Chapter 13 Chapter 12 The White Lotus Sect and the Tianli Sect Uprising

The corruption of Heshen led to the prevalence of corruption among officials in the Qing Dynasty. Several incorruptible officials devoted themselves to poetry, calligraphy and painting.In Hubei and Henan, the White Lotus Sect has sprung up. At first, he was an Anhui native named Liu Song, who went to Henan to preach, and used the opportunity of treating the common people to persuade them to join the religion. Later, he was discovered and captured by the government and exiled to Gansu.Liu Song's apprentices Liu Zhixie and Song Zhiqing fled to Hubei and continued to preach.They advertised to the people that the Qing Dynasty was about to perish, and a new world would emerge, and those who joined the religion could be allocated their own land.After hearing this propaganda, the poor peasants joined the White Lotus Sect one after another.

More and more people participated in Bailian, which shocked Emperor Qianlong.Emperor Qianlong ordered the government to arrest the believers.Some officials were veterans of extortion, so they took the opportunity to send servants to check door-to-door. Regardless of whether you are a believer or not, you have to spend a sum of money to "honor" them. Those who have money pay for their lives, and those who have no money are punished He was caught and tortured in prison, and even died.There was an official in Wuchang who tried to extort money from the common people, but failed to do so. He went so far as to fabricate charges and harm thousands of common people.For this reason, Liu Zhixie, the leader of the White Lotus Sect, called a meeting of believers in Xiangyang to discuss countermeasures.Everyone said:

"In this world, the government is forcing the people to rebel. We might as well rebel." After some discussion, they decided to use the slogan "The government is forcing the people to rebel" to launch a mass uprising, and sent believers to various places to make contact. In 1796, the year when Emperor Jiaqing succeeded to the throne, the Bailian believers held uprisings in Yidu, Zhijiang and other places in Hubei.Qi Lin, the leader of the White Lotus Sect in Xiangyang, originally planned to revolt on the Lantern Festival, but accidentally leaked the news, and was attacked by the government. Qi Lin and more than a hundred companions were killed.

Qi Lin's young wife, Wang Cong'er, is a woman who performs martial arts since she was a child. She married Qi Lin at the age of sixteen. Together with Yao Zhifu, he reorganized the uprising team. In less than a month, he organized an uprising army of 40,000 to 50,000 people. They attacked the government everywhere and punished corrupt officials. When Wang Cong'er revolted in Hubei, the White Lotus Sect in Sichuan and Shaanxi also raised troops to respond.The anger of the uprising spread across a vast area of ​​the three provinces.Seeing this, Emperor Jiaqing quickly ordered governors, governors, generals, generals and other officials of all sizes to send a large number of people to suppress the rebel army.Wang Cong'er's rebel army fought mobilely in Hubei, Henan, and Shaanxi, breaking the encirclement and suppression of the Qing army. In 1798, the uprising team arrived in Sichuan and joined forces with the local uprising army.

A general of the Qing army, Ming Ming, proposed a strategy of "strengthening the walls and clearing the wilderness" to Emperor Jiaqing. He asked armed militia groups to be organized in various places and build bunkers. As soon as the rebel army came, the people were driven into the bunkers, so that the rebel army could not get food, supplies and personnel. support.Jiaqing adopted his strategy and ordered all regions to adopt this strategy, and the situation of the rebel army became more and more difficult. At the beginning of the third year of Jiaqing (1798), the Qing army besieged Wang Cong'er in northern Sichuan. Wang Cong'er broke away from the siege of the Qing army and led 20,000 people to attack Xi'an. Unexpectedly, he was defeated in Xi'an. When he returned to Hubei, Ming Ming led the army to pursue him closely. .The rebel army was surrounded by government troops and armed militias in front. They fell into the enemy's encirclement at the Sancha River in Xunxi (in present-day Hubei Province). The officers and soldiers surrounded the mountain densely and attacked on a large scale.In the end, due to the great disparity in the strength of the enemy and ourselves, it failed. Wang Cong'er, Yao Zhifu and others jumped off the cliff to their deaths.

Since then, insurgents from all over the country continued to fight against the government.It took the Qing Dynasty nine years to suppress the White Lotus Rebellion.Although the Bailian Sect uprising failed, it aroused more people to rise up and resist. In just over ten years, the Tianli Sect peasant uprising led by Li Wencheng broke out. Li Wencheng was born in a poor farmer's family in Xiejiazhuang, Hua County, Henan Province. His family had a deep hatred with the government in his early years.His eldest brother Li Wenshan built a garden for the government office. After the completion of the work, the government supervisor not only refused to pay him, but instead accused him of stealing things. His elder brother was arrested and imprisoned for this reason. He was tortured and released from prison when he was dying. He died soon after.The second elder brother, Li Wenlin, was beaten to death in prison for taking the lead in refusing to pay the official tax.When Li Wencheng was in his teens, he studied in a private school for a few days. He was expelled from the school for disrespecting Confucius and Mencius because he opposed the propaganda of Confucius and Mencius.In order to make a living, he worked as a carpenter and mason at a young age.

Once, he was recruited by the county office to build a temple, and his salary was embezzled privately by Mao Tianqing, the yamen servant. He was convicted of attempted treason, put in prison, and released after being rescued by villagers in various ways. Later, the provinces of Henan, Hebei, and Shandong were famined for years, starving and dying everywhere, and many people wanted to rebel.So Li Wencheng seized the opportunity and organized Tianli Sect in series.Its teaching is: if the common people want to be free from oppression by the government, they must change their dynasties.Li Wencheng spread Tianli religion among the people under the cover of seeing a doctor and fortune-telling.He first formed an alliance with Niu Liangchen, who was brave enough to rebel, and then discussed with Huang Xingzai, the leader of Tianli Sect, how to launch a popular uprising.Li Wencheng, Niu Liangchen, Lin Qing, the leader of the Tianli Sect in Zhili, and Feng Keshan, the leader of the Tianli Sect in Shandong, agreed that Lin Qing would stage an uprising in Hebei, Feng Keshan in Shandong, and Li Wencheng in Henan at the same time.

In the first month of the 17th year of Jiaqing (1812), Li Wencheng and Lin Qing convened a Tianlijiao meeting in Daokou Town, Huaxian County, to formulate the rebel army program and various disciplines.The program of the rebel army is: "Anti-Qing and Ming Dynasty, justice for heaven, kill the rich and help the poor, and divide the land equally." Wealthy people will kill." Seeing this, common people said that Li Wencheng was the reincarnation of "Li Zicheng", and they all asked to join Tianli Sect.In October of the same year, the leaders of the various rebel armies agreed that on September 15th of the eighteenth year of Jiaqing (1813), the three provinces would revolt at the same time.

Unexpectedly, one month before the uprising, the secrets of the uprising were leaked, and Li Wencheng and Niu Liangchen were arrested.So the leader of Tianli Sect convened an emergency meeting and decided to revolt ahead of schedule on the seventh day of September. On this day, the rebel brigade broke through the county seat of Hua County, rescued Li Wencheng, Niu Liangchen and others, and killed the county magistrate Qiang Kejie and inspector Liu Bin.Subsequently, Li Wencheng and the leaders agreed to establish a peasant regime, appointed Niu Liangchen as the military adviser, and Song Yuan as the generalissimo.The rebel army severely punished corrupt officials and bully landlords, opened warehouses to help the poor, and received enthusiastic support and response from the people, who joined the rebel army one after another, and the ranks continued to grow.

However, the Hebei uprising army led by Lin Qing did not know the news of the early uprising in Shandong and Henan, so they still rose up and attacked the Forbidden City as scheduled, but failed because they did not have reinforcements to assist them.Later, the rebel army led by Li Wencheng fell into heavy siege by the Qing army and landlord armed forces, and was finally outnumbered and quickly failed. After Emperor Jiaqing put down the uprising of the White Lotus Sect and the Tianli Sect, although he realized that "the jade cup drank the blood of thousands of families, and the silver candle burned the people's ointment. When the sky tears, people cry, and the singing is loud and the cry is loud", showing Confucian benevolence and love for the people. attitude, and took some measures to ease the fierce social conflicts.However, he regards this series of crisis incidents only as individual cases, and believes that the problems in the world are all caused by bad Heshen and bad officials. solve.He didn't have a big plan in his chest, and he didn't have a big hand, so although he solved the crisis left by Qianlong's prosperity one by one, he fell into a deeper crisis step by step. By the time of his successor, Emperor Daoguang, the Qing Dynasty had already fallen into a crisis. Difficulties at home and abroad, besieged on all sides.