In the history of China's more than two thousand years of feudal dynasties, yunnan officials not only had a small number of officials, but also did not produce any famous and prestigious high-ranking officials. For this reason, Yunnan is located in the southwest borderlands, before the Yuan Dynasty were all ethnic minorities ruled, no one took the imperial examination at all, the imperial court only symbolically appointed and dismissed a group of ethnic minority leaders to manage local government affairs, can ensure that there is no gathering of people to make trouble, and it is good to pay tribute to the imperial court on time. From the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty, the imperial court immigrated to Yunnan in large numbers and moved in hundreds of thousands of Han Chinese, which enabled some parts of Yunnan to move from a primitive social state to a feudal social state, but from the perspective of most areas in the primitive social state when Yunnan was liberated in 1950, Yunnan was indeed too far behind compared with other provinces in China, and it was reasonable that there were no outstanding talents.
During the Ming and Qing dynasties, Yunnan produced some jinshi, but the number was small, and they did not hold higher positions. According to local historical records in Yunnan, dian people from Kunming to Beijing to meet the examination, as early as half a year in advance, and the expensive car and horse fare is not affordable for ordinary well-off families. Fortunately, there are fewer people in Yunnan, and the cost of taking the exam in the capital is funded by the local government and the squire, and I have not heard of the people who gave up the exam because of the lack of travel expenses. Every exam year, Yunnan Juzi gathered in Kunming in advance, went to Beijing to catch the exam, climbed the mountains and waded all the way, successively passed through the five provinces of Guizhou, Hunan, Hubei, Henan and Hebei, and arrived in Beijing, with a journey of more than 7,000 miles, of which the hardships and hardships cannot be experienced by modern people.
During the reign of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, especially in the late Qing Dynasty, Yunnan produced several high-ranking officials at the level of governor. For example, Long Jiguang, the viceroy of Guangxi, was a native of Tengchong, Yunnan, and the acting governor of Sichuan, Wang Wenwen, was a native of Dali, Yunnan. However, these two were not the largest among the officials of Yunnan, and He Guiqing, a native of Kunming, Yunnan, served as the governor of Liangjiang during the Xianfeng period, the crown prince Taibao, and a member of the Eight Classics of Zheng'er, but he did not want to lose his jurisdiction and beheaded at the mouth of the Beijing Caishikou because of the unfavorable battle with the Taiping Army.
He Guiqing, born in 1816 in Kunming, Yunnan, is a well-known prodigy. He Guiqing was only 19 years old when he was a minor and was only 19 years old when he was the forty-ninth jinshi of the second class of high school. He Guiqing was young and old, and he found Mu Azhang, then a university scholar, as a patron, and his career was bright, and he successively served as the editor of the Hanlin Academy, the attendant of the Hanlin Academy, the shaoqing of the Taibu Temple, the secretary of the Guanglu Temple, the secretary of the Taichang Temple, the secretary of the Shandong Xuezheng, the cabinet bachelor, etc., and in only 12 years, he served as a high-ranking official of the imperial court from Erpin, and was at the same level as his five-year-old brother Zeng Guofan (Zeng Guofan was promoted to the cabinet in 1846).
In 1851, He Guiqing, who had returned to the dynasty by Ding You, was appointed by the Xianfeng Emperor as the Right Attendant of the Bingbu and Hubu, responsible for managing the affairs of qianfatang, and a year later, he acted as a lecturer at the Feast, responsible for accompanying the Xianfeng Emperor to study and study. When the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement was vigorous, it had already reached Jiangnan. In front of the Xianfeng Emperor, He Guiqing angrily rebuked the feudal officials for being incompetent, losing land and misleading the country, and strongly demanded to take up posts in the localities to suppress the rioters. The Xianfeng Emperor was initially uneasy about the polite He Guiqing and did not grant his request, and by 1854, seeing that the war situation in Jiangnan was becoming more and more unfavorable, he appointed He Guiqing as the governor of Zhejiang to resist the Taiping Army, which had already established the capital in Nanjing.
After He Guiqing became the governor of Zhejiang, he strategized and defeated the Taiping Army several times, acting as the high-powered governor of Liangjiang in 1857 (soon after). During his tenure as governor of Liangjiang, He Guiqing assigned and reused young and promising civil and military officials such as Wang Youling and Zhang Guoliang, and for a time the war situation in Jiangnan developed in favor of the imperial court.
At the beginning of 1860, He Guiqing recovered Jiangning Jiuhuanzhou, promoted to Prince Taibao for his merits, and officially stepped into the ranks of a yipin master (at this time, Zeng Guofan was still just a erpin regiment training envoy with the rank of military attendant), if there is no accident, it is sooner or later to enter the cabinet to worship the minister. But the changes in the situation are often unexpected, He Guiqing just got promoted, immediately suffered a fatal blow, and finally died in prison, which made people both distressed and regretful. What's going on?
In the spring of 1860, the Taiping Army concentrated its forces to besiege Jintan, Jiangsu, and soon after captured the important town of Jiangyin in Jiangsu. The imperial court ordered He Guiqing to command more than 100,000 elite soldiers to fight against the Taiping Army. He Guiqing divided his troops to resist the attack of the Taiping Army, but due to a command error, the battle situation was unfavorable, and he was besieged by the Taiping Army in Changzhou. He Guiqing could not dispatch reinforcements, and had the idea of abandoning the city and fleeing. Wang Youling, the old subordinate of Zhejiang Governor, wrote a letter of advice: "The situation is in crisis, as a minister, in full view of everyone, a wrong decision will lead to the army's discouragement and defeat!" The implication is that He Guiqing regards death as a homecoming and sticks to Changzhou. He Guiqing also listened at first, prepared for war with his heart, and formed a confrontation with the Taiping Army outside the city. However, after a few days of fighting, heavy losses were suffered, and the imperial court still could not dispatch troops to aid Jiangnan, and the military was shaken.
In particular, in the rain and snow in Changzhou for several days, the soldiers lacked clothing and food, endured hunger, and began to defect on a large scale. Soon, Li Xiucheng attacked the Jiangnan camp, the Jiangnan admiral Zhang Guoliang was killed, and the general Jiang Ning and Chun fled in defeat. He Chun led the remnants of the defeated army to flee to Changzhou, and by the way, he also led Li Xiucheng's army outside the city of Changzhou. He Guiqing could not hold back, listened to the advice of the grain official Cha Jingwen, and planned to leave Changzhou to raise grain in Suzhou to fight again. The commander-in-chief wanted to leave, the soldiers under his command and the people of Changzhou did not do anything, kneeling in front of He Guiqing's horse to prevent him from leaving the city, He Guiqing was overwhelmed, and in order to escape, the entourage directly went to war to kill 19 squires in Changzhou, killing a bloody road, and Bao He Guiqing fled from Changzhou. He Guiqing was gone for a few days, and He Chun, who did not want to be a substitute for the dead ghost, also led the troops to run, and after a brief exchange of fire between the Changzhou regiment and the Taiping Army, he knew that he was invincible, simply surrendered, and Changzhou fell.
He Guiqing took a small number of soldiers and horses to the outskirts of Suzhou, and Xu Youren, the governor of Jiangsu, was annoyed that He Guiqing had lost the defensive city, and did not allow He guiqing to enter Suzhou City, and even ordered soldiers to shoot to stop him when He Guiqing forcibly entered the city. He Guiqing had no choice but to abandon his entourage of soldiers and flee to Shanghai alone, saying that he was going to ask foreign soldiers to make meritorious contributions. As a result, He Guiqing could not invite foreign soldiers, and Suzhou was soon captured by the Taiping Army. Before his death, Xu Youren, the inspector of Jiangsu, wrote a suicide note accusing He Guiqing of various crimes.
Jiangnan was defeated, a large number of state capitals were lost, Jiangsu Governor Xu Yourendu was martyred in battle, the imperial court pursued the responsibility, and He Guiqing, the governor of Liangjiang, naturally could not escape the guilt. But at this juncture, something big happened in Beijing, and the British and French troops invaded the city of Beijing and burned the Yuanmingyuan. The Xianfeng Emperor fled with his family to Rehe for refuge, and the arrest and interrogation of He Guiqing was delayed for a while.
In 1862, Zeng Guofan, the successor governor of Liangjiang, led troops to besiege Tianjing City (that is, Nanjing City), and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was just around the corner. The imperial court stabilized the political situation, and the interrogation of He Guiqing was also on the agenda. Prince Gong Yi? Negotiating with the concessions, He Guiqing was arrested from Shanghai and taken to Beijing for trial. It is said that Empress Dowager Cixi, who was in power at the time, did not agree to kill He Guiqing and let the six ministries and nine secretaries consult. The university scholars Qi Liaozao, Gongbu Shangshu Wan Qingquan, Yushi Gao Yanhu, and others did not agree to kill He Guiqing; Li Tangjie, the secretary of the Dali Temple, and Bian Baodi, the secretary of the Dali Temple, insisted on the execution of He Guiqing. Both factions argue on the basis of reason and do not give in to each other. The imperial court ordered Zeng Guofan to investigate what He Guiqing had done before and after the defeat of the qing army, as the basis for the final conviction. Zeng Guofan thought that when he took over as the governor of Liangjiang, the land of fish and rice was in a mess, and he insisted on the execution of He Guiqing, regardless of the love of the same door. In the end, He Guiqing was sentenced to beheading.
On December 21, 1862, He Guiqing was taken to Caishikou outside Xuanwu Gate in Beijing to be beheaded for public display. He Guiqing was only 46 years old at the time of his execution, and was the second Yipin master to be beheaded in public at the end of the Qing Dynasty (the first was The Scholar of Wenyuange University, who was executed in 1859, for cheating in the imperial examination).