How tragic was the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom when it fell? The manager was headshot, and more than 730 senior civilians were killed

Speaking of the fall of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, everyone must think that on July 19, 1864, the day that Tianjing was breached, Li Xiucheng, the king of Zhong, was captured at Fangshan, and the young king Hong Tianguifu also threw himself into the net shortly after. In a narrow sense, Tianjing was attacked by the "Jizi Battalion" of the Xiang Army, declaring the demise of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom that lasted for 14 years, the uprising movement fell into a low tide, and the Qing Dynasty temporarily won. However, in a broad sense, the fall of Tianjing did not mean the fall of the Kingdom of Heaven, because the main force of the Taiping Army was basically not severely damaged, and Li Shixian, Wang Haiyang, Chen Decai, Tan Tiyuan and other more than 400,000 troops were not thrown into the defense of Tianjing at all, and the yuan qi was not damaged. In other words, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom still has the possibility of recovery, after all, there are still many troops. So, when was the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom considered a subjugated country? To be precise, it should be the bloody battle in Jiaying Prefecture, because of the betrayal of traitors, the commander was killed by dozens of gun salvo shots, the deputy marshal jumped into the cliff on horseback, more than 730 senior wenwu people were killed, and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom no longer had any available armed forces. Historians such as Luo Ergang once said that the fall of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was actually in Jiaying Prefecture.

In July 1864, the "Jizi Battalion" of the Xiang Army used the tactic of "attacking the city in the cave" to blast through dozens of zhang of the Taiping Gate, and the daredevils led by Li Chendian and Zhu Hongzhang rushed into the gap, broke through the Taiping Army's defense line, and entered the inner city. At this time, under the cover of Li Xiucheng and others, the young heavenly king Hong Tianguifu desperately broke through to Huzhou and temporarily escaped the disaster; Li Xiucheng was captured at Fangshan and taken to the Liangjiang Governor's Palace to be tried by Zeng Wenzheng. After the fall of Tianjing, Li Shixian and Wang Haiyang had more than 200,000 troops, but instead of throwing themselves into battle, they went south to Jiangxi and fought in gannan, western Fujian, and northern Guangdong; Chen Decai had 200,000 troops and fought in the Hubei area, but the entire army was soon destroyed. By 1865, the Taiping Army had become a formed force, and there were only two units, Li Shixian and Wang Haiyang, who were the last hope of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Regrettably, at the moment of the great enemy, the Taiping Army, which was already distraught in the army, has set off another round of infighting and cannibalism, which has undoubtedly accelerated the pace of extinction, and this historical lesson must be learned.

The Taiping army moved to gannan, western Fujian, and northern Guangdong, and the Qing Dynasty was terrified, so it ordered Zuo Zongtang to kill him, and followed Bao Chao, Liu Dian, Kang Guoqi, Wang Debang, and Huang Shaochun. Under the pursuit and killing of the Qing army, Li Shixian and Wang Haiyang fought back and fought fiercely with them continuously, and the two sides won and lost each other. In March 1865, Tan Tiyuan, the king of The Qi, set up an ambush at the Shooting Hunting Pass to lure Zuo Zongtang's Qing army to attack, and then cut off its way back, and then pounced on the camp, breaking 8 dozens of camps in a row, and completely annihilating more than 1,800 people in the 6 battalions of the Left Xiang Army, and the morale of the Taiping Army was greatly boosted. Shi Zai: "The king of Kai first cut off the qing division to help the road, fu dang first broke the barrier, beheaded the general Ding to win the victory, and covered his elite six battalions. However, small victories cannot change the overall situation, and the situation of the Taiping Army is still not optimistic. In May, li shixian and Zuo Zongtang's main forces fought fiercely in the Zhangzhou area, and although King Wang Haiyang of Kang had more than 100,000 troops, he did not send troops into battle, resulting in almost all of Li Shixian's troops being destroyed. In the battle of Yongding Pagoda, Li Shixian was defeated miserably, and only escaped with more than 10 horses and hid in the mountains.

Zhangzhou fell, and Li Shixian hid in the mountains, but he did not give up his efforts to restore the country. When he heard that King Wang Haiyang was in Zhenping, he shaved his hair for the people, walked day and night, begged all the way, and finally reached the Zhenping camp. At this time, the Taiping Army thought that he was a traitor, so they captured him alive, and later learned that it was the servant King Chitose, so they hurriedly reported to Wang Haiyang. When he learned that Li Shixian had come to vote, Wang Haiyang was terrified in his heart, not only afraid that he would cure himself of not rescuing Zhangzhou, but also afraid that he would blame himself for taking over his cronies, and even more afraid that he would take the opportunity to seize military power (Li Shixian was higher than Wang Haiyang). In order to ensure that the military power was not lost, Wang Haiyang decided to strike first, and on the night of the black wind in one month, Wang Haiyang led people to sneak into the bedchamber of the king and kill him, and at the same time arrested more than a thousand of the king's relatives. The next day, Wang Haiyang announced to everyone: "The king has surrendered to the demon, and I have been ordered to condemn him" to clear his guilt. In fact, everyone did not believe it at all, but feared Wang Haiyang's power, and could only acquiesce. Li Shixian, together with Chen Yucheng, Li Xiucheng, Yang Fuqing, etc., was called the "main general of the five armies" in the later period, Chen and Li were dead, Yang's whereabouts were unknown, and Li Shixian was the only person who could nominally command the whole army. At the crucial moment, Wang Haiyang killed Li Shixian and provoked infighting, which was a big mistake.

After the remnants of Li Shixian were collected, Wang Haiyang had 150,000 troops, but the army was unstable, and it was difficult to survive the cold winter. In December, Wang Haiyang decided to lead an army to capture Jiaying Prefecture (Meizhou City, Guangdong Province), give his subordinates a chance to rest, and then break through the next year and join forces with the "Twist Army" from Fujian and Zhejiang to the north. After taking the city of Jiayingzhou, Wang Haiyang began to deploy defenses, strengthen the city, build fortresses, dig deep trenches, build fences, and actively defend. Upon hearing that Wang Haiyang had captured Jiaying Prefecture, Zuo Zongtang, the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang, personally led the main force to enter Pinghe County, Fujian, and urgently dispatched 12,000 men from Wuping, Fujian to PingyuanDongshi, Guangdong, and directly to the area of Xianggongting in the northwest of Jiaying Prefecture. In January 1866, Zuo Zongtang personally visited the front-line superintendent and prepared to completely extinguish the remnants of the Taiping Army here, but encountered setbacks. On January 2, Wang Haiyang and Tan Tiyuan led their troops to suddenly attack, defeating the Qing forces of Fang Yao, He Yunzhang, Gao Liansheng, and Liu Qingliang in succession, killing more than 2,000 Qing troops and killing more than 10 Qing generals.

On January 28, Wang Haiyang and Tan Tiyuan fought again, dispatching 30,000 elites to attack the camps of Fo Zigao and Huang Zhuyang, and engaged in a fierce battle with Zuo Zongtang's number one generals, Liu Dian and Wang Debang, killing both sides in the dark, and the mountain streams were stained red with blood. At this time, more than 10,000 elites deployed by Wang Haiyang in advance suddenly rushed out to the flanks, and Liu Dian's army was in chaos and was the first to lose. After cleaning up Liu Dian and Wang Debang, Wang Haiyang decided to expand the results of the battle and take advantage of the situation to attack gao Liansheng, Huang Shaochun, and Kang Guoqi's Qing army. In order to motivate the fighting spirit of his subordinates, Wang Haiyang stepped onto his horse, carried a machete in his hand, and took the lead in rushing into the enemy position to carry out hand-to-hand combat, the morale of the Taiping Army was high, and the former servants followed, Gao Liansheng, Huang Shaochun, and Kang Guoqi were almost overwhelmed and were about to collapse. At this time, the traitor Ding Sun informed the Qing army of Wang Haiyang's location, "Wang Thief must be a pioneer in every battle, and it is advisable to use muskets to attack Kou Shuai's dragon flag." But if he wounds his chief, the enemy will be destroyed. To this end, He Yunzhang ordered his "foreign gun team" to shoot at the dragon flag, dozens of guns opened fire, Wang Haiyang was shot in the head, was killed by a headshot, and the Taiping Army retreated into the city.

After Wang Haiyang was killed, the deputy general Tan Tiyuan was elected to preside over military affairs and lead the soldiers to break through. In February, Tan Tiyuan led his troops to suddenly attack Bao Chao's headquarters in the north of the city, and engaged in a fierce battle with them to cover for the breakthrough of the group. However, due to the betrayal of the traitor Feng Wang Huang XIV, the Qing army had long been aware of the specific route of the Taiping Army's breakthrough, set up an ambush on the breakthrough road in advance, and sent troops to pursue and kill. When the army walked on the Huangsha Ridge Trail, the Qing army came out from all sides, the Taiping army was defeated one after another, more than 40,000 people surrendered, although Tan Tiyuan fought hard, he could not break through the siege, so he jumped off the cliff on horseback, and was captured, and died of Ling Late. At this time, He Liangming, the king of Dongping, continued to lead his troops to resist, but in the end, the disparity in strength was huge, and the ammunition was exhausted, so he had to surrender. However, the Qing army did not spare the core of them, and about 730 high-ranking civil and military officials were killed, including He Mingming and Huang Dwarf. At this point, the Southern Taiping Army was almost completely destroyed, no longer became a climate, and also declared the demise of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and there was no possibility of recovery.