Introduction: Since the establishment of the Qing Dynasty, the uprisings of that period have not stopped, and the most influential uprising in the history of the Qing Dynasty must be the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
The leader of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was named Hong Xiuquan, Hong Xiuquan was a Guangdong native, and when he was young, Hong Xiuquan also wanted to pass the imperial examination, obtain a meritorious name, and step into the career to find a good way out.
However, Hong Xiuquan, who participated in the imperial examination many times, did not succeed in the examination, and Hong Xiuquan, who was completely disappointed in the imperial examination, inadvertently came into contact with Christianity when he was discouraged, and he absorbed some Christian doctrines and founded the worship of God on his own.
So Hong Xiuquan began to concentrate on the work of spreading the teachings, and gradually his followers increased, but why did he not succeed?
First: Rush to make a move
The Qing government adopted a repressive rule and always adopted a skeptical attitude towards the Han people, and Feng Yunshan, a loyal fan of Hong Xiuquan, was arrested by the local county yamen in the process of preaching, and finally the believers bribed ZhiXian with money to allow Feng Yunshan to escape.
On January 11, 1851. That is, on Hong Xiuquan's birthday, many believers in the God Worship Sect revolted in Jintian Village, Hong Xiuquan proclaimed himself the Heavenly King, and led many church believers to begin the struggle to overthrow the Qing government, and the Qing government hurriedly sent troops to suppress it.
However, the Eight Banners disciples on which the Qing government once relied, no one like their ancestors practiced horseback riding, archery, and a comfortable life has long corroded the combat effectiveness of the Eight Banners disciples, except for walking birds and fighting clams, the Eight Banners soldiers have no combat effectiveness, and the Qing government in desperation had to send the Han Eight Banners and the Mongolian Eight Banners to fight with the Taiping Army.
After the Jintian Uprising, the Taiping Army, after the smooth sailing, successfully hit Nanjing along the way, half of China's rivers and mountains have fallen into the pocket of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and he began to decide to set the capital nanjing and change this place to Tianjing.
Second: coveting pleasure
After entering Nanjing, he began a life of pleasure. As the saying goes, snakes can't do without heads, and in the beginning, Hong Xiuquan had several good helpers around him, and the most outstanding one was Yang Xiuqing, who was crowned as the Eastern King.
In this uprising, although Hong Xiuquan was the leading figure, in fact, the real person who operated military affairs and managed the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was Yang Xiuqing, Yang Xiuqing's personal ability was still very strong, and his innate leadership ability allowed him to deal with those complicated things in an orderly manner.
After the capital was fixed here, the Heavenly King himself began to drill into the Heavenly King's Mansion, drinking and having fun all day, indulging in female sex, and the war against the Qing Dynasty was only symbolically dispatched to the Northern Expedition, which had lost its initial motivation.
In fact, Yang Xiuqing, the Eastern King who managed the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, gradually made Hong Xiuquan jealous, and this person shocked the Lord because of his high merits, so that the Heavenly King had the idea of getting rid of the other party.
So the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom had the biggest infighting since its inception, the homestead of Yang Xiuqing, the eastern king, was surrounded by Hong Xiuquan's people, and on the same day Yang Xiuqing and his family were all killed, and Yang Xiuqing's men were also slaughtered, with a total of more than 20,000 people killed.
Shi Dakai, the wing king of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, returned to Nanjing, accusing the other side of killing innocents, and then Shi Dakai secretly escaped from the city of Nanjing, Wei Changhui accepted Hong Xiuquan's secret order, killed all of Shi Dakai's family members, forced Shi Dakai to lead the army to flee, and finally destroyed the entire army by the Dadu River. As a result, they were seriously injured and went downhill.
Third: the decay of the regime
Many peasant uprisings in history have certain limitations, the original purpose is to overthrow the corrupt rule of those in power, and the slogans shouted are also based on the fundamental interests of the toiling masses at the bottom, so they often get strong support from the masses and respond to the peasant class.
Although the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom took the worship of God as its ideological belief and implemented a series of equal measures such as the Tianchao Tianmu system, the ruling class of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom inevitably fell into a misunderstanding after achieving great success, and the ruling class inevitably began to become corrupt.
In addition to interests, the struggle for power is also a big reason for the failure of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, when there is nothing, everyone can work together, but when the success is achieved, there are people who are eager to sit on the peak of power.
Summary: Infighting was the most direct cause of the failure of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Compared with the Eight Banners of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, which lost its combat effectiveness, the performance of local regimental training was still good, and for a time very good teams such as the Xiang Army, the Huai Army, and so on emerged, with internal strife and powerful external threats, and this vigorous uprising movement finally failed after more than ten years!