Chapter 21 Desire is a double edged sword

If you look through all the history of human struggles, you will find that methods such as infernal affairs, counter-intrigue, and borrowing a knife to kill someone from within have miraculous effects.Coincidentally, the historical lessons of the failure of most peasant uprisings also profoundly confirm this truth: fortresses are always breached from the inside. The peasant leaders who led the uprising had a hard life at the beginning of the rebellion, and their lives were not guaranteed. After living through today, they don’t know if there will be a tomorrow. But when the cause of the rebellion was just beginning to take shape, those peasant leaders began to fight among themselves either because they were greedy for pleasure and playing with women, or because of the uneven distribution of internal power...

This probably has something to do with his background as a farmer and his lack of experience in politics. When he had the opportunity to come into contact with power and beauties, he didn't know how to control his desire for power and deal with the fruits of victory, which led to failure. Nanjing's Hong Jiaozhu and his subordinates repeated this relatively vulgar mistake. After the death of Feng Yunshan, who had high prestige and ability in the Taiping Army, the military and political power fell into the hands of Yang Xiuqing, who often pretended to be a father and bullied his son Hong Xiuquan, whose ability was proportional to his ambition.

In fact, it is not necessarily a bad thing for younger brothers to be ambitious.As long as the big brother has the ability and manages it properly, the ambition of the younger brother will be buried by his own sense of awe for the boss as time goes by, and he will gradually adapt to the less stressful but promising career of being a younger brother. It's a pity that Master Hong is the counterexample of this rule.Hong Jiaozhu not only has a problem with his personal ability, but also lacks aggressiveness, especially after entering Nanjing, he put his main energy on engaging in religious activities, writing doggerel, and playing with beautiful women (historical records say that the number of Hong Xiuquan's wives is at eight. More than ten) and other low-level and interesting corrupt lives.

Hong Xiuquan's inaction indulging in a corrupt life made Yang Xiuqing mentally prepared for his own misconduct: In these years, in terms of handling political affairs and sending troops to fight wars, what role has Hong Xiuquan played? Can he compare to me!Who took down this world, I, Yang Xiuqing!Hong Xiuquan must abdicate!A voice in Yang Xiuqing's heart cried out. In 1856, Yang Xiuqing's time seemed to have come.Two big things happened this year: One is Yang Xiuqing's proudest work in this life, leading the Taiping Army to defeat the Jiangbei and Jiangnan camps of the Qing army.

The second is the start of the second Opium War. By the way, the big powers were very optimistic about the Christian regime of Master Hong, and they wanted to cooperate with Master Hong to destroy the Qing Dynasty, and then engage in business cooperation or something. But after sending people to contact Master Hong, this idea was shattered.First of all, Master Hong's Christianity is too copycat, which is unacceptable, and then Master Hong is too out of step with the times and insists on treating the big powers as vassal states!Yang Xiuqing was rarely consistent with Master Hong in his attitude towards the big powers: Our Taiping Army is strong enough to wipe out the bugs (Qing Army), so why cooperate with you and other overseas countries!

Although Mr. Yang Xiuqing looked down on the strength of the British and French vassal states, he still appreciated the British and French allied forces fighting with the Qing army to share the firepower for him. The Qing army was newly defeated, and had to deal with the British and French allied forces, unable to provoke a new war. Hong Xiuquan, a good-for-nothing, only knows how to shut himself up in the palace and have fun. Isn't this a good time for me, Yang Xiuqing, to seize power?Yang Xiuqing seemed to see herself ascending to the top spot in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. With enough ambition and strength, what else can stop Yang Xiuqing from seizing power?

Ever since, Yang Xiuqing became more and more enthusiastic about the acting career of God descending to earth, but the plot was old-fashioned, and he didn't even bother to innovate the lines.You made a mistake, you know that?What you said just now should be so, so, so... For example, Comrade Yang Xiuqing's opinion is very pertinent. Why, you don't want to follow suit?Well, get your ass ready, you'll know what to do when you get spanked. It's an old routine, nothing new at all, but it works well. Hong Xiuquan found that his supporters disappeared one by one, and the effective scope of the orders he issued was limited to his palace, and almost all the people in Tianjing were Yang Xiuqing's people.

Hong Xiuquan was emptied! Yang Xiuqing, who had won the initial victory, relaxed her vigilance.In Yang Xiuqing's eyes, the current Hong Xiuquan is nothing more than a weak person who is allowed to be slaughtered by him. But Yang Xiuqing was wrong, he made a fatal mistake, he underestimated his opponent! His opponent wasn't just Hong Xiuquan, he had offended too many senior colleagues, including the founder of the country, the Northern King Wei Changhui, the upstart Yan King Qin Rigang, and even the central government official whom Yang Xiuqing himself regarded as a confidant, the Prime Minister Chen Chengrong.

These people have one thing in common: they were all whipped by Yang Xiuqing in front of the soldiers, their self-esteem was hurt by Yang Xiuqing's extreme authoritarianism, and they were all fed up with the endless spirit of Heavenly Father descending to earth Torture, they all want Yang Xiuqing to die! Moreover, Hong Xiuquan is not really stupid, the reason why he let Yang Xiuqing do it is because of one word: forbearance.He knew that he didn't have many chances, and he had to hit every shot, so he needed to wait for a suitable opportunity to counterattack.Now that the opportunity came, Yang Xiuqing underestimated him and would not do anything for the time being. For him, this was an excellent opportunity.

Thus, a famous tragedy was officially staged in accordance with the laws of history with the efforts of two super famous directors, Yang Xiuqing and Hong Xiuquan.