In July 1864, the Ninth Marshal Zeng Guoquan's "Jizi Battalion" entered Tianjing, and Li Xiucheng, the King of Zhong, was captured, and the young King Hong Tianguifu was soon imprisoned. However, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom did not perish, but continued to fight bloody battles with the Qing army in the north and south of the great river, and also won a huge victory in killing the Mongol king Gelinqin and his 7,000 elites. After the fall of Tianjing, the Taiping Army was divided into two parts: the north was led by Lai Wenguang the King of Zun and Fan Ruzeng, the first king, and carried out joint operations with the "Twist Army" under the command of Ren Huabang the King of Lu and Zhang Zongyu the King of Liang; in the south, led by Li Shixian the Prince of Shixian, the King of Kang, and Lu Shunde, the King of Lai, with more than 200,000 soldiers and horses, it was the last hope for the revival of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Unfortunately, due to internal conflicts, traitors betrayed, and the Southern Taiping Army was completely destroyed in the Battle of Jiaying Prefecture (Meizhou): the commander was headshot, the deputy commander jumped off the cliff, and more than 700 senior wenwu people were executed.
When the Tianjing Defense War began, Li Shixian and Wang Haiyang, the always unruly attendants, led more than 200,000 soldiers and horses to move on the border of Zhejiang and Gansu, and did not participate in the siege relief battle, so their strength still existed. When Huang Wenjin and Hong Rengui and their party took the Young Heavenly King to Hubei to join the Fu King Chen Decai, Li Shixian and Wang Haiyang, who were fighting in Jiangxi, did not respond with their troops, resulting in Huang Wenjin's death in battle and the capture of the Young Heavenly King. With more than 200,000 soldiers and horses, Li Shixian and Wang Haiyang concentrated their forces on attacking Jiangxi and Fujian, hoping to establish a base area here. In the march into Fujian and Jiangxi, the achievements were great, Wang Haiyang set up an ambush to kill the viceroy Lin Wencha; the kaiwang Tan Tiyuan successfully sneaked in, breaking more than 20 camps in Zuo Zongtangxiang and killing 3,000 Qing troops. Li Shixian, Wang Haiyang, and others crisscrossed Jiangxi and Fujian, and the Qing Dynasty was greatly panicked, so it asked Zuo Zongtang, the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang, to supervise the south, restrain all kinds of soldiers and horses to encircle and suppress the Taiping Army, and eliminate the thieves in the south.
Zuo Zongtang was a famous general in modern times, and with soldiers like gods, Li Shixian and Wang Haiyang ushered in fierce enemies. In the face of zuo zongtang's encirclement and suppression of the Xiang army, Li Shixian and Wang Haiyang had differences in the direction of strategic development: Li Shixian advocated advancing from Fujian into Jiangxi and establishing a base area in Gannan Province; Wang Haiyang advocated breaking through the Tingjiang defense line and entering Guangdong, with liangguang as the base area. The leadership was divided, seriously affecting the development of the war situation, Zuo Zongtang besieged Li Shixian's Zhangzhou camp, Wang Haiyang refused to send reinforcements, and 100,000 troops were stationed on the Fujian-Guangdong border, indifferent. King Wang Haiyang of Kang saw death and could not be saved, and Li Shixian, the king of the attendant, suffered consecutive fiasco in Zhangzhou, losing more than 100,000 troops, and he himself fled to the deep mountains and old forests. In this way, the Southern Taiping Army can be called elite, and only the Wang Haiyang Army is there, but if you have to face Zuo Zongtang's army alone, the ending is naturally not good. It can be said that Wang Haiyang is self-inflicted and provokes infighting at a critical moment.
It was a big mistake not to rescue Li Shixian, and what Wang Haiyang did next was staggering. In order to establish his prestige, Wang Haiyang executed more than 70 generals, including Li Yuanmao, a subordinate of the King of Servants, for various reasons, causing panic among the people. Li Shixian disguised himself as a beggar, went out day and night, begged all the way, came to Zhenping to join Wang Haiyang, and discussed important matters together, but Wang Haiyang took advantage of the night to assassinate him, and said: "The king has surrendered to the demon." Wang Haiyang was like this, and the remnants of the Taiping Army were very cold, and Lin Zhengyang, Ding Taiyang, and other Guangdong "Citi Army" (Armed forces of the Heaven and Earth Society) surrendered to Zuo Zongtang one after another, and also used Wang Lu Shunde as a "surrender certificate". Internal divisions, the army's morale was shaken, Zuo Zongtang sent troops to attack Zhenping in succession, and Wang Haiyang had no choice but to storm the Tingjiang defense line and enter Guangdong. Then, Wang Haiyang sent troops to capture Jiaying Prefecture, using it as a rest base, and then broke out after the New Year. Unfortunately, Wang Haiyang was no longer able to break through, and this place became a graveyard for the Taiping Army.
In December 1865, Wang Haiyang commanded 100,000 soldiers and horses to enter Jiaying Prefecture, and Zuo Zongtang then led a large army to the front, and Bao Chao, Liu Dian, Gao Liansheng, Huang Shaochun, Wang Debang, Fang Yao, Xi Baotian, Kang Guoqi and other fierce generals also all went out to encircle Jiaying Prefecture together. The governor of Fujian and Zhejiang, Zuo Zongtang, and the Qing army attacked from the east, west, and north, and set up a large camp to prepare to trap the defenders. In order to prevent the Qing army from encamping, Wang Haiyang came out of the city and focused on attacking the Fozigao camp. At this time, more than 30,000 elite Taiping troops dispatched to attack the camp of Fozi Gao Liudian. Tan Tiyuan, the king of Kai, went around the side of the Qing army and suddenly launched an attack while the fierce battle between Wang Haiyang and Liu Dian was in full swing. From dawn to noon, the Xiang army gradually collapsed, and the reinforcements such as Huang Shaochun, Gao Liansheng, and Wang Debang were held back by the heavenly general Hu Yongxiang and could not reach the battlefield. Unfortunately, the traitor Ding Sun betrayed Wang Haiyang, who informed the Qing army of the location of King Kang, and commanded the "foreign gun team" to shoot a salvo at the Yellow Flag, and Wang Haiyang was shot in the head and killed on the battlefield.
Wang Haiyang was killed by a headshot, but the Xiang army did not win, and both sides retreated at the same time, but the losses of King Kang's death could not be repaired, and the morale of the Taiping army was low. At this time, everyone unanimously elected Tan Tiyuan, the king of Kai, as the commander, and the heavenly general Hu Yongxiang as the forward, continued to kill the Qing army, and looked for opportunities to break through. In February 1866, Tan Tiyuan decided to break through, but disagreed with Hu Yongxiang on the specific route: Tan Tiyuan advocated going to Guangxi, and Hu Yongxiang wanted to go north to unite with Lai Wenguang, the king of Zun, who was fighting in the Central Plains. As a result, Tan Tiyuan compromised and took the initiative to break off and cover the retreat of the main force. Unfortunately, the traitor Feng Wang Huang XIV had already informed the Qing army of the number, route, time, and other information of the breakthrough, and all the movements of the Taiping army were controlled by Zuo Zongtang. After abandoning Jiaying Prefecture, the large army took Huangsha Ridge, was ambushed by the Qing army, and the king was defeated in battle, and he was hit by 8 bullets, so he jumped off the cliff on horseback. Unfortunately, he did not die, and was later captured by the Qing army's search team and sent to Guangzhou Lingchi for execution.
After the defeat of King Kai, Hu Yongxiang's army was soon besieged by the Qing army, and after a battle, He Mingming, the king of Dongping, and the former "Thunder Army" surrendered to Bao Chao, and were later executed by Ling Chi. The rest of the Taiping army that surrendered, the Qing army searched for 734 high-ranking civilian and military personnel, all of whom were killed, and the rest were repatriated. At this point, the Southern Taiping Army was completely destroyed, and Zuo Zongtang said in the recital: "The Taiping Army rose from Jiaying and destroyed from Jiaying. This means that the heavenly king Hong Xiuquan's ancestral home was Jiaying Prefecture, where the remnants of the Taiping Army were destroyed; Jiaying Prefecture witnessed the rise and fall of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
References: Draft History of the Qing Dynasty, Complete History of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom War