The largest peasant uprising in the history of the world, that is, the Taiping Rebellion at the end of the Qing Dynasty, from the first year of Qing Xianfeng to the third year of Tongzhi (1851-1864), lasted 14 years, the power expanded to 18 provinces, in just a few years, the number of troops reached one million. A total of more than 600 cities were conquered, and the ruling population reached more than 100 million.
The Taiping Army, which was not a professional army of peasants, revolted in Guangxi, on the southwestern border of China, and defeated the Eight Banner Army and the Green Battalion Army. All the way north, attack Hunan, conquer Wuhan, clamp the river to the east, Lianke Jiujiang, Anqing, Wuhu, the momentum is like a bamboo, occupy the ancient capital of the Six Dynasties Nanjing, set as the capital city, renamed Tianjing. Then two armies were sent to capture Zhenjiang and Yangzhou, forming a corner with Tianjing. He also marched to the west of the Northern Expedition, and the results were brilliant.
The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom made the once invincible Manchu Qing Iron Horse fight with its head in a rat's head, and seeing that the Qing Dynasty building was about to fall, it had to gather civilian forces to resist, so Zeng Guofan, the right attendant of the Rebbe in his hometown of Hunan, formed a local regiment in his hometown of Hunan, which was the Xiang army that later swept through most of China.
Subsequently, Zeng Guofan led this Xiang army, and after more than ten years of arduous fighting, finally conquered Hong Xiuquan's old nest, Tianjing, successfully suppressed the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and completely wiped out the million-strong army of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom that swept most of China, uprooted it, and together with his Heavenly King's Palace, and other royal palaces, all became: the ten-year magnificent Heavenly King's Palace, turned into a desolate wild pigeon flying.
At this time, Zeng Guofan also reached the peak moment of his life, and with the identity of "three stands" of speech, morality and merit, he became the most honorable Han official in the more than two hundred years since the founding of the Qing Dynasty. Zeng Guofan, as a scholar, is also one of the most influential figures in modern Chinese history.
Of course, after the suppression of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Zeng Guofan had more than 200,000 Xiang troops under his command, in order to reflect his loyalty and avoid the suspicion that the Qing court called him a self-respecting soldier, a hero of high merit, a rabbit and a dead dog cooking, and the disaster of killing himself, he took the initiative to write to the imperial court and request the abolition of the Xiang army. This short-sighted, known as Empress Dowager Cixi, who had long hair and short knowledge, thought that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom had been destroyed, and from then on the world was too peaceful, so she quickly agreed to it.
In August 1864, a month after the fall of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the Xiang Army began to be dismantled, and this army was divided into five parts: one was part of Zuo Zongtang's command, who later participated in the Sino-French War and the Battle of Xinjiang; second, it was returned to the Senggelinqin's subordinates who suppressed the Twist Army in the north and consumed part in the civil war; the third was to leave the Xiang clan of Zeng Guofan and defect to Li Hongzhang's Huai clan; fourth, Liu Kunyi, the general of the old Xiang Army and the governor of Liangjiang at the time, led a part; fifth, the larger part, that is, laying down his weapons. Return to his hometown in Hunan to farm.
The history books record that after this army captured Tianjing, the capital of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, it brought some xiang army generals who snatched wealth, as well as hongxiu's beautiful women in the royal palace, and returned to their hometown in Hunan to enjoy the heavenly pleasures of glory and wealth.
After a new round of differentiation, although later generations also called them Zhentuo Army, Pingbei, Fu Xinjiang, Xingjun tun, foreign affairs, resisting the French army, rejecting the Japanese Kou, and making great achievements, the real situation, compared with the combat effectiveness of the attack on the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in that year, it was completely incomparable, and the last battle occurred in the "Battle of Niuzhuang" during the Sino-Japanese War, and this Xiang army was completely destroyed and has since withdrawn from the stage of history. No wonder later generations evaluated the Xiang Army as: civil war insiders, foreign war laymen.
In the twentieth year of Guangxu (1894), the Sino-Japanese Sino-Japanese War broke out, due to the defeat of the Qing dynasty navy and army, the Huai army led by Li Hongzhang was repeatedly defeated, and after a thousand miles of collapse, Li Hongzhang avoided the war and sought peace, resulting in Dalian, Lushun and other places being invaded by the Japanese army successively. Believing that the Huai army could not be intimidated, the Qing court appointed Liu Kunyi, then governor of Liangjiang and minister of Nanyang, as the minister of Qincha, and appointed Wu Da, the general of the Xiang army, to handle military affairs, Wei Guangtao led the sixth battalion of the Wuwei army, and Li Guangjiu led the fifth battalion of the old Xiang army after a three-month long journey, marched nearly 10,000 miles, and finally rushed to the outside of shanhaiguan in the ice and snow, and deployed at Tianzhuangtai.
After the Sino-Japanese Sino-Japanese War broke out, the Japanese army occupied Haicheng, a strategic place in southern Liaoning, and the Qing court believed that the gain or loss of Haicheng was related to the entire war situation in southern Liaoning, so it encouraged the soldiers and soldiers to work together to take Haicheng, gather tens of thousands of heavy troops, retake Haicheng, and reduce the threat of the Japanese army to the Beiyang Marine Division.
While the cunning Japanese army was holding on to Haicheng, it sent a large group of cavalry to attack the Qing army's logistics stronghold, the grain and grass supply base Niuzhuang. 25 kilometers west of Niuzhuang Haicheng, west through Jinzhou, Shanhaiguan, South Lianyingkou, Tianzhuangtai, for the back road of Yingkou and Tianzhuangtai, is the Qing army to transport grain and armaments, the Qing army's grain and grain stations are all concentrated in Niuzhuang, and there is no city wall to defend here, and there is a flat land around. The Commander of the Qing Army was surprised to learn that the Japanese army had launched a large-scale attack on Niuzhuang. Urgent fortifications were constructed, and at the same time, tall official palaces and civilian houses were used as defensive bunkers, and gun holes were dug to prepare for the upcoming street battles.
In terms of numbers, there were more than 12,000 Japanese troops attacking Niuzhuang. In terms of weapons and equipment, the Japanese army has heavy artillery such as field artillery and mountain artillery. The Japanese army had an overwhelming advantage over the Xiang Army. However, Wei Guangtao's Wuwei battalion was extremely experienced in combat and was not afraid in the face of a strong enemy. They lay in ambush between the ditches, fortified by earthen walls, and waited for the enemy to get close to the best firing distance before firing violently. At the same time, the Xiang Army took advantage of the Japanese army's flat and open ground to carry out artillery attacks.
After the defense of Niuzhuang began, in order to successfully capture Niuzhuang, Lieutenant General Nozu Michikan, commander of the Japanese 1st Army, Lieutenant General Gui Taro of the 3rd Division, led 13 brigades of infantry, 4 squadrons of cavalry, 8 squadrons of artillery, 3 squadrons of engineers, a total of more than 20,000 people, 59 artillery pieces, and pounced on Niuzhuang, the sixth battalion and three posts of the Xiangwei Army, the fifth battalion and the second post of the fifth battalion of li Guangjiu's old Xiang Army, a total of 12 battalions and 5,700 people, less than half of the enemy, and less than 10 artillery.
At the beginning of the battle, the Wuwei army single-handedly fought against an enemy nearly four times larger than itself with 3,300 men. Wei Guangtao "fought with a lone army in blood, short clothes and horses, straight blade forward, supervised the battle and fought hard, and mounted three easy horses", "wrapped in wounds and blood", and performed very well. The commander took the lead, and many of the soldiers were wounded and could not get out of the line of fire, and insisted on heroic resistance to the enemy until they were sacrificed. Even the Japanese had to praise from the bottom of their hearts: "Those who can clash with the Japanese army for a long time are the Wuwei Army, fight to the death, and defend until one day and night, which is rarely seen in the Qing army." ”
At that time, the Japanese army was bound to win against Niuzhuang, and launched round after round of attacks, "making the soldiers sing military songs and march, the momentum was quite strong, and the soldiers rushed to break in." The outer line of the Xiang army was broken and forced into street fighting. The Xiang army held the house and continued to fight tenaciously. Wei Guangtao was a pioneer, wielding a sword and fighting bloody battles, "wrapping blood in wounds and three easy mounts."
Li Guangjiu, the son of Li Xubin, the first general of the Xiang Army and a Taoist officer, led thousands of people of the old Xiang Army to aid Niuzhuang from the haicheng front, fighting against the Japanese Kou Lane, killing thieves without a calculation, and having already been defeated out of the street, it was the former thieves who were defeated and retreated, and the thieves in the back came, and the guns and cannons were dense. The thieves rushed out from both sides and attacked the thieves one after another, and the courage and the thieves were almost indistinguishable. In the days of the bloody battle, thieves set fire to the streets and cut me off. After the bloody battle until "all the bullets were exhausted", Fang abandoned the stubborn Niuzhuang Yamen, dispersed from the west of Niuzhuang City to Tiantaizhuang to break out, on the way was intercepted by the mixed 6th Brigade, the two sides fought fiercely, the remaining defenders suffered casualties, and Niuzhuang was lost. The Qing army's rear road that caused the counterattack on Haicheng was cut off, and the siege of Haicheng was not attacked and solved, which indirectly led to the fiasco of the Sino-Japanese Sino-Japanese War.
After the Japanese army occupied Niuzhuang, "they searched door to door with their swords, and killing people did not count." A Japanese military reporter described the scene at that time: "Corpses lying on the side of the road are sleeping with each other", in front of many private room doors, "corpses are piled up into mountains, and several muddy rivers of blood flow out between the corpse mountains", "Walking into the courtyard of the door is also full of corpses", Niuzhuang became a pool of blood for the Japanese Kou to kill. According to a Japanese investigation, one-third of the more than 2,100 dead in Niuzhuangshi Street were innocent civilians. The indiscriminate killing of innocents by the Japanese army was once despised by some upright Westerners, who accused them of "such arson, which is particularly cruel."
In the Battle of Niuzhuang, only one old Xiang army was completely destroyed, and since then, the title of Xiang Army has withdrawn from the stage of history and ended tragically. Later generations wrote poems about the last battle of the Xiang Army:
The Oriental clown commits a crime against the cattle village, and the soldiers scramble to stain the gang with blood.
The cannon spear is not afraid, and the jackal must be slaughtered with a bold sword.
Although the last Xiang army in this battle was defeated, it was also known as the civil war insider and the foreign war layman, but it was still prestigious, and its heroic and fearless patriotic spirit and generous and magnificent heroism shocked the world and wept! Or widely praised by future generations!