"The strong spirit of the wolf overflows with face, and the words are not humble or profane, and they do not wag their tails and beg for mercy. At the time of execution, he looked pleasant and was the toughest of the ugly. "To be given such a high evaluation by the great enemy of life and death, the wing king Shi Dakai can really be described as a tyrant among people."
Although the nature of the Taiping Rebellion is still controversial, there is no doubt that it was the largest peasant uprising in the late Qing Dynasty. In modern history textbooks, a large amount of space is devoted to expounding the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, and saying: Shi Dakai's exodus was an important section that affected the development of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
Just as no one has been able to accurately characterize this uprising movement so far, the attitude of each modern person about Shi Dakai's exodus is also different.
Some people believe that when he left Nanjing, he took most of the "Heavenly Soldiers" with him, so that Tianjing could no longer have any soldiers to fight and was defeated by the Qing army. As for how many people followed Shi Da when he fled, some people speculated that it was 100,000 Heavenly Soldiers, and some people said that there were at least 200,000 Heavenly Soldiers. Some even attributed the main reason for the failure of the Taiping Rebellion to this, believing that Shi Dakai was the main culprit in the failure of the uprising.
I can't agree with that.
After all, what really affected the direction of the event was the infighting that broke out in Tianjing. In this infighting, not only did the power of the heavenly soldiers weaken, but also the people lost their spiritual pillar. The act of "Heavenly Father Killing Heavenly Brother" is undoubtedly destroying the people's faith, so that the illusion set up by Hong Xiuquan and others is shattered. Therefore, at that time, few Taiping Troops were willing to follow such a false Heavenly Kingdom, and during this period, the strength of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom had been greatly reduced, and it was impossible to compete with the Qing army.
On the other hand, in the Qing court, although the officers and soldiers of the Qing Dynasty (the Manchu And Mongolian Eight Banner Soldiers) still had no improvement, the regimental training organized in various places had begun to take shape, and even, it could be said that it was a great success. The bureaucratic landlord class summoned the villagers from the local area, prepared weapons and equipment at their own expense, and organized training, and it was obvious that their strength had far surpassed that of the Eight Banner Soldiers. In the face of these local armed forces, the victory rate of the Taiping Army was very low.
Therefore, Shi Da's departure had little impact on the outcome of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
Next, let's analyze why Shi Dakai ran away.
In the civil unrest of the "Tianjing Incident", Yang Xiuqing, Wei Changhui, and Hong Xiuquan were like praying mantis catching cicadas, and in one bloody massacre after another, those elder-level figures who participated in the uprising in the early years had long been dead and injured.
At this time, what was the situation faced by the "Wing King" Shi Dakai?
He was one of the more senior generals who participated in the uprising, and he had the heaviest military power and the most meritorious service, and his prestige within the kingdom of heaven was second only to that of King Hong. After such a great reshuffle within the Kingdom of Heaven, the power of the kings has disappeared one after another, and there is no longer any force that can compete with Shi Dakai. Since Hong Tianwang could kill Yang Xiuqing around him, he naturally would not allow Shi Dakai's strength to grow. Just as the so-called "rabbit dead dog cooking", this truth Shi Dakai will not not understand. Therefore, there is only one road in front of him, and he will go far to Nanjing to avoid suspicion.
It is worth mentioning that the author believes that Shi Dakai did not take too many Heavenly Soldiers with him when he left, why? Since Shi Dakai chose to run away instead of directly tearing his face with the Heavenly King, it showed that he had not thought of rebellion at all. If, at this time, he took away most of the troops, it would undoubtedly be a slip of the tongue. If this really happened, then King Hong Tianwang would never allow Shi Dakai to leave safely.
When Shi Dakai left Nanjing, the Qing army was informed of the following information: "On the eleventh day of this month, the false wing king Shi Dakai had fled across the river from Tongjing to the north of the river, and Hong rebelled and ordered the Mongol thieves to pursue him. "It is naturally impossible for one hundred thousand or two hundred thousand troops to cross the river in one day, which shows that there were not many troops around Shi Dakai at that time."
In addition, the Qing Dynasty minister Fu Ji's recital is enough to explain the problem: "According to the Wuwei Prefecture's teachings Zheng Huan and other courtesies: On May 18, Shi Rebellion was led by Jinling with his party and thousands, and the Road went upstream through the state, posting false signs everywhere and sending messages to various thieves. Examining the meaning of his words, because Hong rebelled and was too suspicious, he was afraid of harm and escaped. It can be seen from this that the real reason for Shi Da's departure was the suspicion of King Hong Tianwang.
As for the final outcome of Shi Dakai, the official history records that Tongzhi was delayed by the imperial court in the second year of Tongzhi. Shi Zai, when Shi Dakai was tortured, was cut with more than a thousand knives, and was silent from beginning to end. The Qing soldiers tied Shi Dakai, Zaifu Zeng Shihe, and Zhongcheng Huang Zaizhong to the execution ground, and Shi and Zeng were tied to two cross-beams face to face. When Ling Chi was executed, the executioner first cut the first knife at Zeng Shihe, zeng Shihe was in pain, but screamed and screamed, Shi Dakai reprimanded him, "Why can't you stand this time?" Zeng Shihe gritted his teeth and stopped shouting.
So, what was supporting Shi Dakai so that he could not say a word, could he not feel pain?
Obviously, this is not the case.
Barkin once said, "Faith governs the actions of the warriors." He was able to endure all hardships and sufferings and attain the goals he had chosen. And everyone has faith and ideals in their hearts to support their own efforts and struggles, and at the same time, as Ba Jin said: Faith can support a warrior to endure all hardships, to struggle and work hard, so as to realize the ideals he has set, Shi Dakai is such a typical example.
However, for the ending of Shi Dakai, there are two other sayings circulating in the folklore:
It is said that Shi Dakai led his men to kill out of the encirclement, but he did not defect to other anti-Qing forces, but led the remnants deep into the mountains of Guizhou and waited for the opportunity to make a comeback in a certain cottage. With the fall of Tianjing, Shi Dakai's ambitions were also lost, so Shi Dakai and his army scattered.
There is also a theory that the person who led the remnants into the Qing camp at that time was not actually the Yi King himself, but a righteous son who looked very similar to him. Under the cover of Yoshiko, Shi Dakai escaped from the encirclement with several henchmen and lived in seclusion in the Sichuan area. It is said that at that time, someone else in Sichuan witnessed the reclusive Shi Dakai.
Obviously, we don't have any evidence to prove that one of these claims is true, and the truth is yet to be unearthed.
Resources:
【Modern Chinese History Series Taiping Heavenly Kingdom" "Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Wild History"】