The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement and this peasant uprising were all due to the unrestrained looting of the people by the Qing Dynasty government after the Opium War in order to pay war reparations. At this time, the Liangguang area happened to be in a season of natural disasters, so the local peasants faced the harsh tax burden of the imperial court on the one hand, and on the other hand, they were ruthless natural disasters, and they rose up one after another, planning to oppose the Qing court.
The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was a peasant power created by this group of peasant rebels, and it was the largest peasant war that emerged from China's long history. From the end of 1850 to the beginning of 1851, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was established. However, in the end, it could not resist the Manchu Qing Dynasty and completely perished in Guizhou in 1872.
However, in this peasant uprising movement, there are still many heroes Haojie, such as the electric marshal Wing King Shi Dakai, or the blocking king Huang Wenjin who can attack and defend. However, at that time, the Qing court could not help but boast and praise, and Zeng Guofan lamented that his generation could not reach it, but it was Lin Qirong, the first defensive general in the late Qing Dynasty at that time.
Lin Qirong was born in Guangxi in 1821. Originally, he was the defender of Nanjing, until August 1853, when the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom conquered Jiujiang. At this time, Delin Qirong was valued by Yang Xiuqing, the Eastern King, and was awarded the twelve checkpoints on the right side of the palace, and was ordered to guard Jiujiang. In 1855 and 1857, Lin Qirong defeated the Xiang army twice in Jiujiang, one of which was a major defeat of Zeng Guofan at Hukou, and was named "Zhen Tianhou" by the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom regime. Therefore, it is also known as the first good guard in the late Qing Dynasty.
At that time, the general of the Xiang Army commented on Lin Qirong that "the army under Lin Qirong is all military appearance and rectification, and the banner armor is clear, so that people will feel very short when they see it." Lin Qirong is so good at fighting, we are not as good as him. It is difficult to imagine that this is an evaluation of a team of irregular troops that are all peasants, and here we can see Lin Qirong's talent for leading troops.
Since the outbreak of the Tianjing Incident in 1856, infighting broke out in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and the situation in the western battlefield became worse and worse. Zeng Guofan felt that this was a very good period and could take this opportunity to take Jiujiang. On January 8, 1857, the Xiang army gathered outside Jiujiang City to attack the city, but Lin Qirong led his troops to sink to deal with it, and in the blink of an eye, for six days and nights, a large number of Xiang troops were killed.
At this time, Zeng Guofan felt that such a strong attack was impossible, so he decided to adopt a siege policy, concentrate on digging trenches outside Jiujiang City, and use five months to dig out 6 deep trenches and adopt a three-sided encirclement method. The Water Division of the Xiang Army was dispatched to the yangtze River to be guarded day and night, and since then, all the water, land, grain and grass in Jiujiang City have been cut off.
At this time, Zeng Guofan began to surrender to Lin Qirong in the city, wanting to surrender without a fight. However, Lin Qirong sternly refused, and ordered the gates in the city to plant wheat to replenish the insufficient grain. But even so, it is not enough to let the soldiers cheat their stomachs. After a year of siege, the Xiang army felt that the time had come, so it launched a general offensive in an all-round way.
From March 30 to May 19, 1858, Lin Qirong led 17,000 soldiers to resist desperately, but at this time, the soldiers were empty,000 stomachs, and the Xiang army dug tunnels to lay explosives. However, in February, Jiujiang fell completely, and more than 17,000 soldiers were killed. This war was the most tragic war against the Qing army in the history of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
At that time, after the Xiang army entered the city, the corpses were all over the place, and each one was covered with bones. They even peeled off Lin Qirong's belly, and found that Lin Qirong's belly was full of grass and bark. At that time, the generals of the Xiang Army could not help but sigh after seeing it, "The long hairs of this Jiujiang River are all the color of grass in the stomach, and in this case, it is even possible to defeat our army many times, and the wang masters of the hall are not as good as the thieves, it is really unimaginable."
After zeng guofan learned about this matter, he also sighed to himself, and even couldn't help but inform his younger brother Zeng Guoquan of this matter, and he commented on Lin Qirong in his letter: "Lin Qirong's stoicism, my generation can not reach it." After the end of the Jiujiang Defense War, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Emperor Hong Xiuquan posthumously honored Lin Qirong as the King of Qin, and the former deputy Xia of the Quanyi Palace's military department, Ding Tianfu Dynasty Gangqin Wang Mao Chitose.