Director Chen Kexin's "Letter of Submission" is a jianghu film similar to "The True Colors of Heroes", all the historical background is just a foil, and the original genuine film directed by Zhang Che in 1870, the "Thorn Horse Case" in which Ma Xinxu, the governor of Liangjiang, was assassinated by Zhang Wenxiang - is only an embellishment.
He did not say the word "Taiping Heavenly Kingdom" in the whole film, but only said "Taiping Army", the film's description of the Taiping want to return the word, and some beautification of the uprising, are not easy to get praise from film critics, only hope that everyone will understand, and the responsibility of restoring history will be handed over to others.
That being the case, we may wish to examine the details of "Submission" and the real history to see how the level of the film is.
Kill the Descending Soldier - A turning point in the change of the three brothers' feelings
The turning point in the change in the feelings of the three brothers in "Letter of Submission" stems from the story of their killing and surrender after besieging Suzhou, which is probably inspired by the Suzhou killing and surrender incident handled by Li Hongzhang.
According to historical facts, before Li Hongzhang's paramilitary army besieged Suzhou, Cheng Xueqi, a general of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, was responsible for negotiating the four kings and four generals who defended the city, asking them to kill Tan Shaoguang, the "king" who was loyal to Li Xiucheng, the last pillar of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and surrender Kaesong.
These generals were not the old people of Guangxi at the time of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Uprising, but in the Two Lakes Township that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom had only joined after the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and Li Xiucheng actually sensed that they had anti-intentions, but they were not too bad, and even made it clear that they might as well go their separate ways. After their surrender, there were many opinions about their deeds, one said that they were killed immediately, and the other said that after sacrificing the city, they were proud of their merits and bargained with the Qing court, and then they were collectively executed by Li Hongzhang as an example.
Although the entire city was not killed like in the "Letter of Submission", half of the subordinates were also killed. The "Letter of Submission" depicts the killing and surrender as a necessary evil, and the eldest brother explains the behavior with "they are soldiers", believing that soldiers do not need to pay attention to humanity when they are killed, and he is looking for a theoretical basis for killing and descending.
Ironically, "they are soldiers" in the West is precisely the reason why they cannot be killed, which is the basic guarantee of chivalry and the Geneva Treaty, even if "they are not soldiers", they cannot be killed, because they are protected by civilian law.
The kings of heaven are more demonized than the "Qing Demons"
The image of the Taiping Army in "Submission of Names" is not bad, the shape is like the gods and mortals, and it also tacitly acknowledges that they can carry out effective governance in their territory, especially the Suzhou defender Huang Wenjin, who is the only hero in the whole film. This Huang general really has his own person in history, and he is also one of the elders of Guangxi in the early days of the Taiping Rebellion, but he is not a Suzhou defender, and he appeared in the late period, which is also rare in modern Chinese history, quite surreal.
These are only hardware problems, and what is more serious is the governance method of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, whether it is benevolent rule or harsh government, which is the taboo of the "Letter of Submission".
Even the supposedly partial TV series "Taiping Heavenly Kingdom" tells through the mouth of the Qing people that the royal palaces of the kings were built more gorgeously than the emperors of the Qing Dynasty, and even the most prestigious loyal kings were like this, making the people exhausted. At that time, the number of "wang niangs" of the kings was often tens of, all arranged in numerical characters, like a private nightclub, and the system was so tight that the Qing army was amazed.
The capital and palace of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom
"Submission of Names" undoubtedly did a lot of historical data collection, but it is always difficult to highlight the truth of the times, because the real Taiping Heavenly Kingdom hard scene, filmed can only become a comedy, but also Wang Jing's 80s Hong Kong comedy.
It can be seen from the movie that even if the people under the rule of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom want to starve, the style of its chief headquarters is still quite exquisite, and the style of "Tianjing" is also like the capital of a country, and the Taiping Army is even more completely arranged. The "little paradise" portrayed in the TV series "Taiping Heavenly Kingdom" is even more brilliant. But as long as we read the notes of all kinds of foreigners who have personally experienced the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, we will find that all the construction of this regime has no national style, and it is much dwarfed by the qing dynasty that has entered decline.
For example, Hong Xiuquan's royal officials were only decorated with cheap gilding, and under the corrosion of sweat, rain and miscellaneous people, they had long become a black and yellow. The dragon painting on the official interior was rough, and soon there was an evil black shadow left. The royal official was surrounded by surplus building materials, and phlegm stains were everywhere on the ground.
Those taiping upstarts loved to wear gold and silver when they went out on tour, especially the vulgar grandma-style gold and silver bracelets, which had a strong outbreak of taste, but insisted on the old peasant-style barefoot life (the barefoot shape of the Suzhou general in "The Letter of Submission" is real), and sometimes wore clogs. Their military uniforms are basically the costumes of the stage, and the shape is more laughable than that of the Eight-Nation Alliance, fully reflecting what Tao Jie called "small farmer DNA".
The Qing Dynasty emperor has a big picture view
The ending of the "Letter of Submission" says that the bandit generals of the Qing Dynasty were encouraged to check and balance each other and not cooperate with each other, which obviously has historical basis.
In the early years of the Qing court's suppression of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the two battalions of Jiangnan and Jiangbei run by the green battalion of the regular army and the system of the new army recruited by Zeng Guofan himself were hostile to each other, and the Manchu and Han generals were seriously divided, and the later Zeng Guofan and the Manchu general Shengbao, also known as the "defeated bao", were open enemies for many years, and Shengbao was later killed for "misleading the enemy to the wrong country" when fighting against the Twist Army, which shows that the suspicion of the imperial court is not only aimed at the Han people.
Originally competing with the Han army, there was also the Mongolian general "Monk King" Monk Greenqin, who repelled the Anglo-French coalition army at Dagukou and was famous in the West, more famous in the Western world than Zeng Guofan, but unfortunately he could not "reverse the victory", and died at the hands of the Twist Army after the fall of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and since then the Manchu and Mongolian armies have not become angry.
After Ci Da was worried that the Tail of the Xiang Army would not fall, he secretly encouraged Zuo Zongtang, Li Hongzhang, and other self-reliant portals to resist, and Zeng Guofan knew this well, and only like Pang Qingyun was "walking on thin ice". Although Cixi deliberately suppressed local forces and cheekily retracted the Xianfeng Emperor's holy will to "conquer Nanjing and become king", she still had a general trust in the personal conduct of Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang, and others, and she sincerely appreciated their abilities.
epilogue:
In short, "Letter of Submission" has too many scenes that are not triggered, so that the brotherhood of the protagonists lacks a reasonable time and space dimension, and there is a sense of unreality that has been hollowed out. Although it is surprising that all the movies are inconvenient to say, for the audience, it is still unfinished.