Chapter 20 sweep the south

With the six cores back in place and three thousand hard-core congregations in hand, it seems that Hong Xiuquan is about to rebel, and it is written like this in many books. In those books, Hong Xiuquan is portrayed as a born hero, a born hero Hong Xiuquan saw the living conditions of the people in Guangdong and Guangxi after the Opium War, and felt the corruption and numbness of the Qing Dynasty, so he founded the religion of worshiping God and held high the banner of anti-Qing, which showed his thorough revolutionary nature. This is by no means the real Hong Xiuquan.Hong Xiuquan is by no means a born hero, the real Hong Xiuquan is just an ordinary person, he has all the weaknesses of normal people.And as a normal person, when making a choice that may lose his head, he would never be so rash.

The truth of the matter is that Hong Xiuquan was forced to go to Liangshan step by step. At that time, the congregation who worshiped God would regularly engage in team building (regiment camp). From today’s perspective, this is just a religious activity. After growing up, coupled with the usual bullying by the government and the locals, it is inevitable that I will be emotional. When I am emotional, I will do some drastic acts of eradicating the rich and helping the poor, and eating the rich. Although the ruling power of the government in Guangxi is not enough, it is impossible for the government to allow them to gather crowds to cause trouble, so sometimes they will deploy troops to suppress them, and conflicts arise like this.

In December 1850, the biggest conflict in the history of the Worshiping God congregation took place—when the believers of the God Worshiping Church were in the camp of Jintian Village, Guangxi, they happened to encounter some officers and soldiers who were not open-eyed and tried to ask some members of the God Worshiping Church The charcoal-burning workers extorted illegal taxes, and conflicts broke out, killing and injuring hundreds of officers and soldiers. This time it doesn't work. The matter is urgent, but fortunately, the 37th birthday of Hong Jiaozhu is approaching, so let's take advantage of this day to formally rebel!

January 11, 1851, Hong Xiuquan's birthday. The God Worshiping Rebellion took place in Jintian Village, Guangxi, under the title of "Taiping", and Hong Xiuquan proclaimed himself "Heavenly King". The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's own history books called it the "Wanshou Uprising", which is also the "Jintian Uprising" in textbooks.To add one more sentence, some scholars believe that the specific time of the incident is still debatable, so let's take the mainstream view here. If you dare to show your banner to rebel, you must have a way to deal with the encirclement and suppression of the government army.

The method of the Taiping Army is to fight and go, to support war with war, and to forge an effective army in battle! What kind of army is the most effective?Not an army with good weapons, nor an army of numbers, but an army of faith.If the soldiers do not have a firm belief and only fight for food and money, then they must have no combat effectiveness and failure is inevitable, which has nothing to do with the number of people and weapons and equipment. At this time, most of the soldiers of the Taiping Army were faithful believers in worshiping God. They deeply believed that their beloved Master Hong was sent by God to eliminate injustice in the world. If they dedicated themselves to this cause, they would ascend to heaven forever. Be with God.

Therefore, they share a common belief and have a strong cohesive force, and they can burst out with great energy at the critical moment of life and death. Therefore, they are small in number and have poor weapons and equipment, but their personnel and weapons are far superior to their Qing army. He fell off the horse and won many battles. Of course, the fact that the victory came so quickly has something to do with the other two reasons. First of all, the overall quality of their opponents is too poor.First, Li Xingyuan, the imperial envoy who succeeded Lin Zexu, was good at writing moral articles, but he was a layman in war, and the worst thing was that he liked to command blindly, which was his greatest pleasure; Undisciplined "four no useless talents".

Secondly, the Taiping Army's slogan "Allocating the land to relieve the poor" is very attractive and can resonate with the majority of farmers who have no land.Therefore, in order to have land to grow and eat a living, more and more farmers joined the ranks of the Taiping Army on the way. Although the Taiping Army was victorious, for Hong Xiuquan, the price of victory was too high. In June 1852, Hong Xiuquan's best friend and most loyal comrade-in-arms Nan Wang Feng Yunshan died in battle, his ambition unfulfilled.The impact of Feng Yunshan's death on Hong Xiuquan is immeasurable.

In December of the same year, the Western King Xiao Chaogui died in battle. Their death is valuable, because their death in exchange for the Taiping Army to continue to move forward. In March 1853, the Taiping Army invaded Nanjing. Jiangnan has a developed economy and rich products, which is convenient for raising food and funds, and can also cut off the source of finance and taxation of the Qing government. Therefore, King Hong changed Nanjing's name to Tianjing and made it his capital. But Hong Xiuquan never imagined that he would never have the chance to leave Nanjing again in this life.

When Hong Xiuquan was busy with important work related to building the capital and granting rewards, Emperor Xianfeng gave him a big gift, a cage made by the Qing army. Xianfeng ordered the Qing army with the Green Camp and the Eight Banners as the main force to set up the Jiangnan Camp in Jiangsu and the Jiangbei Camp in Zhejiang, and weaved a big cage around Nanjing. Xianfeng wanted to imprison the Taiping Army in the cage. When you grow up, you must never let the tiger go back to the mountain. Naturally, Yang Xiuqing, the de facto leader of the Taiping Army, would not stand still. After careful preparation, Yang Xiuqing counterattacked the Qing army in three ways.

The first route was the 20,000 partial division led by Li Kaifang and Lin Fengxiang - the Northern Expeditionary Army.Li Kaifang and Lin Fengxiang are powerful generals from the Tiandihui, a powerful "underworld" organization. Their mission is to lead the war to North China and Beijing, and share the pressure for the Taiping Army in Nanjing. See if there is a possibility of going to Beijing, where Fengshui is better, to become an emperor. Going north alone, going deep into the enemy's territory, facing an enemy several times larger than yourself, lacking supplies and support, and fighting a bloody road by yourself!

Before the prelude kicked off, the end of the Northern Expedition was actually doomed. Although this lonely army went deep into the Northern Expedition, it killed the Qing army all the way to Tianjin.But the Northern Expeditionary Army encountered an invincible opponent under the city of Tianjin-the severe cold in the north.If you are fighting against the Qing army, you can still find ways to boost morale, but in the face of this severe cold that cannot be defended against and cannot be attacked, there is no solution under the condition that the lone army goes deep and has no support. The army has no fighting spirit, and the morale of the army quickly slackens. People's hearts were scattered, and the geographical advantage was not on the side of the Northern Expeditionary Army. The flat terrain of North China was especially suitable for the Mongolian cavalry of the Qing army's "God of War" Seng Gelinqin to fight. Under the impact of the cavalry, the Northern Expeditionary Army had no chance. In 1855, the Northern Expedition was wiped out. The second route is the Western Expeditionary Army led by Prime Minister Hu Yihuang and Shi Dakai successively. Their mission is to occupy the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River and protect the southeast half of the country according to the natural danger of the Yangtze River. In the early days of the Western Expeditionary Army, they encountered almost no decent opponents. They successively captured the important towns of Anqing, Jiujiang, and Wuchang, and brought Hubei and Jiangxi into the sphere of influence of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.But the good luck of the Western Expeditionary Army ended here, because they were about to face their destined opponent-the Hunan Army. The third route was the main force of the Taiping Army commanded by Yang Xiuqing who was in the base camp. Yang Xiuqing personally dealt with the Jiangbei and Jiangnan camps of the Qing army. This was a decisive battle. I would like to thank the ordinary soldiers of the Taiping Army for their dedication to sacrifice themselves and help everyone. Thanks to the generals headed by Shi Dakai who stick to the front line day and night, exerting their revolutionary spirit of moving wherever they need to go, charging ahead and retreating behind. Thanks to the Northern Expedition for sharing the firepower of the Qing army. After three years of fierce fighting, in 1856, Yang Xiuqing commanded the Taiping Army to defeat the Jiangbei and Jiangnan Camps of the Qing Army. So far, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom occupied most of the south of the Yangtze River, and ruled along the river with the Qing Dynasty, and the country's power rose to its peak.