The collapse of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, as fast as its outburst, was unbelievably fast, and even Empress Dowager Cixi, who was sitting in Beijing, did not expect that this group of "long hairs" that had made it difficult for the Qing Dynasty to sleep and eat would collapse in an instant. After all, before the general offensive began, Li Xiucheng still had more than 200,000 people in his hands.
However, if we analyze it carefully, we will find that even the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, which was in its heyday, had already foreshadowed its ultimate fate. It should be known that the reason why the Qing army that the Taiping Army had fought was dizzy was mainly because they had been in a state of movement, which made the officers and soldiers who came to chase and block the situation confused.
However, after the occupation of Nanjing, Hong Xiuquan and others began to enjoy comfort, although there were military operations such as the Northern Expedition and the Western Expedition, they all failed due to lack of resoluteness and internal strife. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, which seemed to have a base camp, gradually transitioned to a stagnant or even sit-and-die dilemma.
The fall of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom also began with the establishment of the capital Nanjing, and this degeneration occurred almost simultaneously at the entire high level. For example, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, which was originally hostile to the Qing Dynasty and the imperial system, even tried to promote the eunuch system, and after its failure, it used "maids" on a large scale, which was completely a hierarchical dynasty dressed in religious clothing.
With the infighting among the high-level leaders of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the Tianjing Incident caused tens of thousands of elites to die innocently, and the Eastern King Yang Xiuqing, the Northern King Wei Changhui, and the Yan King Qin Rigang also died, and under the suspicion of Hong Xiuquan, the Wing King Shi Dakai led tens of thousands of elites to flee. As a result, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was seriously injured, and it was difficult to organize troops to pose too much of a threat to the Qing army.
If the Tianjing Incident of 1856 was a sign of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's transformation from prosperity to decline, then by 1863, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was already powerless to return to heaven.
During the year, three major events occurred:
Shi Dakai's elite were defeated at the Dadu River, which was a huge loss that the Taiping Army could not bear;
The defeat of Zhang Lexing's forces in the Anhui Twister Army left the Taiping Army without a strong ally;
The "Changsheng Army" led by Gordon went all out to help the Qing army attack Suzhou and threaten Hangzhou.
These three things combined made the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom even more embarrassing. If Shi Dakai's exodus and fiasco were the impact of the Tianjing Incident, then the rout of Zhang Lexing's twist army and the change in the attitude of the foreigners were unexpected by the Taiping Army, which can be described as worse.
At the same time as the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom declined, the Qing army seized the offensive:
As early as 1862, Zeng Guofan began to plan to lay out a large net for the Taiping Army, he ordered Li Hongzhang to lead the Huai army to Shanghai, let Zuo Zongtang lead part of the Xiang army into Zhejiang through Jiangxi, and Li and Zuo's two large armies increasingly oppressed the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's sphere of influence. During this period, Zeng Guofan personally sat in Anqing and led the Concubines along the Yangtze River to Tianjing.
In addition, while suppressing the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, Zeng Guofan and others have been developing the foreign affairs movement and producing modernized weapons. In this way, the weapons and equipment of the Xiang Army and the Huai Army were importantly improved compared with the initial battles with the Taiping Army.
Compared with the increasingly well-equipped Qing army, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom began to lose the support of foreigners due to its unwillingness to accept humiliating terms such as the Treaty of Nanking, and it became very passive in weapons and equipment. The powers that had once favored the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom turned to help the Qing army attack the Taiping Army.
More importantly, in his later years, Hong Xiuquan was already immersed in the heavenly kingdom he had woven. Despite Li Xiucheng's constant advice, Hong Xiuquan insisted on sticking to Nanjing, stressing that there would be some so-called heavenly soldiers and heavenly generals who would come to help. The faint Hong Xiuquan stood still and exhausted his life under the siege of the Qing army, while the young heavenly king Hong Tianguifu and the loyal king Li Xiucheng took over, which can be described as a mess with many holes, and then it collapsed in an instant. Of course, this is the last word, we want to discuss the final decisive battle of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, that is, the Battle of Yuhuatai.
The Battle of Yuhuatai, which lasted for more than forty days, ended in a great rout of the Taiping Army.
Under the increasingly critical situation in Nanjing, Hong Xiuquan forced Li Xiucheng to gather troops and return to Tianjing. As a result, the battle between Li Xiucheng and Zeng Guoquan began.
Before the battle began, in addition to Li Xiucheng(who led the elite Taiping army in southern Jiangsu), who was ordered to return to the aid, there were also the servants Li Shixian's troops who came from western Zhejiang, plus the Taiping army hastily mobilized from various places, Li Xiucheng had about 300,000 people on his side (more than 200,000 in one word), while Zeng Guoquan's troops only had more than 30,000 people, and the two sides had a huge disparity in military strength.
But what was surprising was that Li Xiucheng's 200,000 or 300,000 men failed to defeat Zeng Guoquan's troops, but instead retreated to Tianjing (Nanjing). This allowed the Xiang army to complete the final siege of the city of Nanjing. At this point, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was completely hopeless.
So, in this decisive battle, why did the Taiping Army lose miserably?
The explanation given by Li Xiucheng was that the Xiang army had a large number of troops and strong fortifications, and the Taiping army was short of food and had no winter clothes. In fact, this is a kind of excuse. As mentioned above, Li Xiucheng's military strength is about ten times that of Zeng Guoquan, and calling the other side "many people" is definitely self-excusion.
In addition, during the Battle of Yuhuatai, the Taiping Army's grain routes still existed, and the weather was not particularly cold. It can be said that in the whole battle, the situation of the Taiping Army was not as miserable as the siege of Nanjing later.
Li Xiucheng's fiasco actually stemmed from the Taiping Army's low momentum and declining combat effectiveness.
Successive conquests and high-level infighting made the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's military and civilians permeate with hopelessness. Especially with the corruption and degeneration of Hong Xiuquan and others, the soldiers have begun to doubt what they are fighting for. It can be said that although Li Xiucheng had heavy troops in his hands, everyone was no longer willing to fight hard, so how could they confront the well-equipped, brave and good-war Xiang army?