The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom rebelled and fought vigorously for more than ten years, and did not overthrow the Great Qing.
In the year of Xinhai, a gunshot rang out in the Wuchang uprising, and the Qing Dynasty soon died.
Why is history so generous to one or the other?
In whose hands is the gun?
The gun is in hand, and everything else can be talked about slowly.
When the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was making trouble, the knife in Daqing's hand had already stopped. But grinding, it can still work.
Although the Eight Banners and the Green Camp have decayed, they are not useless. It was a bit difficult for them to fight the "bandits" of the Taiping Army, but it was still no problem to suppress an ordinary rebellion.
In the heyday, the Taiping Army swept all the way from Wuchang to Nanjing, and the Qing army was powerless to resist; the 20,000 or 30,000 people of the Northern Expeditionary Army were able to directly attack and directly subordinate, and the Beijing Division was shaken, but because the Qing dynasty was always able to firmly control most of the region and the army, stabilize the situation, and mobilize resources to suppress the Taiping Army.
In the end, the rise of the Xiang Army buried the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
The rise of the Xiang Army and the Huai Army has brought about a problem: "the outside is heavy and the inside is light."
After all, the Xiang Army and the Huai Army were "outside the system" forces of the Qing Dynasty. The generals under this system served as local governors, forming a local power faction.
When the Eight-Power Alliance invaded China, Li Hongzhang, Liu Kunyi, Zhang Zhidong, and others engaged in "mutual protection in the southeast" and dared to openly not give Lafayette face.
Of course, Lafayette is still a woman with wrists, she can still control the field.
As soon as Lafayette died, the newly arrived young Manchu Qing magnates could not hold back and began to "brake the gun".
This wave of "grinding guns" has worn out the guns.
The Qing Dynasty transferred all the command and dispatch powers of the new army to the Military Advisory Office and the War Department, and the central authorities were centralized!
However, the central gang is really not like words!
Not to mention that Hanchen such as Yuan Shikai and Zhang Zhidong were suppressed, even relatively good Manchu Qing magnates such as Duanfang, Tieliang, and Liangbi were also excluded!
Not only that, but there were also a bunch of revolutionary parties in the War Department! They go around making bad mistakes and undermining the War Department's control over the army!
Therefore, the Qing army was very "free": the nearby governor and inspector could see him, but they could not control him, and the War Department could control him, but could not see him... Totally out of control!
The consequence of "out of control" is that the soldiers themselves have the final say!
Unlike the generals of the Xiang Army who were influenced by the Confucian ideology of "loyal jun" in those years, most of the generals of the new army were people who had stayed abroad and received a new-style education. Some of them are simply revolutionary parties, and some of them are not revolutionary but have no "foolish loyalty" to the Qing Dynasty.
The Eight Banners and Patrol Teams stationed in various places were able to summon the Qing Dynasty, but their combat effectiveness was insufficient; the new army was already out of control.
The Wuchang uprising was shot at the sound of gunfire, the new armies in various places revolted, and the governors and inspectors of all parts of the Qing Dynasty were simply unable to suppress it.
The only thing that the Qing Dynasty could rely on was 100,000 Beiyang Troops...
As a result, everyone knows!
Whose hands are the money?
Having money can make ghosts grind.
When the Taiping Rebellion, the Qing Dynasty already had a financial crisis.
Especially after the Taiping Army took the rich southeast in one fell swoop, the income of the Great Qing was sharply reduced (but Hong Xiuquan was rich and oily).
However, at that time, the income of the Qing Dynasty fell, but there was no mortgage and car loan, so I tightened my pants belt, cut and searched, and I could live a good life.
In particular, Zeng Guofan, with "lijin" as the mainstay, solved the problem by relying on local finances, armed the army, and wiped out the Taiping Army.
In the xinhai year, the situation will be different.
Daqing was continuously beaten by the powerful, paid in installments, and lost a lot of silver every year!
To fight a war, you have to find foreign bank loans.
The problem is: people's banks are not charitable.
After the Wuchang Uprising, there were revolutions in the south.
At that time, the Interests of the British Empire in China were mostly in the south.
Therefore, these British banks are not afraid to lend money to Daqing.
It just so happened that the revolutionary party said that it was willing to continue to lose money after recognizing unequal treaties and overthrowing the Qing Dynasty.
The British did not want the war to affect their own interests, not only did not lend, but directly withheld the tariffs of the Qing Dynasty (at that time, the Tariffs of the Qing Dynasty were in the hands of the British).
It was a fatal blow.
When Yuan Shikai and the empress dowager had a showdown, the excuse for not wanting to fight the "rebel party" was: Without loans, how can we fight?
Where is the human heart?
The most dangerous moment for a bad government is usually the moment when he begins to reform... People endure pain patiently, thinking it is inevitable, but once someone comes up with an idea to eliminate the difficulty, he becomes intolerable. - "The Old System and the Great Revolution".
Since the Manchu Qing Entered the Customs, it has not been very popular.
But under the authority of the Qing Dynasty, more than 200 years have passed.
During the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom period, the Manchu Qing Dynasty was already weakened, and at the beginning of the rise of the Taiping Army, both Chinese and foreign countries held a wait-and-see attitude.
However, the later performance of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was even more unreliable than that of the Great Qing.
Although the ideal of the "Tianchao Tianmu System" is good, it is difficult to implement;
The inexplicable worship of God is even more deviant, and it is the enemy of the thousand-year-old Taoist culture and is not tolerated by the gentry.
The farce of "when the peace is too great, the king kills the king" makes people see early on that it is difficult to become a great instrument.
Therefore, the officials and gentry of the Great Qing Dynasty preferred to die rather than surrender to the Taiping Army; the feudal gentry headed by Zeng Guofan organized the Xiang Army under the banner of maintaining the thousand-year-old Taoist unity.
In the xinhai years, none of this could have happened again.
Those who read the sages will no longer fight for the Great Qing.
Hu Hanmin, a revolutionary in the Xinhai period, once said when he was full of wine and food: If the imperial examination is not abolished, who will still come to the revolution?
The imperial examination is the channel for countless readers to change their destiny.
Although the imperial examination was abolished, although it was the helplessness of the times, the Great Qing also lost the heart of the world's disciples!
Gentry with a new style of education will not give their lives to the Qing!
Originally, these people's positions were complicated. Some people support the revolution, some people support the constitution, and some people think it is good to remain unchanged.
However, in the "constitution" of the Qing Dynasty, the cabinet was all royalty!
In this way, the "constitutionalists" were played like monkeys! The gentry, who had no clear position, were also angry at their dissatisfaction with the centralization of the imperial family!
A powerful Hanchen like Yuan Shikai would not fight for the Qing Dynasty.
Yuan Shikai was already jealous of the Manchu Qing magnates. A few years ago, the new emperor ascended the throne, and Yuan Shikai was swept away and died nine times. If Yuan Shikai had the merit of "rebuilding the society" this time, would the Manchu nobles have spared him?
Of course, all this is in the eyes of foreigners.
The foreigners saw that the rulers of the Qing Dynasty could not control the field and were ready to find new agents.
Therefore: the money of the foreigners cannot be taken by the Great Qing!
The theme of the revolutionary party and Beiyang's "North-South Peace Conference" soon became: Choose Yuan Shikai or Choose Sun Wen? Daqing, already out!
Daqing, no one to play with you, it's time to die!
In general, Daqing was killed by himself.
When the Taiping Rebellion revolted, the Qing Dynasty was already like a sick tiger. Although it is no longer the tiger power of the past, it can still bite people when it is launched.
If the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was a shrewd hunter, the Qing Dynasty would have been hunted at that time.
Unfortunately, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was not a good hunter.
At the time of the Xinhai Revolution, the Qing Dynasty was already like a tall building piled up with blocks, although it looked tall and big, but it could not afford to push.
Therefore, although the revolutionary party also has a bunch of problems, as soon as it is pushed down, the tall building of the Great Qing will collapse!