Speaking of the celebrities of Huaxian County, Guangdong, the most famous figure is naturally Hong Xiuquan, the heavenly king of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, who worked as a school teacher in his hometown, because of repeated attempts, dissatisfaction with the political corruption of the Qing Dynasty government, absorbing the idea of equality in Western Christian doctrine, founding the Worship of God Society in 1843, and the following year with Feng Yunshan and others in Guixian County, Guangxi Province, to preach, propagate and organize the masses. Call on the people to believe in God and build a world of "one family under the heavens and one peace". Subsequently, he led a rebellion in Jintian Village, Guiping County, Guangxi, and established the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and proclaimed himself the Heavenly King. After that, he led the Taiping Army to Guangxi, Hunan, Hubei, Jiangxi, Anhui and other provinces, with the capital of Tianjing (Nanjing), divided the Northern Expedition and the Western Expedition, and shocked the Qing court. However, more than a decade later, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was declared extinct.
In just a dozen years of effort, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom collapsed, its rise and fall was also abrupt, which really made countless posterity sigh, and analyzed many reasons for this. However, the real reason is because Hong Xiuquan, the heavenly king, became the nemesis of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and the construction of the Xiang Army, the killing of the Western King, and the Capture Wing King had a huge impact on the demise of the Heavenly Kingdom.
This person's name is Luo Bingzhang, and there is a Qing Dynasty book that says, "Luo Bingzhang is a person from Hua County, and Hong Xiuquan is also a person from Hua County, so it is said that Bingzhang was in the same school as Xiuquan when he was young." Every time Hong said that he would rebel as he grew up. Bingzhang said: "If you rebel, I will be at peace." Hong Zhizhi said: "The shaft is not enough to flatten me." Bingzhang said: "I may not be able to do it, but I should also raise a strong hand to replace me." The consequences are as they are. Gai was a famous general in ZTE at the time, and recommended the guarantor as Cloudy out of Bingzhang."
Hong Xiuquan and Luo Bingzhang were both from Hua County, Guangdong (now Huadu District, Guangzhou), Hong Xiuquan was a native of Guanlubu Village, Xinhua Town, and Luo Bingzhang was a native of Luo Village, Tanbu Town, and the distance between the two places was not more than 20 to 30 miles. However, this pair of fellow villagers is the same window, one is the leader of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom who is determined to overthrow the Qing Dynasty, who is the Heavenly King; the other is the "Zhongxing Famous Minister" who defends the Qing Dynasty, as the inspector and governor. For their own benefit, the two fought each other for more than a decade on the political stage of modern Chinese history, one died in 1864 before the fall of Tianjing (present-day Nanjing) and the other died in Chengdu, Sichuan, in 1867.
Luo Bingzhang played a very important role in suppressing Hong Xiuquan's Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Revolution, focusing on three very important things, that is, fully supporting the Jianxiang Army, killing Xiao Chaogui, the Western King, in the defense of Changsha, and finally capturing and killing Shi Dakai, the king of Sichuan.
When Zeng Guofan was ordered to return home to organize the Xiang Army, Luo Bingzhang, as the governor of Hunan, realized the importance of running regimental training and gave him active support. Zuo Zongtang, Liu Rong, and others were hired as aides, and local officials and gentry were widely recruited, the officials were reorganized, regimental training was handled, the troops were trained at a collective salary, and the elite generals were selected to support the Xiang army in Guizhou, Guangdong, Jiangxi, Hubei and other provinces against the Taiping Army and other rebel armies in terms of materials, troop strength, and military salaries, thus becoming one of the commanders of the Xiang Army group.
At the same time, after eliminating the Taiping Army in Hunan and controlling the situation in the whole province, he used the financial, material, and human resources of Hunan Province to support Zeng Guofan, Hu Linyi, Jiang Zhongyuan, Luo Zenan, Zuo Zongtang and others to fight in the province as much as possible. The Xiang army was able to defeat the Taiping Army in many parts of the provinces along the Yangtze River, and finally captured the capital of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Tianjing.
It should be said that Luo Bingzhang's contribution is indispensable. It should be known that at the beginning of the rise of the Taiping Army, the main forces fighting against the Taiping Army were the Eight Banner Soldiers and the Green Battalion Soldiers, and the Xiang Army was purely brave, that is, equivalent to the militia today, but it was this initially inconspicuous local armed force that replaced the Eight Banner Soldiers and the Green Battalion Soldiers, became the nemesis of the Taiping Army, and finally eliminated hundreds of thousands of Taiping Troops. This cannot but be said to be a great miracle.
The second was the defense of Changsha, when his compatriot Hong Xiuquanzheng led the Taiping Army from Guangxi into Hunan, and in order to wipe out the Taiping Army in Xiang Province, the imperial court urgently ordered Cheng Cai, the governor of Huguang, to sit in Hunan, with Luo Bingzhang, the governor of Hunan, and Yu Wanqing, the viceroy of Hunan, to assist in the defense. Although Luo Bingzhang was busy with military affairs, he still offended Sai Shang'a, a university scholar who was the minister of Chincha. At that time, Inspector Sai Shang'a was passing through the Xiang Territory, and seeing that Luo Bingzhang's supply was not rich enough, he thought that it was disrespectful to him, so he secretly played a secret song to the imperial court on the grounds that The Hunan official was abolished and demanded that Luo Bingzhang be punished.
The newly enthroned Xianfeng Emperor issued an edict asking Luo Bingzhang to go to Beijing. By this time, the Taiping army had entered Hunan, and the Qing army was in chaos: Cheng Cai, the governor of Huguang, retreated from Hengzhou to Changsha; Yu Wanqing lost Daozhou, Guiyang, Chenzhou, and other places and was arrested by the imperial court; and Luo Bingzhang was also dismissed for failing to prevent it. The Western King Xiao Chaogui led the Taiping Army to the city of Changsha, and the new inspector Zhang Liangji was not yet in place, Luo Bingzhang had to be ordered to hold Changsha and lead the Qing army to fire artillery at the Taiping Army position, and the Western King Xiao Chaogui was killed. The Taiping army continued to attack the city, but because Luo Bingzhang's defense was proper, coupled with Xiang Rong, Hechun, Zhang Guoliang and a large number of Qing troops coming to reinforcements, the Taiping army had to withdraw from Changsha and advance north to attack Yueyang. Sai Shang'a and Cheng Cai were deposed for the crime of missing a machine. Luo Bingzhang was summoned to Beijing because of his meritorious service in defending the city and was exempted from discussion. Before he could do so, he was ordered to stay in Hubei to handle the defense, and before he could arrive, Wuchang was captured by the Taiping Army. After the Taiping Army abandoned Wuchang, Luo Bingzhang acted as the governor of Hubei.
Subsequently, when Qin Rigang and Chen Yucheng led the Taiping Army to attack Wuchang for the third time, Luo Bingzhang knew that Wuchang's position was important, so he sent Bao Chao and Peng Yulin to lead the Xiang army to reinforce. Yang Pi, the governor of Huguang, ordered Hu Linyi to cross the river to strangle the Han River in order to consolidate Jingxiang. Luo Bingzhang believed that Yang Pi's measures were improper, so he went to the emperor and put forward five reasons for opposition, advocating that it was the best policy to guard Wuchang with heavy troops and defend the provincial capital. The Xianfeng Emperor reprimanded Luo Bingzhang for deposing his officials, but it turned out that Luo Bingzhang was right. Later Luo Bingzhang fully supported Hu Linyi and provided a large amount of military salaries and materials. Zeng Guofan and Hu Linyi were able to defeat Hong Xiuquan's Taiping Army, inseparable from Luo Bingzhang's strong support. The Qing government rewarded Hua Ling for Luo Bingzhang's merit of "crossing the border without dividing the territory and crossing the border to kill Kou", and also promoted him to the rank of governor of Sichuan, and added the title of prince and shaobao.
Then there is the capture of the wing king Shi Dakai: in 1862, Luo Bingzhang became the governor of Sichuan. At this time, Shi Dakai took the remnants around to fight, came to the Dadu River, originally also made some preparations, forcibly crossed the Dadu River, the result was that many soldiers were buried in Hanoi, it was very regrettable, under all helplessness, Shi Dakai and the Qing army peace talks, that is, to lay down their weapons, surrender alone, let the Qing army release the following thousands of Taiping troops.
As a result, he was killed by Luo Bingzhang, and Shi Dakai was kidnapped and executed by Lingchi in Cao City. The first level of the stone reverse was filled with lime and wooden cages for the dissolution of the Beijing Division and transmitted to the provinces. The first rank of the Remaining Thieves, that is, the Four Gates of the Owl. The same was true for Shi Dingzhong, the son of Shi Dakai. In his official document to the Qing government, Luo Bingzhang said that Shi Dingzhong "fell into the yuan sitting case and handled it as usual." According to Qing law, sons under the age of eleven who were "repeat offenders of rebellion" like Shi Dakai were required to "securely imprison them until they were eleven years old, castrated and sent to be enslaved." But he raised Shi Dakai's son and tortured him—a punishment. A generation of heroes left the world in this way, and the ending was very tragic.
Luo Bingzhang successively served as an envoy to Hubei, a political envoy to Guizhou, a political envoy to Yunnan, a governor of Hunan, and a governor of Sichuan, and for about twenty-five years, he fully supported the formation of the Xiang army, suppressed the peasant uprising by force, and when he was the governor of Hunan, he also fired cannons to kill Xiao Chaogui, the western king of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Shi Dakai, the governor of Sichuan, and the seven leaders of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, two of whom were killed by him, and his hands were stained with the blood of the peasant rebel army, which was loyal to the Qing court, and the imperial court made "outstanding military achievements" to him. In addition to the increasingly large number of officials, they were also rewarded with "wearing the top of the head", "prince of Jinjia Taibao title", "rewarding the wearing of double-eyed flowers", co-founding university scholars, and zeng guofan, Zuo Zongtang, Li Hongzhang, etc. and called "the eight famous ministers of the late Qing Dynasty".
After his death, the Luo clan of his hometown of Huaxian Built the Luo Ancestral Hall in Hualing Village, and the Luo surname of Chixiao Liantang once gave a couplet and hung it in the ancestral hall. The couplet is "Ten years of QingBan, the fame of Han Yuan, the mission to the two lakes, Lu Yu Shu Qiandian, looking back on half of his life like a dream; twenty years of foreign appointments, counselor Rong Ji, suppression of all rebellions, Xiao Lan Hu Li Shi, Dan Xin a piece of retribution to the King". This link summarizes Luo Bingzhang's life behavior, and there are similarities and similarities with the links written by Luo Bingzhang himself during his lifetime.
Luo Bingzhang was an official for decades, in addition to suppressing peasant uprisings, he reused talents, prospered and eliminated shortcomings, and became the mainstay of the Xiang Army and the Qing court, especially recommending Zuo Zongtang and Liu Rong, and the Xianfeng Emperor commented on Luo: "Old Cheng Shuowang, Xuanli Miqin." The Tongzhi Emperor commented on Luo: "The old man is fruitful and has good scheduling. Zuo Zongtang's "Reply to Mao's Letter to Yun Yunzhong": "In the ten years before and after Mr. Fuxiang, Dezheng was not victorious in books, and the martial arts were not short. Everything is traceable and can be known according to it. And its legacy is particularly special, Pu is not as good as eliminating the drawbacks and dismissing the two things of big money. ”
Luo Bingzhang's calligraphy is also very deep, becoming a famous calligrapher in the late Qing Dynasty, and today there are some places where his calligraphy works are available. Luo Bingzhang's personal cultural attainment is worth understanding.
Although Luo Bingzhang's calligraphy works have been circulated to this day, most of them have become cultural relics. His calligraphic works have the connotation of reading poetry books and the elegance of famous scholars.
In Luo Bingzhang's pen, there is no song and swallow dance, no you and me, only a magnificent righteousness, a country and the world, with a high manhood, which makes people look excited and admired.
Luo Bingzhang's calligraphy is very high, the Foshan City Museum has his "Kai Shu Lian", the Foshan Garden Building 'Qunxing Caotang' plaque was written by him, and the woodcut couplet hanging in the front hall of the Foshan Ancestral Temple is now hanging in the front hall of the Foshan Ancestral Temple.
In terms of cultural literacy, Luo Bingzhang is undoubtedly much higher than Shi Dakai and Xiao Chaogui, but one yard is one yard, and no matter how good his calligraphy is, he cannot hide the fact that he killed good people.