The Qing Dynasty was the last feudal dynasty in China. In 1644, the Qing Dynasty replaced the Ming Dynasty as an orthodox dynasty. At that time, the total strength of the Qing army was only a few hundred thousand, and the population did not exceed one million. Why did it enter the Central Plains? In fact, this is related to the luck of the Ming Dynasty. At that time, Li Zicheng rebelled in the Ming Dynasty, and the Qing army occupied the villages outside the city. In addition, the arrival of the cold climate caused the reduction of grain production in the Ming Dynasty, leading to peasant uprisings, and the internal partisanship within the imperial court was fierce. The Donglin Party and the eunuchs fought for power and profit, and Chongzhen was left in a mess.
So the Qing army picked up a large amount of money. At the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, several emperors imitated the Ming Dynasty to establish the Six Systems, and Hong Chengzhou, Wu Sangui and others helped him formulate a plan for expanding the territory. During the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, the national strength reached its peak, but this is only a return to the past. The Qing Dynasty adopted a policy of seclusion and did not attach importance to the development of advanced weapons and equipment and military technology at that time, and the Industrial Revolution in Europe was in full swing, but the Qing Dynasty was arrogant and arrogant.
In 1840, Britain opened the door to the Qing government using modern technology. The Qing Dynasty was forced to sign unequal treaties and cut off land to compensate for the reparations for aggression. At that time, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement began to rise. As the founder of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Hong Xiuquan was originally a scholar, because he did not pass the imperial examination, after several years of development, he finally established the worship of God under the western Christian doctrine, and the worship of God has many believers in the south. In 1851, Hong Xiuquan launched the Jintian Rebellion and established the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement greatly shook the foundation of the Qing Dynasty's rule. Later, the Northern Expedition of the Taiping Army captured the city of Nanjing and fought against the Qing Dynasty, but Hong Xiuquan began to enjoy happiness. He was originally a scholar. He is very satisfied with the life of "wife and children hot kiln". When he became king, he began to enjoy himself. He hadn't been out of the palace for 11 years, so what was he doing during that time? In fact, he only did one thing, that is, to choose a concubine.
Hong Xiuquan had no ambitions. He believed that if he won Nanjing, he could enjoy splendor and wealth. In fact, the reason why the Taiping Army was able to fight so many rivers and mountains was because the Qing Dynasty did not fight all year round. The Eight Banners have no combat effectiveness at all. After a hundred years of consumption, they will only go shopping and walking. They have no fighting power at all. If they take advantage of the Qing Dynasty's unstable position, they may well overthrow the Qing Dynasty by continuing their war northward.
However, Hong Xiuquan stayed in the harem and picked women all day. There were 88 concubines of rank alone. The servants of the harem were all women, numbering more than 2300. Later, Zeng Guofan formed the Xiang Army, and Li Hongzhang formed the Huai Army. These two armies were a huge blow to the Taiping Army. By 1864, Tianjin had fallen, Hong Xiuquan had committed suicide by poisoning, and more than 2,300 of his concubines had been wiped out. Some of them were insulted by the Qing army, some were used as concubines by Qing generals, and some were directly killed. The end of the concubines was difficult to accept, so the whole world would call Zeng Guofan's Xiang Army a razor army.
Hong Xiuquan's failure was defeated by the short-sightedness of vision and by his own greed. This also made the later Qing Dynasty's national strength even weaker, and the invasion of the invading army laid hidden dangers.