In 1863, Shi Dakai, a famous general of the Taiping Army and the king of the Wing, who had turned to fight in the whole country, was defeated at the Dadu River. In a desperate situation, Shi Dakai made an amazing decision in order to save all his lives - surrender.
As we all know, Shi Dakai was a good man who stood on top of the sky at the end of the Qing Dynasty, and even if he committed suicide, he would never shake his tail and beg for mercy to the enemy, so why would Shi Dakai surrender to the enemy? Originally, Luo Bingzhang, the governor of Sichuan, and Liu Rong, a strategist, promised Shi Dakai that as long as he was willing to surrender, he would pardon Shi Dakai's 6,000 soldiers.
Therefore, Shi Dakai "sacrificed his life to the whole three armies", with three close associates, surrendered to the Qing army. Shi Dakai was well aware that since he had raised his army, he had repeatedly defeated the Qing army, crossed several provinces, killed as many as three Qing Dynasty feudal officials, and was once called the most powerful of the taiping generals by Zeng Guofan, Zuo Zongtang and others. Obviously, the ruthless Ruler of the Qing Dynasty would never let Shi Dakai die a painful death, and he faced only one fate, that is, Ling Chi torture.
Everyone has one death, but death is also divided into a comfortable death, a painful death, a fast death, and a slow death. Obviously, the punishment of Ling Chi is the most painful and the slowest death. Instead of facing such a tragic fate, it is better to die. However, a true warrior can always calmly face the dripping blood. Shi Dakai understood what a miserable fate he would face if he died casually, and the 6,000 subordinates who followed him would face. Therefore, he would endure humiliation and accept the surrender of the Qing army.
At the beginning, the Qing army did release more than 4,000 Taiping Army officers and returned them to Sichuan. After confirming the safety of his subordinates, Shi Dakai took his 5-year-old son and 3 generals to the enemy camp to surrender. Who knew that the Qing army had betrayed its faith and slaughtered the remnants of the Taiping Army. Of course, Shi Dakai, who was imprisoned by the Qing army at this time, did not know.
In court, Luo Bingzhang triumphantly interrogated Shi Dakai: "Do you want to surrender?" Shi Dakai replied awe-inspiringly:
"I came to beg for death, and I also asked for the life of a soldier, and the Nine Springs should be given by the public."
Liu Rong, the Sichuan envoy at the time, recorded Shi Dakai's situation during the trial, "the anger of the tyrant overflowed with face, but the words were not profane or humble, and they did not wag their tails and beg for mercy." There was not a single word of stealing life and asking for forgiveness, and the words were unyielding.
Shi Dakai's bravery and fearlessness, even the enemy was impressed by him, the scholar Huang Pengnian sighed:
"This thief behaves very steadily, speaks a dignified language, is not profane or humble, and is strong and gentle. Fang Qi died, na walked calmly, if my Great Qing LoyalIsts died in such a way and recounted it in the annals of history, wouldn't it be Bingyao for a thousand years? Who is it that such a man is not used by courtiers, but is made a thief?"
Arriving at the execution ground, Shi Dakai endured Ling Chi's punishment with two of his subordinates. In severe pain, his subordinate Zeng Shihe couldn't help but cry out in pain. Shi Dakai rebuked:
"When a man dies, why can't he bear to spend time?"
Listening to the words of the Stone King, Zeng Shihe clenched his teeth and stopped shouting. After that, Shi Dakai was tragically stabbed by a thousand knives, but until his death, Shi Dakai still did not say a word, and his bravery and arrogance made the Qing soldiers present impressed.
For a long time, many scholars have believed that Shi Dakai's surrender did not exchange the survival of his subordinates, but a senseless sacrifice. However, according to the "Yuexi Hall Quanzhi Wugong Zhi":
"More than 4,000 of the rest of the party and its collaborators were dismissed. More than 2,000 of his accumulated old thieves were placed in the Yu King's Palace in Dashu Fort, and Tang Yougeng sent a battalion to station bullets and suppress them all at night, and none of the thieves survived. ”
In other words, although Shi Dakai failed to save all his subordinates, at least 4,000 people survived. According to the "Selected Survey Materials on the Modern and Contemporary History of the Yi People in Sichuan" compiled and printed in 1963, until modern times, there were thousands of descendants of Taiping Army warriors along the Dadu River in Sichuan, such as asbestos, Ganluo, Yuexi, Jinkouhe, and Ebian.
These people were all engaged in farming, and many of them still spoke the language characteristics of Guangxi, Guizhou, Yunnan and other places that the Shibu Taiping Army passed through during the conquest. According to the descendants of these Taiping Army, their ancestors were all subordinates of Shi Dakai, and the reason why they have survived to the present day is because of Shi Dakai's sacrifice of his life to save him.
According to the Eastern view, surrender was a disgrace to the soldiers. But in the author's opinion, Shi Dakai's surrender is not shameful. Originally, Shi Dakai could commit suicide by throwing himself into the river and die, which was certainly magnificent and not humiliated. But 6,000 soldiers had to follow the "heroic sacrifice". Is it more difficult and greater to commit suicide or die in battle, or is it more admirable to sacrifice all three armies and save the lives of soldiers? The answer may be self-evident. The thousands of descendants of the Taiping Army left behind in Sichuan may be the concentrated embodiment of this strange man's chivalry.