In June 1852, all the men and horses of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom boarded a ship from Jeonju and sailed north along the Xiang River, trying to take Changsha, the capital of Hunan Province, and then swept across the two lakes, igniting the powder keg of the local Tiandihui uprising. But who knows, the Taiping Army was ambushed by 800 Chu Yong of Jiang Zhongyuan's army when passing through the Yi Ferry, killing thousands of veterans and feng Yunshan, the king of the South, who was also killed here.
If it were not for the serious infighting among the Qing army and the failure to set up an ambush on the east bank, the fate of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom would have been fixed on the Xiang River, and it would no longer be able to set off a fishy storm. In this battle, Jiang Zhongyuan became famous in one battle, and then repeatedly defeated the Taiping Army, as if he was the first general of the Qing Army at that time. Unfortunately, in January 1854, he met Hu Yihuang, the eighth-ranking king of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and was defeated in Luzhou and committed suicide by throwing himself into the water.
Hu Yihuang, whose ancestral home was Linjiang, Jiangxi, later moved to Pingnan, Guangxi, a fierce general of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and the King of Yu, ranking eighth in status after Qin Rigang, the King of Yan. Unlike the taiping army generals who came from poor peasant backgrounds, Hu Yihuang was a rich man with a family of thousands of dollars, and his field wealth spanned Jinxiu, Pingnan, and Teng counties, which was called a local tycoon. If you are so rich, why should you do the revolution?
In fact, Hu Yihuang was also very helpless, he looked tall and tall, his arm strength was superior, and he passed the pass when he took the provincial martial arts examination, but at the critical moment, he pulled off the bow and arrow with too much force, so that he had no chance to lift people. For this reason, the Grand Duke of the Zhuo family, who had a deep vendetta against the Hu Yihuang family, often taunted him, and even took advantage of his travel alone to pull him into the cowshed and beat him violently, and cut him a rooster head. The Zhuo family was also a local tycoon and had a close relationship with the local government, so Hu Yihuang had to swallow his anger.
Ever since he was humiliated in the Zhuo family, Hu Yihuang had been thinking about how to take revenge and how to get ahead. Finally, the opportunity came, the anti-Qing worship cult was active in Guiping, Tengxian, Xiangzhou, and Pingnan, and Hu Yihuang decided to join the cult and cooperate with Hong Xiuquan and Feng Yunshan to prepare for a big cause.
Hu Yihuang's entry into the religion is definitely a happy thing, because he joined the religion with a huge fortune and gave strong financial support to the cult of Worship. In the "Divine Will of Heavenly Brothers", it is said: "Hu Yi Huang Shu Er Zhen Cao (heart) Zhongcao (heart), can know the Heavenly Father, can know the second brother of Er (called Hong Xiuquan) also." But this matter should be kept secret, not lightly." It is said that after Hu Yihuang participated in the worship of God, he directly sold his family property and confiscated the property and gave it to the "Holy Treasury". Later, local tycoons such as Wei Changhui and Shi Dakai also sold their properties and filled them into the "Holy Treasury".
In July 1850, Xiao Chaogui pretended to be "Heavenly Brother Xiafan" and asked Hong Xiuquan, Feng Yunshan, and others to go to the huazhou mountain village Hu Yihuang's home to "avoid luck", but in fact wanted to take this opportunity to seize the supreme leadership. After Hong, Feng, and others went to Huazhou Hu Yihuang's house, the Qing army began to attack the Jintian base camp, and divided their troops to attack Huazhou, hoping to capture Hong Xiuquan alive and solve the problem in one fell swoop.
At this time, Hu Yihuang led his troops to deploy at various key passes to defeat the Qing army that had come to attack, and at the same time he sent people to bypass the Qing defense line and send a letter to the Jintian base camp, requesting reinforcements to be sent. In November, Hu Yihuang and Jintian reinforcements attacked the Qing army on both sides, won a great victory, and successfully sent Hong Xiuquan to Jintian, which was the "Battle of the Lord". In this battle, Hu Yihuang's military ability was initially revealed, not only brave in battle, but also quite deep in strategy, and he could be regarded as an excellent general.
In May 1853, The Spring Official, Hu Yihuang, the Commander of the Spring Dynasty, commanded a 40,000-strong army to march west along the Yangtze River, successively taking Hezhou, Chizhou, and Wuhu, and in June, conquering Anqing, and then leaving the town guard. In October of the same year, the deputy commander Lai Hanying was defeated by Jiang Zhongyuan in Nanchang, and the Western Expeditionary Army was divided into two routes, one of which was led by Zeng Tianyang and returned to Anqing to join Hu Yihuang. In November, Hu Yihuang began a northern expedition, first taking Jixian Pass, an important town north of Anqing, and then breaking through Tongcheng and Shucheng, and attacking luzhou, an important town in northern Anhui.
In the local administrative divisions of the Qing Dynasty, the capital of Anhui was originally Anqing on the north bank of the Yangtze River, but because Anqing was captured by the Taiping Army, the Qing Dynasty had to make Luzhou a temporary capital. Luzhou, which is today's Hefei City, is the best base for the southern army to attack the Central Plains, and its strategic position is very important. During the Three Kingdoms period, Sun Quan once led an army of 100,000 to attack Luzhou, but was defeated by Zhang Liao.
After Jiang Zhongyuan defeated Lai Hanying in Nanchang, the Xianfeng Emperor was overjoyed. It should be known that Jiang Zhongyuan was the only Qing general who could win the Taiping Army at that time, and since Xiangzhou Zhongping defeated Shi Dakai, Jiang Zhongyuan has won successive victories, which can be called the Qing Dynasty god of war and the first general. At this time, the Xianfeng Emperor granted him the post of inspector of Anhui and made him act as a "fire brigade leader" to save the situation in northern Anhui. Unfortunately, Jiang Zhongyuan could not be the "fire captain" this time, but was burned to death by the "fire" alive.
In December 1853, Hu Yihuang led more than 10,000 elite troops to luzhou city, and then immediately dug trenches, built fortresses, besieged the city in the inner trenches, and refused to help the outer trenches. At that time, in addition to Chu Yong, jiang Zhongyuan's troops, the Luzhou Qing army also had Chuzhou soldiers, Shaanxi soldiers, and Hunan soldiers, totaling more than 40,000 soldiers.
However, after a brief exchange of fire between these reinforcements and Hu Yihuang's army, they immediately waited and watched, not daring to continue to attack the besieging Taiping Army, and watching Jiang Zhongyuan fight alone. Of course, except for Jiang Zhongjun's chu yong, after all, he was his own family, and he would definitely fight to the death to enter Luzhou and rescue Jiang Zhongyuan. Unfortunately, Jiang Zhongjun's troops were too small to break through the Taiping Army's defensive line at all, and he could only watch his brother in danger.
After successfully stopping the Reinforcements of the Qing Army, Hu Yihuang stepped up his attack on Luzhou, but was repeatedly defeated by Jiang Zhongyuan, and sometimes the Taiping Army even broke through the city for several zhang, but was still killed by Jiang Zhongyuan's troops. To this end, Hu Yihuang could only take out the Taiping Army's siege skills, that is, to play "tunnel warfare", let the tuying (sappers, composed of miners) troops dig tunnels, bury gunpowder under Luzhou City, and then blast and destroy the city wall. However, Hu Yihuang knew that Jiang Zhongyuan was a master of countering "tunnel warfare", and the Taiping Army suffered his losses in Changsha and Nanchang.
Therefore, Hu Yihuang decided to upgrade the "tunnel warfare", abandoning the previous "single road" and engaging in "double channel", the tunnel is divided into two layers, one layer is used to lure the Qing army, and the other layer is really used as an explosion. Sure enough, Jiang Zhongyuan made a plan, after he destroyed the first tunnel of the Taiping Army, he asked the troops to repair the city, and Taiping took the opportunity to blast on the second floor, and then killed into the city, Jiang Zhongyuan could not escape and committed suicide by throwing himself into the water. (One said that he committed suicide because he was ashamed, refused to rescue, and committed suicide)
After Hu Yihuang defeated Jiang Zhongyuan, he followed Shi Da on his western expedition and passed through Jiangxi together. In early 1856, Hu Yihuang defeated Liu Changyou at Pingxiang and made a great achievement for Shi Dakai to win the Zhangshu Victory.
Unfortunately, not long after, Hu Yihuang died of illness under Linjiang City, which can also be regarded as the fallen leaves. However, he was also lucky, because he died in the heyday of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, with infinite honor.