What is history: it is the echo of the past to the future, the reflection of the future on the past. - Hugo
In March 1854, the Xiang Army was formed, with a total of more than 17,000 sailors and land divisions, becoming the vanguard of the suppression of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. At this time, Zeng Guofan was full of confidence and immediately moved his division north to fight and serve the Qing Dynasty. However, the Xianfeng Emperor did not want to reuse Zeng Guofan at all, but only wanted him to be cannon fodder and fight with the Taiping Army upstream; the heavy task of conquering Nanjing was handed over to the "Jiangnan Camp" dominated by the Eight Banners and the Green Camp. In this way, Zeng Guofan was snubbed, because he did not grasp the real power of the locality, he was cold-eyed by the governor, and the situation was very difficult.
In May 1860, the "Jiangnan Camp" was completely destroyed, the Xiang army became the absolute main force, and Zeng Guofan ushered in a turning point in his life: he served as the governor of Liangjiang, and controlled the military and government of the four provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, and Gansu, and was powerful. In July 1864, the Xiang army captured Tianjing and destroyed the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and the Qing Dynasty was able to continue the state for decades, and Zeng Guofan became the head of the "Zhongxing Famous Minister" with this battle achievement. However, in March 1865, the most elite legion of the Xiang Army, and also the most capable regiment in the field, the "Thunder Army", mutinied in Jinkou, Hubei Province, defected to the Taiping Army, leaving Zeng Guofan in an embarrassing situation; the Zeng Xiang Army was finally completely disbanded, which was of great importance.
The Xiang army expeditioned to the northwest, and 8,000 elite soldiers disobeyed and mutinied at Jinkou
In January 1851, the Jintian Uprising broke out, the decaying nature of the Eight Banners and the Green Camp was exposed, and uprisings surged everywhere: the Two Huai "Twist Army", the Northwest Rebel Army, the Southwest Rebel Army, the Shanghai Knife Society Uprising, the Liangguang Tiandihui Uprising, and so on. To suppress the Taiping Army, the Qing Dynasty relied on the main force of the Xiang Army of Zeng Guofan, and the rest were undertaken by the Eight Banners and the Green Battalion, especially in the Central Plains and the Northwest, the Qing Dynasty did not want the Xiang Army to be involved, and the Eight Banners were the absolute main force.
In early 1864, the Eight Banners general Duolong'a was killed in the northwest battlefield and was killed by the guns of the rebel army, making the situation in Shaanxi and Gansu even more chaotic. In March 1865, the Qing Dynasty decided to send more than 8,000 people from the "Thunder Army", the most powerful force of the Xiang Army, to suppress it. When the "Thunder Army" set out from Nanjing and came to Jinkou, Hubei Province, Huang Dwarf took the lead in making trouble, demanding silver and imprisoning the main general Song Guoyong for the sake of "Jinkou Mutiny". Song Guoyong treated his generals well on weekdays, and although he was unwilling to betray the Qing Dynasty, Huang Dwarf finally let him live.
During the "Jinkou Mutiny", Huang Dwarf led 8,000 "Thunder Troops" to the south to defect to King Wang Haiyang of Kang, who was fighting in Fujian and Guangdong, and no one dared to stop the Qing army along the way. This move caused a huge shock in the Qing Dynasty.
Bao Chao's "Thunder Army" was the worst disciplined among the Xiang Army
After the fall of Tianjing, although the remnants of the Taiping Army still had hundreds of thousands of troops, they were all rabble-rousers, and their combat effectiveness was worrying. In October 1864, the young king Hong Tianguifu was arrested by Xi Baotian in Jiangxi and sent to Nanchang to be executed by Ling Chi, and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was already leaderless, and the great cause of "reviving" the heavenly kingdom that king Lai Wenguang called could only deceive himself. In this way, no matter from what point of view, the 8,000 "Thunder Army" should not mutiny; as "heroes" of the Qing Dynasty, they can live a good life, there is no need to defect to the Taiping Army. However, the truth is a slap in the face.
The mutiny of the "Thunder Army" was mainly due to two factors. First of all, Bao Chao's "Thunder Army" basically recruited the Heaven and Earth Society, the Brotherhood of Elders, the Scattered Soldiers, the Hooligans, and the Proletarians, and the discipline was the worst, and even the "Jizi Battalion" was ashamed of itself. You must know that the Heaven and Earth Society and the Brotherhood of Elders were sworn enemies of the Qing Dynasty and often launched uprisings. Moreover, the "Thunder Army" was not a regular army, there was no special appropriation from the imperial court, and the arrears of wages and silver were serious. To suppress the Taiping Army, the "Thunder Army" could make a fortune by plundering the people's wealth, but now the situation has changed, and the source of military expenditure is not guaranteed.
In addition, there are also many Northwest Heaven and Earth Associations and Brotherhoods, and the "Thunder Army" going to the Northwest means "cannibalism", and they naturally do not do it.
The Qing Dynasty made up its mind to "support Huaihuai and suppress Xiang" and vigorously suppressed the forces of Zeng Guofan
The "Thunder Army" openly mutinied, which greatly shocked the Qing Dynasty, and Cixi finally made up his mind to "help Huai and suppress Xiang" and kill Zeng Guofan. There were many factions in the Xiang Army, and the most powerful was Zeng Guofan. In July 1864, all 60,000 "Jizi Battalions" were disbanded, and the Ninth Marshal Zeng Guoquan was forced to resign and return home "sick". However, Zeng Guofan also retained more than 20,000 people in the "Thunder Army" with the strongest field combat ability as his political capital.
For Zeng Guofan, the Qing Dynasty never assured him, and wanted to restrain him everywhere. Before the destruction of the "Jiangnan Camp", Zeng Guofan did not have real local power and could only act as "cannon fodder". After serving as the governor of Liangjiang and controlling the military and political affairs of the four provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, and Gansu, Cixi trained Li Hongzhang and Zuo Zongtang to compete with them and divide the Han bureaucracy. Li Hongzhang, a typical pragmatic faction, often abandoned Zeng Guofan in times of crisis; Zuo Zongtang was pretentious, claiming to be the contemporary Zhuge Kongming and looking down on Zeng Guofan in his heart.
After the fall of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Zeng Guofan refused to claim the title of emperor, eliminating the suspicion of the Qing Dynasty, although he disbanded the army. However, Zeng Guofan's prestige was too high, and Cixi had to defend it. Now, the mutiny of the "Thunder Army" gave Cixi an excuse to attack Zeng Guofan and weaken the power of the Xiang Army. In 1867, Liu Mingchuan and Bao Chao had a conflict, and Cixi's new account was calculated together, and he ordered the dissolution of the "Thunder Army", and Zeng Guofan could only acquiesce.
The "Thunder Army" joined the Taiping Army, fought with Bao Chao, and the entire army was destroyed
As the most elite unit of the Xiang Army, the "Thunder Army" mutinied in Jinkou and went south to defect to the Taiping Army, and public opinion from the government and the public was in an uproar, accusing Bao Chao of being lax in discipline. At this time, Bao Chao was recuperating in Sichuan, and he was not in the army, and he was also innocently lying on the gun. More crucially, when the 8,000 "Thunder Army" went south to defect to the Taiping Army, Lou Yunqingzheng led 12,000 "Thunder Army" to deal with Wang Haiyang; the "Thunder Army" that was originally a comrade-in-arms was ready to duel on the battlefield. Bao Chao had no choice but to go out of the mountains again and go to Fujian to fight and suppress the rebellious "Thunder Army".
In January 1866, King Wang Haiyang of Kang and Huang Dwarf broke through from Jiaying Prefecture and commanded a large army to attack Liu Dian's army and tear open the Xiang army's defense line. At this time, the traitor Ding Sun betrayed the Taiping Army and informed Wang Haiyang of the location, and dozens of guns of the Xiang Army fired a salvo under the yellow umbrella cover, and Wang Haiyang was killed by a headshot. After Wang Haiyang's death, the Taiping Army, commanded by Tan Tiyuan, the Kaiwang, continued to prepare a breakout plan. Who knows, Huang Fourteen betrayed the intelligence, the breakthrough route was learned by Zuo Zongtang, the Xiang army was able to calmly deploy a pursuit, and the Taiping Army once again ushered in bad luck.
According to the plan, after Tan Tiyuan led the army to break, Hu Yongxiang and Huang Dwarf led the main force to go first to protect the family. The Xiang army pursued, Tan Tiyuan was unable to fight, jumped off the cliff on horseback, and was arrested by the Qing army. Subsequently, the main force of the Xiang army besieged Hu Yongxiang and Huang Dwarf, and the two sides broke out into a fierce battle. As a fierce general of the "Thunder Army", Huang Dwarf was very brave and good at fighting, repeatedly rushing into the Xiang army and killing many people.
Huang Dwarf knows Bao Chao's temper, he will not tolerate others betraying the "Thunder Army", and can only fight to the end. In order to completely eliminate the "Thunder Army" under Huang Dwarfzi, Bao Chao dispatched the "Foreign Gun Team" and used the flowering cannon to bombard, destroy the defensive circle of the Taiping Army, and then lead the troops to rush to kill. Huang Dwarf was unable to fight, was captured, and was executed by Ling Chi. At this point, most of the "thunder troops" involved in the mutiny were annihilated or executed.