In 1860 and 1861, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom attacked the Hangzhou Flag Camp for two consecutive years, once unharmed and once without grass.
In early 1860, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Tianjing (Nanjing) was surrounded by the Qing army Jiangnan camp. Li Xiucheng and Hong Rengui, the King of Zhong, planned to use wei to save Zhao from this life-and-death crisis. The content is to lead a force to besiege Hangzhou, attract the Qing army to divide the troops, and relieve the siege of Tianjing. The tactical executor is Lee So-sung.
On February 19 of that year, the Taiping Army quietly arrived outside the Wulin Gate of the North City Gate of Hangzhou. The Qing army guarding the city saw troops approaching in the fog, and at first thought it was a small group of bandits. It was not clear until the Taiping Army attacked the city, but the Taiping Army attacked for several days without success. On the 27th, the Taiping Army used the tactics they had been using to dig tunnels under the city wall, stuffed explosives into the tunnels, blew open the city walls, and finally attacked the city of Hangzhou.
The Taiping army was still accustomed to burning and killing everywhere, and the number of deaths and injuries in Hangzhou was a bit large, and most of the Zhejiang inspectors Luo Zundian and his officials committed suicide. The flag soldiers and the Taiping army took a battle outside the Yongjin Gate by the West Lake, but there was no victory or defeat, and the flag soldiers retreated into the flag camp to hold on.
On March 2, Zhang Yuliang led the Qing rescue force to attack Hangzhou from the Genshan Gate in the northeast of Hangzhou City. When the Taiping Army saw the Zhang Zi banner on the flag, it thought that it was another Zhang Zi army they were afraid of, and the purpose of relieving tianjing had been achieved, so it quickly withdrew. The flag battalion suffered minimal losses.
In October 1861, the Taiping Army planned to occupy Hangzhou. Li Xiucheng led his army to sweep all the way from Yanzhou and drove along the west side of Hangzhou To the outside of Hangzhou. At this time, except for Lin Fuxiang, a group of three thousand people who built a camp outside the Wangjiang Gate in the east of the city, the rest of the Qing army retreated into the city. At that time, the governor of Zhejiang was Wang Youling, and Hu Xueyan's first fortune was to cooperate with Wang Youling's officials and businessmen.
Lin Fuxiang outside the city sent a letter to the city, telling the Qing army inside the city to go out of the city and build a camp. The defender generals in the city disagreed with him and hesitated for a night. As a result, overnight, the Taiping Army camped everywhere outside the city of Hangzhou, and the entire city of Hangzhou was surrounded by water. The 20,000 stones of rice purchased by Hu Xueyan were moored on the Qiantang River and could not enter the city.
The grain in the city soon bottomed out, and the people ate all the bark and leather, and even some fell to the ground, still panting, and the flesh on their legs was cut off and eaten. On the 28th, the Taiping Army broke through the city, and Wang Youling, the governor of Zhejiang, and most of the officials committed suicide again. The Taiping Army let go of its hands and feet to kill on a large scale, originally there were more than 700,000 people in Hangzhou City, and finally only 70,000 people remained, of course, in addition to those who were killed and starved, there were also those who left their hometowns.
Of course, the flag camp was already hungry, and the general of the flag camp at that time, named Ruichang, was already sick in bed. Li Xiucheng later confessed that he ordered people to tie the letter of persuasion to an arrow from outside the city and shoot it into the flag camp. The letter reads that everyone gives it to their master, involuntarily, if the door is opened and made peace, then send the whole camp to the old and young up to Zhenjiang, take away the rich, and send the silver two without money. Ruichang held a military conference and decided to martyr himself. So they went door to door and distributed gunpowder to self-immolate.
In just three days, the Taiping Army invaded the Flag Camp, and except for a few Qing generals who were killed in battle, most of them, including Ruichang, committed suicide. The soldiers of the flag camp and their family members and servants did not set themselves on fire, and of course the Taiping Army killed people when they saw people, burned the houses when they saw them, and the flag camp was almost razed to the ground, and the walls of the flag camp were also burned in half. There were more than 10,000 people of all colors in the camp at that time, and when Zuo Zongtang recaptured Hangzhou in 1864 and re-inspected, there were still forty-six people.
There was a coastal defense Qing army in Zhapu, Zhejiang, which was established during the Yongzheng period and was subordinate to the Hangzhou Flag Battalion, with thousands of people, commanded by the deputy capital of the Hangzhou Flag Battalion. In March, it was wiped out by the Taiping Army, except for 260 people who traveled on business or were lucky enough to be transferred to other places.
Zuo Zongtang later repaired the flag camp, but regardless of the size of the city wall or the building of the camp, the scenery was no longer there, and the number of people stationed was greatly reduced.
After the Xinhai Revolution, the New Army fired several cannons at the flag camp on Mount Wu, and one of the cannons knocked down the general's flag. The two sides sporadically exchanged fires, and after several negotiations, the flag battalion opened its doors and surrendered. Within a few years, all the houses and walls of the flag camp were demolished.