Among the many generals of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the wing king Shi Dakaisu was known for his great wisdom and courage and the use of soldiers like gods, "since Yong'an out of the Yangtze River and Kejinling, hundreds of cubits in size, Dakai is invincible, has not been defeated, and the Qing army's trumpet is shi dare to be dang." On the battlefield of the Western Expedition, Shi Dakai, who was only 23 years old, was ordered to be in danger and defeated the Xiang army on land and water.
However, what is puzzling is that this famous general of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, who is known for his all-round talent in literature and martial arts, has suffered repeated defeats after leading his army out of the tianjing civil strife, and although he has more than 100,000 elites in his hands, he still loses the momentum of defeating the enemy and swallowing up the tiger on the battlefield in the past.
Confidence is frustrated and enterprising spirit is lost
After the Tianjing Incident, Yang Xiuqing, the Eastern King, who had fought side by side in the past and was able to pass on the message of the Heavenly Father, and tens of thousands of Taiping Army generals died of infighting, and the ideal of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was already an unattainable dream in Shi Dakai's view, and he completely lost confidence in the future of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's revolutionary cause. ”
In fact, after Shi Dakai led his troops back to Guangxi, "as soon as he returned to his hometown, he was said to have returned to the forest." It was only because of "strict rewards everywhere and no place to hide" that he was forced to passively persist in the anti-Qing struggle. He once occupied the military town of Qingyuan Fucheng in northwest Guangxi, and in terms of military posture, he could control Liuzhou in the southeast; he could enter Guizhou into Sichuan in the northwest; and from Baise to Yunnan in the west, he could take advantage of the opportunity.
At that time, the rebel army led by Li Yonghe and Lan Dashun in Sichuan had grown to more than 300,000 people, and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom also attracted most of the qing court's troops because of the strong rise of young generals such as Chen Yucheng and Li Xiucheng. However, Shi Dakai's army captured Qingyuan on October 15, 1859, until june 1860, when it was forced to withdraw, and it was enough to stay in place for eight months, resulting in a waste of good time.
The situation is grim and the enemy is stronger
Shi Dakai left Tianjing in May 1857 in a negative mood, and after leading an expedition alone, he moved to Anhui, Gansu, Fujian, Hunan and other provinces for more than two years. In August 1859, they suddenly returned to their hometown of Guangxi, and fought hard for nearly two years, although Shi Dakai had more than 100,000 troops under his command and strong combat strength, but at this time the enemy was no longer the Eight Banners and Green Battalions that they had to deal with during the Jintian Uprising, but the local soldiers and regimental training.
After the Tianping Rebellion, the Xiang Army, the Huai Army, and the Chu Army achieved remarkable results, and Zeng Guofan, Zuo Zongtang, and others were even more famous in Qingshi, and it was under their dazzling aura that the regimental training armies of other provinces were rarely mentioned. In fact, the landlord armed militia in Guangxi was also very strong, and they used the method of fortifying the walls and clearing the wilderness to coerce the common people into the cottages, fortresses and stubborn resistance of the Taiping Army.
The small group of troops sent by Shi Dakai to collect grain was repeatedly ambushed, and the losses were huge and miserable. Even if Lai Yuxin, a vanguard general whom Shi relied heavily on, led a large army out to hunt for grain, it was a series of failures. After Shi Zhenji, a general who had developed independently from Shi Dakai, failed in attacking Baise, he was "lost" on the way to the transfer, and was ambushed by the regiment led by the local toast in the wilderness, and finally defeated and captured.
The subordinates thought about it and scattered
Shi Dakai's state of loss of fighting spirit, coupled with the deteriorating battlefield situation, caused strong dissatisfaction among his subordinates, who "had their own intentions and could not be controlled." Many soldiers asked Shi Dakai to return to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom together and jointly complete the great cause of destroying demons. However, Shi Dakai still insisted on "not looking back", and after experiencing a series of setbacks and failures, his subordinates began to divide continuously.
In December 1859, The generals Fu Zhongxin, Tan Tiyuan, Li Shouhui, Ji Ba, and other generals led by Fu Zhongxin, Qingtian YuZhongqi, and Li Shouhui and Ji Ba, led their troops to the south, and then returned to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom through Hunan and Jiangxi. In March 1860, Houqi Zaifu Yu Zhongfu's troops revolted and prepared to travel freely east, Zhongfu tried his best to stop the killing, and his subordinates, Yu Mingfu and Yu Chengyi, the chancellor, all traveled west into Guizhou.
In the spring and summer of 1860, the Wu Wei army Zaifu Cai Cixian also wanted to lead his troops to flee, but the matter was revealed and he was killed. In June 1860, the Right Banner Army slightly expanded the Tianyan Peng Dashun, and the Jingzhong Dazhu Guo ZhuYidian led tens of thousands of people to flee. At this point, Shi Dakai's troops only had more than 10,000 people left, and they had almost fallen into a situation of rebellion and separation.