A few days ago, came to Jintian Village, Guiping Jintian Town, Guangxi, in the village there is a north to south, brick and wood structure of the temple-style bungalow, small green tile roof, the plane is rectangular, the middle is a patio, although the door is overgrown, but the local villagers told me that this is the famous "Changhui Ancestral Hall", from a statue inside, you can see that the words on the door are faintly visible on it: The Jintian Uprising poured out the room, and the Kingdom of Heaven became the King of the North.
The local old man told me that this was the ancestral hall of Wei Changhui, the King of the North during the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and that for a time, the incense here was very strong, and people from the surrounding four villages and eight neighbors came here to pay their respects. The person who built this ancestral hall was the one who surrendered to the Qing Dynasty in the late Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and later became a deputy general and a general rank, Wei Jun, the younger brother of Wei Changhui, the King of the North, also known as Zhijun.
As we know, Wei Changhui can be said to be the initiator of the decline of the Taiping Kingdom, and he played an extremely disgraceful role in the infighting over the "Tianjing Incident" in the struggle for power and profit, and his people killed comrades-in-arms and killed innocents indiscriminately, causing the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom to be seriously injured, suddenly falling into decline, and finally collapsing into a situation of collapse. In the end, he was reduced to "traitor" by the heavenly king and sentenced to capital punishment, which can be said to start with meritorious servants and end with sinners.
For this reason, many history books record that Wei Changhui's image is mostly such as "thin stature, white face and high cheeks, thin eyebrows, feminine and dangerous, can be described as a treacherous similarity." But everyone may wonder, if it is such an image, why did his brother build an ancestral hall for him to worship? It has to start at the beginning.
At that time, the Wei family in Jintian Village can be described as one of the richest households, the family has more than 260 acres of good land, later, get acquainted with Hong Xiuquan and Feng Yunshan, who preached the Religion of God here, and actively planned the anti-Qing uprising, so Wei Changhui family Hong Xiuquan of Jintian Village rebelled to build weapons "arsenal", in order to make weapons, Wei Changhui raised hundreds of taels of silver, opened twelve iron stoves at home, worked day and night to make weapons, and declared to the outside world that it was to build furniture. In order to cover up the sound of iron strikes, afraid that the qing dynasty government would know, he raised geese in the pond next to the house, and let the geese bark when there was nothing to do, this pond was later called goose pond, and now it is not far in front of Wei Changhui's former residence.
Not far in front of Wei Changhui's former residence is The Goose Pond
Subsequently, he purchased a large number of copper and iron raw materials for making knives and guns, and after the weapons were built, they were coated with tung oil and hidden at the bottom of the rhino pond, these days, Wei Changhui's family was devoted to this work, of course, including his brother Wei Jun, after the success of the Jintian Uprising, because the uprising was huge, it began in the village, and the rulers of the Qing Dynasty have always positioned Wei Changhui as the "first rebel" in the song against the emperor, and there is no Hong Xiuquan, Yang Xiuqing, Feng Yunshan and their names.
In fact, within the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Wei Changhui served as the main general of the Right Army, and then added the rear protector and the deputy army division, rarely participated in the battle, mainly responsible for logistical work, that is, "grain and salary", as the general logistics of the whole army, and was regarded as the chief logistics minister, because of his special contribution to funding the uprising, he was named the Northern King, six thousand years old.
Later, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom laid the foundation of Nanjing, and built the capital here, the Heavenly King Hong Xiuquan lived in simplicity and enjoyed himself in the palace, and the major military and political affairs of the Heavenly Kingdom were presided over by Yang Xiuqing, and Wei Changhui assisted in the implementation, forming a three-level system of heavenly government, that is, all military and political affairs must first be entrusted to Wei Changhui, then transferred to Yang Xiuqing, and then determined by Hong Xiuquan. In this way, everyone has a status, and everyone has something to do. Since then, he has been crowned "Lei Shi, Gao Tianrenren".
With the pivotal importance of Wei Changhui's position in the Kingdom of Heaven, he was one of the most core members of the leadership group, wei Jun, the brother of the Northern Prince of Fanggang, in Taiping, he did not need to start from the low-level soldiers, and was directly the "Guozong" of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom (a senior official position, most of whom were the brothers of the leaders of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom), at that time it was not like the late Heavenly Kingdom, guozong could be regarded as second only to several princes, and he once became a high-ranking general.
Of course, Wei Jun's high-ranking title was not a vain name, he was indeed able to fight on the battlefield, he first led the army to join the Western Expeditionary Force, and when the "Guozong" who had ascended to the top by virtue of their nepotism fell one after another, Wei Jun led his troops into various places to play triumphant songs all the way, attacked the city and plundered the village, and won the victory, especially the famous cities of Hankou and Hanyang in the important towns of Lianke Hubei, which for a while made the high-level people look at each other and became the main force of the Western Expeditionary Army, and his command ability and military talent shined brilliantly, and proved with outstanding battle results that he was worthy of this special treatment. He was more worthy of the title of "Guozong", and for a time he became a rare representative of Guozong.
However, when Wei Jun, who was stationed in Wuchang, wanted to achieve greater results, there was a bad news from Tianjing that made Wei Junqing thunder, the "Tianjing Incident" broke out, and a power struggle between hong xiuquan and Yang Xiuqing of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom finally evolved into an entire internal purge, first Wei Changhui slaughtered more than 20,000 people in Yang Xiuqing's mansion overnight, Shi Dakai was not in the whirlpool, but because of chivalrous persuasion, he was retaliated against by Wei Changhui, and the whole family died of criticism, and soon after, Wei Changhui was ordered to be executed by Hong Xiuquan The Wei family was also bloodied.
Wei Jun, who was fighting against the enemy outside, was momentarily overwhelmed and watched helplessly. Especially when his brother Wei Changhui was positioned as a "traitor", it made his heart like a knife, and this brother who had brought him so much glory and opportunity added a lot of shame and involvement to him overnight. He really couldn't accept that fact all at once. Although at this time, Hong Xiuquan had realized that the fortress would be breached from within, and made it clear to Wei Jun that he would never engage in any more lian, and when faced with no one in the north, he was promoted to "Right Army Commander", but his heart had never tasted good.
Wei Jun, who was stationed on the battlefield, was on guard, and spent some days in panic and suspicion, when Zeng Guofan, the commander of the Xiang Army, sent a letter to analyze his situation and future plans, which was precisely to Wei Jun's heart, and finally, Wei Jun resolutely led the troops and surrendered to Yang Yuebin, the commander of the Qing Army's water division closest to him, and at first served as a staff general, and fought hard against his comrades on the battlefield, successively attacking Guangyang, breaking Fir Yang, re-occupying Chizhou, and then trapping the Anhui Ningguo Mansion, and making great achievements for the Qing Dynasty , promoted to the rank of deputy general plus the rank of general. He became the greatest descendant of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, causing the loss of some important cities of the Heavenly Kingdom, and subsequently, after the fall of Taiping, he was also named "one of the most important people who buried the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom" by posterity.
Wei Jun's act of rebellion, there is a history book of the "Chronicle of the Kingdom of Heaven", lamenting Wei Jun's uneven fate and his talent: "There is no wei fu fault, the loss of absurdity, the slaughter of Tianjing is not his crime, and the victory of Wuchang has its merits... Regret to push sincerity and bend to oneself, not to get already in the Yang clan; heavy foot sideways, can you be self-reliant? Anhui River boat seal, why lost the joy of a close friend? Wuhu road is broken, how can you bear the banner of vengeance! Its avoidance of disasters can also be forgiven, and its defection can also be resentful? The yellow flag points to the place, the gango star scatters, the uncle and nephew are in a hurry, the door of the people, to the corpse buried in a foreign land, the father and the elder are cursed, is not it sad! However, if it is Hong Shou, Then Luo Zenan will vomit blood and die; for the sake of the Qing War, Chen Yucheng will look forward to Leixing and sigh, and his deeds can also be despised, and his ability can also be lightened? Oh, the true and good keepers also. ”
However, despite the book' writing, the people had a scale in their hearts, and after the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was suppressed, Wei Jun felt that the value of staying in the Qing army was gone, so he had the idea of returning to his hometown, after all, it was also the common sentiment of people to return to the roots of falling leaves. Therefore, he returned to Jintian Village with a large amount of silver, first, to build this ancestral hall of his brother Wei Changhui, and second, to chat with the villagers about family customs, and at the same time, in order to win the favor of the villagers, he decided to pay for the construction of the Locust Bridge and the Cai Jiang Yidu. Thinking that the villagers of Jintian would forgive him and allow him to fall leaves and return to the roots.
What people did not expect was that the old family in his hometown had their own set of evaluation criteria. Most of the generous boys of the uprising were killed on the battlefield, and although they were marked as rebels by the imperial court, they were heroes in the hearts of the common people. His brother Wei Changhui died, still a hero in the hearts of the villagers, respected by the people in the village, everyone went to worship him, but Wei Jun, when a traitor lived in the world and enjoyed wealth, was despised by the villagers, and was spurned by everyone, and finally, Wei Junsheng could not return to his hometown, lived in seclusion in Anhui, and could not die in Sangzi, and was buried in Wang Village, Sunjiabu Township, Xuancheng, Anhui. However, he also became the only "Guozong" in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom who had a good death.