintian Village, Guiping County, Guangxi. At the end of the year, the Taiping Army fought against the Qing army in Siwang and Caicunjiang successively, thus beginning the armed opposition with the Qing court. At the beginning, it was named "Taiping", and later the founding of the country was named "Taiping Heavenly Kingdom". On January 11th, 1851, Hong Xiuquan’s birthday, many people worshipped God in Jintian Village to "wish you a long life". Later, the world designated this day as jintian uprising Memorial Day. On March 23, Hong Xiuquan ascended the throne in Wuxuan, Guangxi, and was later renamed King of Peace.
Nanjing with its capital.
In the autumn of 1851, the Taiping Army occupied Yong ‘an Prefecture (now mengshan county) in Guangxi. In December, the kings were enfeoffed in Yong ‘an City.
In April, 1852 (the second year of Xianfeng), the Taiping Army broke through Yong ‘an, besieged the provincial capital Guilin in the north, and continued northward. At Suoyidu in Quanzhou, it was intercepted by the Jiang Zhongyuan department of the Qing army, and Feng Yunshan died after being hit by the artillery fire of the Qing army. On May 19th, he left Guangxi and entered Hunan, Kedao and Chenzhou. In August, Xiao Chaogui, the king of the West, heard that Changsha was empty, led a division to attack Changsha, and died during the siege on September 12th. When Hong Xiuquan and Yang Xiuqing heard the news, they rushed to Changsha at the gate, but by this time, the Qing government had gathered heavily, and the Taiping Army had failed to attack Changsha for nearly three months, so they withdrew from the north to conquer Yuezhou.
On January 12, 1853, the Taiping Army captured Wuchang, and the number of Taiping Army increased to 500,000. On March 19, 1853, Jiangning (now Nanjing) was captured, and Lu Jianying, the governor of Liangjiang, was killed. On March 29, 1853, Hong Xiuquan entered Jinling City, renovated the governor’s office of Liangjiang, changed it into Tianwangfu, and announced that Jinling was its capital and renamed Tianjing, thus formally establishing the peasant regime of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, which confronted the Qing Dynasty.
Tianjing incident
In the early days of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, military and political affairs were the responsibility of military advisers, and Hong Xiuquan retired behind the scenes and ignored the affairs of state affairs, and the power fell to Yang Xiuqing, the East King.
In 1856, the Taiping Army broke through the prosperous "Jiangnan Camp" of the Qing army and solved the three-year siege of Tianjing. Seeing that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was in a good situation at that time, Yang Xiuqing had other plans. Forcing Hong Xiuquan to seal himself as "Long live". Wei Changhui, the king of the North, asked for permission to kill the king of the East, but the king refused. Later, Chen Chengrong told the King of Heaven that Yang Xiuqing had attempted to usurp the throne, and the King of Heaven secretly ordered the Northern King, the Wing King and the Yan King Qin Rigang to eradicate the Eastern King.
In the early morning of the 2nd, Yang Xiuqing and his family were killed in the attack on the East Wangfu, and more than 20,000 people, including the subordinates of the East King’s shogunate, their families and other soldiers and civilians, were also killed, which is known as the Tianjing Incident in history. Shi Dakai, the wing king, blamed Wei Changhui for killing indiscriminately after arriving in Tianjing, and they broke up in discord. Shi Dakai escaped from Jinling City that night. Later, under the secret order of the heavenly king Hong Xiuquan, Wei Changhui killed all the family members in the Wing Palace.
Shi Dakai was in Jingnan, dispatch troops, Anhui Province, and wrote to the king of heaven, please kill the king of the North to make people angry. Seeing that all the soldiers and civilians supported Shi Dakai, Tianwang wrote a letter to punish Wei. In November, Shi Dakai returned to Beijing by a letter, and was honored as the "righteous king" by the military and civilians. He joined the DPRK in proposing "promoting government affairs", and Hong Xiuquan was forced to submit a letter because of public discussion. Regardless of personal grievances, he only punished the first evil when investigating the responsibility for the massacre, not blaming his subordinates, and the people quickly settled down. Although Wuchang fell shortly after Shi Dakai returned to Beijing because of the lack of food, under the deployment of Shi Dakai, the Taiping Army held fast to the pass and waited for an opportunity to counterattack. Rising stars such as Chen Yucheng, Li Xiucheng, Yang Fuqing and Shi Zhenji began to take the lead, and the passive situation caused by infighting was gradually reversed. In the spring of 1857, Li Xiucheng and Chen Yucheng defeated the Qinding Third Division of the Qing Army, and went north to Lu ‘an and Huoqiu, where they joined the Nian Army, with the soldiers heading straight for Hubei.
Expedition to the west and east
In September, 1857, Hong Xiuquan was forced to send an envoy to ask Shi Dakai to return to Beijing. Shi Dakai said that he would not return to Beijing, but would transfer Chen Yucheng, Li Xiucheng, Wei Jun and other generals to help, and continue to fight for the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom as the "general commander". Hong Xiuquan approved this plan, and Tianjing officials admitted that Shi Dakai’s subsequent operations were expeditionary activities of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Since then, Shi Dakai has successively moved to Fujian, Zhejiang, Jiangxi and other provinces outside Tianjing, containing a large number of Qing troops and alleviating the military pressure in Tianjing and Anhui.
From February to May, 1860, Li Xiucheng took advantage of the victory to capture many places in southern Jiangsu after the second attack on the Qing army’s Jiangnan camp. In 1861, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom deployed the second Western Expedition, and planned to attack Wuchang from the north and south of the Yangtze River with two main forces, Chen Yucheng and Li Xiucheng, to rescue Anqing. Chen Yucheng marched rapidly, conquered Huangzhou in one fell swoop and matched Wuchang. At this time, British diplomat Parkes met Chen Yucheng. Taiping rebels were asked to withdraw their troops. Due to the slow advance of Li Xiucheng, Taiping rebels were not sure to capture Wuchang in a short time, and Xiang troops stepped up their siege of Anqing. Chen Yucheng decided to order his men Lai Wenguang to lead troops to stay near Wuchang, continue to wait for Li Xiucheng, and return to Anqing with his main force.
In September 1861, Ceng Guoquan conquered Anqing, and all the Taiping Army commanders Ye Yunlai, Wu Dingcai and more than 16,000 people were killed. In January 1862, Li Xiucheng led an army to attack Shanghai, and the Qing army and foreigners jointly resisted and blocked the Taiping Army. After a long attack, the Taiping Army still failed to occupy Shanghai. In May, Chen Yucheng was arrested by the traitor Miao Peilin in Shouzhou and escorted to the Qing army to win the battle. In June of the same year, Chen Yucheng was executed by the Qing army. In June, 1862 (the first year of Tongzhi), Hong Xiuquan ordered Taiping troops from all over the country to return to Tianjing, and the Taiping army assembled 200,000 troops. In October, it fought against the Xiang army for more than 40 days, but failed to win. In December, Li Xiucheng was ordered to cross the Yangtze River north. In the same year, Li Hongzhang attacked southern Jiangsu and Zuo Zongtang attacked Zhejiang.
The fall of Tianjing
On December 21, 1863, the fortress outside Tianjing was completely lost and suffered from food shortage. Li Xiucheng, the loyal king, suggested retreating, but Hong Xiuquan refused. On June 1st, 1864, Hong Xiuquan died after many days of feeding on weeds, and the young king Tianguifu Hong succeeded to the throne. On July 19, Tianjing fell, and then the Qing army slaughtered the city, and many civilians were killed. The tragic situation is indescribable.
Li Xiucheng and Hong Rengan escorted the young king to break through. Li Xiucheng let the good horse be given to the young master, and was separated from the young master in the chaos. On the 22nd of the same month, he was captured in Fangshan, just outside Nanjing, and after tens of thousands of words of confession ("Li Xiucheng readme"), he was executed by Zeng Guofan on August 7th.
On July 29th, 1864, Tianguifu Hong, the young king who broke through to Guangde, was welcomed by Huang Wenjin, the garrison commander of Huzhou Taiping Army. On August 28th, Huang Wenjin and Hong Rengan took the initiative to abandon the city and break through. On September 5th, Huang Wenjin died of injuries while escorting the young heavenly king to Ningguo, and was intercepted by the enemy. In October, the battle of Shicheng, Jiangxi, was completely annihilated. Tianguifu Hong, a young heavenly king, was captured in the barren mountain cave in Shicheng, Jiangxi Province, and was executed by Ling Chi in Nanchang on November 18th.
Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace (1851-1864) ［established by Hong Xiuquan（洪秀全）leader of the Taiping Revolution
The armed forces of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom have successively developed to Guangxi, Hunan, Hubei, Jiangxi, Anhui, Jiangsu, Henan, Shanxi, Zhili, Shandong, Fujian, Zhejiang, Guizhou, Sichuan, Yunnan, Shaanxi, Gansu and Guangdong provinces, and have conquered more than 600 cities.
After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the administrative division of "province, government, road and county" in the Qing Dynasty was changed to a three-level system of "province, county and county", that is, the "road" was abolished and the "government" was changed to "county". Hong Rengan, one of the late leaders of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, claimed several times that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom wanted to divide the world into 21 provinces, which should refer to the 18 provinces established by the Qing Dynasty and the three northeastern provinces. However, the provinces mentioned in the documents of various periods of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom were not limited to this, and there were other provinces such as Sufu, Tianpu, Guifu and Yili (Xinjiang). Hong Rengan also announced that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom would set up 12 counties in jiangnan province and 11 counties in each province of other provinces, but this idea was divorced from reality and could not and could not be implemented.