German Colonel Joachim Piper once said after World War II: "History is written by the victors, but the truth can only be known by experiencing it with one's own eyes." ”
In fact, it is precisely because when we study historical events, we must ultimately explore them from historical figures. The historical truth left behind is often "deliberately" left to future generations after being "deleted" and revised by the victors. Therefore, when future generations study historical figures and historical events, they will inevitably be influenced by the "victors" and will not be able to find out what the truth is.
For example, in the history of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, the historical study of Li Xiucheng as a person has been controversial. Some people criticized him for being late and unsafe, and rated him as a shameless traitor who wagged his tail and begged for life, while others complained about Li Xiucheng and thought that he was an out-and-out peasant uprising hero.
However, no matter how posterity evaluates it, its exploration data is all derived from a "Li Xiucheng's Handwritten Confession" handed in and published after Zeng Guofan "interrogated" Li Xiucheng.
It was not until 1962, when Zeng Guofan's great-grandchildren Zeng Baosun and Zeng Younong disclosed the original of Li Xiucheng's handwritten confession, that the historical truth that was "covered up" by Zeng Guofan was revealed. So, why did Zeng Guofan delete and revise the confession written by Li Xiucheng?
In a way, Zeng Guofan, as the commander of the Xiang Army, was a master of strategy. He knew the intrinsic value of Li Xiucheng's confession, and he also knew that if he did not hand it over to the imperial court and publish it without "technical modification", it was likely to cause some bad consequences.
First, the impact
After the disclosure of the original "Li Xiucheng's Handwritten Confession", we can see that under Li Xiucheng's pen, there are certain traces of "smearing" for Zeng Guofan's Xiang Army. In addition, when Li Xiucheng called Zeng Guofan, he basically carried such honorifics as "Zeng Zhongcheng".
Therefore, when submitting the confession to the imperial court, in order not to let the imperial court misunderstand that it was colluding with Li Xiucheng, some of the honorifics had to be deleted. Of course, some of the "black materials" about the Xiang Army must also be deleted, otherwise, after it is published, it will have some negative effects on his family and the Xiang Army.
This point is absolutely unacceptable to Zeng Guofan, after all, although Zeng Guofan holds the power of the Xiang Army, in the final analysis, he still has to do things under the imperial court, so this must be worried.
In addition, when it came to the enemy side of the imperial court, some political and military secrets and inside information of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom could not be directly handed over and published. For example, the Military Intelligence of Tianjing and the secret of Hong Xiuquan's death, and so on. Some of the internal information cannot be known to the imperial court and society, and some of the contents are quite different from the content previously reported to the imperial court.
Once it was truthfully handed over and announced, it was a huge blow to the "prestige" of the imperial court and Zeng Guofan himself, so it was necessary to "delete and modify" it to reduce all negative effects.
That is to say, the fundamental purpose of Zeng Guofan's refusal to hand over Li Xiucheng's confession to the imperial court as it was and to publish it to the world was to reduce some of the negative influences of himself and the Xiang army, and also to avoid arousing suspicion and suspicion from the imperial court.
So, after the original of "Li Xiucheng's Autographed Confession" was disclosed, what "truths" were tampered with by Zeng Guofan?
In fact, "major historical events" such as the truth about Li Xiucheng's capture and the truth about Hong Xiuquan's death were modified by Zeng Guofan, concealing them from the imperial court and at the same time concealing the people of the world.
Second, the truth
After a comparative study from the original "Li Xiucheng's Handwritten Confession", it was found that Zeng Guofan mainly deleted and revised several "major events". For example, in the version submitted by Zeng Guofan, the cause of his death was because the Qing army's offensive was fierce and powerful, and Hong Xiuquan was irritable and anxious every day, so he died of poison on May 27.
However, in fact, in Li Xiucheng's original confession, Hong Xiucheng died of illness. Li Xiucheng wrote that the King of Heaven was seriously ill, but he did not take medicine anyway, so he fell ill and died on April 21. As for Zeng Guofan's fuss about the cause of Hong Xiuquan's death, I am afraid that it is to highlight the "mighty" point of the Qing army, which has the meaning of welcoming the imperial court.
In addition, on the matter of Li Xiucheng's own capture, Zeng Guofan also made changes. In Li Xiucheng's original confession, he alone fled to a barren mountain southeast of Tianjing City, where he was recognized by the villagers who chopped firewood because of the jewelry he was carrying, and then the villagers arrested him and sent him to the officials because of the uneven distribution of the jewelry.
However, after Zeng Guofan deleted and corrected it, the process of Li Xiucheng's capture changed to Li Xiucheng fleeing to a barren mountain southeast of Tianjing City and being captured by Zeng's officers and soldiers.
That is to say, in fact, Li Xiucheng was not captured by Zeng Guofan's troops, but Zeng Guofan deliberately "added" credit to his subordinate Xiang army and cheekily changed it.
In addition, Li Xiucheng wrote that the time when he protected the Young Heavenly King from the siege gap was the first change, that is, around seven or eight o'clock in the evening, but this time was changed by Zeng Guofan to four more, that is to say, it was changed to one or two o'clock in the morning, li Xiucheng led the Taiping army to break out of the gap.
In fact, this point of deletion is understandable. After all, Zeng Guofan's troops were the main force attacking the Taiping Army, and if the imperial court knew that the Taiping Army was under siege by its own troops, the other side would break out at seven or eight o'clock in the evening, and it would not be punished. If you change it to one or two o'clock in the morning, you can reflect the "heroism" of your subordinates, so that there is no big problem.
In addition, Zeng Guofan also wrote the tenth of the ten mistakes of the Heavenly Dynasty written by Li Xiucheng: "Mistakenly establishing a government without order... And the life is endless" was changed to "mistakenly should not be dedicated to protecting Tianjing, pulling soldiers and horses everywhere.". After such a change, it can explain the reason why Zeng Guofan could not conquer Tianjing for a long time.
Of course, such a change can also blame Li Hongzhang's capture of Jiangsu and Zuo Zongtang's capture of Zhejiang on the Taiping Army's return of soldiers and horses from all over the country to "exclusively protect Tianjing". In this way, the credit for the Taiping Army lies with the Zeng Guofan brothers.
In addition to these obvious deletions, in the original "Li Xiucheng's Handwritten Confession", some of the "improper words" for Li Hongzhang and other generals in the battles of Shanghai, Suzhou, shaoxing and other battles were also deleted by Zeng Guofan. All in all, all the descriptions of the flattering remarks of the Zeng Guofan brothers in the original documents have been deleted, while the accounts of the heroism and merits of the Xiang army have all been retained.
It can be seen that the "truth" left by Zeng Guofan to the imperial court was actually written by the "victors".
However, according to the customs of the Qing Dynasty, in dealing with the leaders of rebellion and uprisings, it has always ended with a thousand knives. Then why did Zeng Guofan not take him to the imperial court after receiving Li Xiucheng's confession, but instead executed him in Jinling?
In fact, on this point, because some of the originals of "Li Xiucheng's Handwritten Confessions" were torn up by Zeng Guofan, posterity could not have an accurate examination of them.
III. Zeng Guofan examined the reasons for the execution of Li Xiucheng
As for the reason why Zeng Guofan hastily killed Li Xiucheng, some people feel that it was a plan of Zeng Guofan. It may be that Zeng Guofan spent a few days with Li Xiucheng and found that Li Xiucheng was a very cunning person, coupled with his high prestige in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, only after a quick killing could he break the idea of the yu party's comeback, so Zeng Guofan decisively executed Li Xiucheng to death in Jinling.
Of course, this reason is just some speculation of posterity, and it may be that Zeng Guofan really killed Li Xiucheng for this reason, but it may not be this reason. In addition, the possibility of another statement is much higher.
This statement is that Li Xiucheng is very likely to persuade Zeng Guofan in his confession to rebel and restore the Han Dynasty together, and at the same time propose to gather all the old ministries to help Zeng Guofan. Such a statement may be reflected in "Li Xiucheng's Handwritten Confession", but because he committed zeng guofan's taboo, he deleted it.
After all, if li Xiucheng was escorted to the imperial court and similar remarks were spread, it would not be a big trouble for the Zeng Guofan brothers. Therefore, in order to avoid extraneous branches, Zeng Guofan simply executed Li Xiucheng directly in Jinling.
However, although this statement is relatively highly recognized for future generations, it is not known how the truth of the matter is. As Piper said, the truth of the matter can only be known to those who have witnessed it.
epilogue:
In addition, there is also an interesting theory about Li Xiucheng's execution by Zeng Guofan. That is, Li Xiucheng knew that if he was escorted to Beijing, he was likely to be punished with "a thousand knives and a thousand knives", so he repeatedly asked Zeng Guofan to execute himself, so Zeng Guofan executed Li Xiucheng in Jinling.
Because Under the "interrogation" of Zeng Guofan, Li Xiucheng was dragging his disabled body at a rate of 7,000 words a day to write a "confession." With such an anxious attitude, it seems that he really has the possibility of "asking for death". So what do you think about that?
References:Draft History of the Qing Dynasty
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