What is history: it is the echo of the past to the future, the reflection of the future on the past. - Hugo
Audiences who have seen the movie "Letter of Submission" must have a deep memory of the plot of the three brothers pang Qingyun (played by Jet Li) in the movie after luring the Taiping Army to occupy Suzhou City, killing 4,000 soldiers with arrows, in fact, this movie plot is based on real history, and the real Suzhou killing and landing incident in history is much more brutal than in the movie.
In 1863, the vigorous Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement came to an end, and the Qing court completely grasped the initiative on the battlefield by relying on the strength of the Xianghuai Army, and the Taiping Army was in a dangerous situation. In the same year, Li Hongzhang led the Huai army to attack the southeastern important town occupied by the Taiping Army- Suzhou City. At that time, although the Taiping Army in Suzhou had no grain and grass inside and no reinforcements outside, after all, there were still 60,000 or 70,000 people, while Cheng Xueqi, the general of Li Hongzhang's main attack on Suzhou, only had more than 30,000 people.
Faced with such a situation, Li Hongzhang also felt that a strong attack would not necessarily lead to victory, but would lose both and weaken the strength of the Huai army, so he and Cheng Xueqi discussed a brilliant plan. After receiving instructions from Li Hongzhang, Cheng Xueqi found an ally of the Huai Army, the general of the Foreign Gun Brigade, Gordon, and discussed with Gordon a plan to induce a surrender—to win over Li Xiucheng, the king of Zhong, and gao Yongkuan. Because Gordon and Gao Yongkuan's daughter were in a honeymoon period at that time, this abduction plan went very smoothly.
After Gao Yongkuan was lured down, he spread rumors to the taiping generals who were holding out in suzhou: The Huai army is well-equipped and has the help of foreigners, we have run out of ammunition and grain, and it is a dead end to hold on any longer, as long as we kill Mu Wang Tan Shaoguang, sacrifice Mu Wang's head to Li Hongzhang, and then open the city gate to meet the Huai army, we can save all the soldiers and the people of the city. After negotiating the conditions, Gao Yongkuan joined forces with the eight kings of Suzhou to booby-trap and kill Tan Shaoguang, the king of Mu, in the name of a banquet, and Kaesong surrendered.
After killing Tan Shaoguang, the King of Mu, Li Hongzhang ordered Cheng Xueqi to lead a Huai army of 30,000 men into the city of Suzhou. However, as soon as he entered the city, Cheng Xueqi found that the situation was not good, and he had the possibility of being eaten by the Taiping Army at any time. Originally, an important condition for the Eight Kings to accept Gao Yongkuan's surrender at that time was that the Eight Kings' armies would not be disbanded, their weapons would be retained, their structures would be retained, and military defensive facilities such as fences would be established, and they would be given the rank of commander-in-chief or above by the imperial court.
However, according to the Qing court system, Li Hongzhang had the power to appoint general soldiers, and at that time, in order to occupy the city of Suzhou in time, he was forced to arbitrarily agree to the conditions, even though he knew that it was even more dangerous to enter the city now, and Cheng Xueqi's troops were completely likely to be wiped out.
Li Hongzhang was impatient, like swallowing a piece of hot yam, stuck in the middle, up and down, so he consulted with Cheng Xueqi: Simply kill the Eight Kings and the sixty or seventy thousand surrendered soldiers, in order to avoid the consequences, Cheng Xueqi gladly agreed, so an assassination operation in the name of celebrating merit began to be carried out, Li Hongzhang and Cheng Xueqi invited the Eight Kings and Gao Yongkuan to a banquet.
At the banquet, Li Hongzhang announced to the Eight Kings that the imperial court had accepted your request and decided to grant you the post of chief soldier, and the eight kings were so excited that they finally changed from anti-thieves to imperial court officials, and they all shouted long live, saying that they would crush their bones for the imperial court and go to the soup to fight the fire, and they were bound to destroy the long hair. Li Hongzhang ordered the eight samurai to hand over the official clothes of the red-topped flower plume to the eight kings, and when the eight kings bent down to accept the official clothes, the eight warriors quickly drew their waist swords, killed the eight kings, and then carried the heads of the eight kings to the battalions: the eight kings had been killed by the imperial court for rebellion, and those who wanted to join the court could stay, and those who did not want to stay could go home to farm.
Most of the 60,000 or 70,000 soldiers in the city chose to submit to the imperial court, and some who were unwilling to cooperate were slaughtered by the Huai army, and within a day, the Huai army killed more than 20,000 people, and the entire city of Suzhou was killed like a river of blood, like hell on earth. The Suzhou killing incident was the largest massacre and surrender incident during the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, and it was also an unwashable stain on Li Hongzhang's life, after this incident, the generals of the Taiping Army saw clearly the evil face of the Qing court, and they recognized a fact: surrender is also a dead end, then only fight to the death, the later Battle of Tianjing, tens of thousands of soldiers swore to die after the city was destroyed, all of them died heroically!