After the fall of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, why did the female soldiers swear to die and not surrender? The Qing army's treatment of female prisoners was unthinkable
The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement led by Hong Xiuquan has always been a topic of discussion among countless historians, just as Lu Xun's attitude of "mourning his misfortune and angering him" in his writing Ah Q is excited about the whimsical blowing against the corrupt Qing government in the early days of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, and also mourning the end of the Taiping Army's defeat and retreat in the later period.
The reason for the failure of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement was that the phenomenon of the internal ruling class vying for power and profit was too serious, and the victory of the movement was prematurely estimated, and in the face of the severe situation of encirclement and suppression by the Qing army and the Xiang army, they did not think about how to retreat from the enemy, but only cared about the struggle for power and profit, arrogance and extravagance. However, unlike the leadership of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, many middle-level and lower-ranking generals of the Tianping Army were still very sober, and they understood that only by overthrowing the corrupt Qing government could they turn themselves into masters and realize the so-called "cultivators have their own land."
According to historical records, because the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom advocated equality between men and women, a beautiful landscape appeared in the Taiping Army, that is, the ranks of female soldiers. In the heyday of the entire Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the number of female soldiers in the Taiping Army once reached 100,000, and the number of people made the world sigh.
A large part of the reason why female soldiers rose up during the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom period is related to a concept put forward in the early days of Hong Xiuquan's uprising, which is: "There are many men in the world, all brothers; many women in the world, all sisters", since men and women are equal, men can join the army to defend the country, why can't women?
Male soldiers are physically strong and have a natural advantage in the battlefield of bullets and bullets; while women are weak and difficult to survive on the cruel battlefield, and even now those who hold this view are very large. However, more historical facts have proved that during the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, many female soldiers of the Taiping Army played the role of "not letting their eyebrows be shaved", which greatly reversed the traditional view of those women who were inferior to men.
Not only that, in the history books of the Qing Dynasty, we can also glimpse a more interesting phenomenon, in the late Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, due to internal struggles, the combat strength of the Taiping Army was greatly consumed, resulting in the Taiping Army winning more and losing less in the course of fighting with the Qing army, and many Taiping Army soldiers became prisoners of the Qing army. However, when summarizing the results of the battle, the Qing generals found that most of the captured Taiping soldiers were male soldiers, and those female soldiers of the Taiping Army who seemed to be vulnerable rarely surrendered to the captives.
It turned out that the purpose of these Taiping Heavenly Kingdom women joining the army was very clear, everyone was equal, and the good wishes of cultivators to have their own fields made them put their lives and deaths aside before they went to the battlefield, and when they fought on the battlefield, the courage and courage they had sprung up made many male soldiers ashamed of themselves. Even in the face of enemy soldiers several times their own, they have no fear, and they would rather die at the last moment. Why? Why would the female soldiers of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom prefer to die than surrender to the Qing army?
In fact, there are many reasons why the female soldiers of the Taiping Army are reluctant to surrender to the Qing army, which can be roughly divided into the following points. First, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the decadent Qing government treated women differently, under the qing government, women's status was only a male vassal, facing the psychological destruction of the three principles and five constants every day, as well as unbearable foot binding, and even sent between friends as gifts. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom gave them full respect and freedom, and raised their status to the same position as men.
Second, the ferocity and brutality of the Qing army was heinous, although many people called Zeng Guofan a "saint", and Li Hongzhang, Zuo Zongtang and others called them "famous ministers in the late Qing Dynasty". However, these people were all people with black hands and cruel hearts in suppressing the Taiping Rebellion, like Zeng Guofan, who was called "zeng shaved his head" because of his cruelty to the Taiping Army, Li Hongzhang and Zuo Zongtang were also not soft on the issue of treating the taiping army generals, and the reason why the female soldiers of the Taiping army preferred to die was to clearly see the cruelty of the Qing soldiers.
Third, after surrender, they will face the repeated violence and insults of the Qing soldiers, people all know that female soldiers and male soldiers are different after all, the Qing soldiers in the process of attacking the Taiping Army, in addition to snatching gold and silver jewelry, precious literary play, will also insult the women in the city, even ordinary people fell into the hands of the Qing soldiers, are nine deaths, not to mention the female soldiers of the Taiping Army who fought with them.