In the middle of the 19th century, with the two Opium Wars, China began to degenerate into a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society. However, at this time, the Qing Dynasty, which ruled the land of China, was already in decay.
In order to continue its own surviving rule, the interest groups represented by Cixi in the Qing Dynasty did not hesitate to betray national sovereignty without shame, colluded with Western powers to continue to brutally squeeze internally, and the people complained bitterly, and the people did not have a good life.
On this occasion, Hong Xiuquan, a Guangdong man, cut down wood in Jintian as a soldier, unveiled the pole, and launched a huge Taiping Rebellion.
After departing from Jintian, the Taiping Army marched north, like a bamboo, successively claiming the title of king in Dongxiang, the establishment of Yong'an, and the capital of Tianjing, all the way like a wild storm that swept away most of the Qing court.
The rapid development of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement caused great panic in the Qing court, and the rulers of the Qing Dynasty did not hesitate to mobilize the provinces to organize regimental training and develop the armed forces of the landlords in order to suppress the Taiping Army.
It should be known that in the middle and early Qing Dynasty, only the Manchus could really control the military power, but in the late Qing Dynasty, all this was soon brought to an end with the rise of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement.
In the late Qing Dynasty, the reason why the rulers let go of the development of the armed forces of the Han landlords at this time was not a whim, but because the Eight Banners of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, which was once strong, had long since degenerated into a clumsy disciple of cockfighting running dogs and caged birds, and the Green Battalion soldiers had also been reduced to "smoke ghost soldiers" carrying smoke guns to the battlefield.
On the other hand, soon after the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom established the capital of Tianjing, it launched the Western Expedition and the Northern Expedition, and the northern expeditionary army once approached the Gyeonggi region, only 120 days away from the Beijing Division, and it took less than three or five days to approach the city.
After the Xianfeng Emperor learned of this, the emperors were all prepared to run back to Shengjing as soon as Zeng Greenqin could not resist the Taiping Army.
Therefore, in view of the depletion of the main forces of the Qing Dynasty and the strength of the Taiping Army, the Xianfeng Emperor had to hope that the landlords' armed forces would rely on their strength to suppress the powerful opponents of the Taiping Army.
With the personal mobilization of the Xianfeng Emperor, the training of the various provinces and regiments sprung up like mushrooms in an instant, and the local armed forces of private landlords with strong combat effectiveness such as the Xiang Army, the Huai Army, and the Chu Army appeared one after another.
In order to gain the approval of the Qing court and maximize their interests, they constantly launched fierce counterattacks against the Taiping Army, and just when the Qing court forces were fiercely pounced, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom broke out in a "Tianjing Incident" of killing each other because of the struggle for power and profit.
The outbreak of the "Tianjing Incident" made the original Taiping Army's militaryly difficult situation even worse, many generals of the Taiping Army were killed, Shi Dakai had to leave the Tianjing Lone Division expedition, and the Taiping was torn apart.
It can be said that since the "Tianjing Incident", the downfall of the Taiping Army has been an inevitable fate.
After the "Tianjing Incident," although Hong Xiuquan, the Heavenly King, boldly used new outstanding military talents to try to save the heavenly kingdom that was about to collapse, he was suspicious and restrained these generals at every turn, and the vigorous Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement collapsed violently under the circumstance that there were strong enemies on the outside and "stabbing knives" by his own people inside.
After the defeat of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the remnants of the Taiping Army continued to fight with the Qing army for 14 years, and the Taiping Army dealt a heavy blow to the decaying Qing Dynasty with its courage to die, accelerating the pace of the Qing Dynasty's demise.
After the failure of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, the princes who had previously held different positions in the Heavenly Kingdom Dynasty fled everywhere, and among the more than a thousand kings appointed by Hong Xiuquan, some were killed, some were captured, some joined the Qing army, some fled overseas, and some changed their names and surnames, and lived in seclusion for life.
Among these princes of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the legend of Lai Hanying, the minister of heaven, is the most peculiar.
Lai Hanying was the younger brother of Lai Lianying, the wife of Hong Xiuquan, who was called "Uncle of the Nation" after the establishment of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
Compared with the image of the "uncle of the state" that we see in film and television dramas who rely on the identity of the emperor's relatives and state relatives to commit crimes and are absurd, Lai Hanying is really amazing and amazing.
Lai Hanying was born a "barefoot doctor" proficient in medical science and medicine, since 1852 by Hong Xiuquan to give real power as military leadership, Lai Hanying led the Taiping Army all the way through the bamboo to attack the city of Nanjing, after the capital of Tianjing, Lai Hanying served as the vanguard of the Western Expedition, the soldiers pointed out that all the devastation was destroyed, under his command the Taiping Army successively won successive victories, captured all of Jiangxi, and captured the strategic jiujiang.
After that, Lai Hanying was recalled by Hong Xiuquan to Tianjing to engage in cultural work in the Kingdom of Heaven, and after the failure of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, as Lai Hanying, who had once been the minister of heaven, the Qing court naturally would not let go of such a number one person, so the Qing court constantly spent a lot of energy to arrest Lai Hanying.
However, Lai Hanying was a low-key and witty person, and after the pseudonym Feng Shuangguan, he wandered around Guangdong for more than 40 years, until 1906, when he saw that the Qing Dynasty was about to run out, and the Taiping Army had long since drifted away with the wind, Lai Hanying returned to his hometown of Huaxian to continue to live a reclusive life.
It is worth mentioning that after the defeat of the Taiping Army, lai Hanying, 94 years old, had a short stay in Sun Yat-sen's hometown of Cuiheng Village. In the days of CuiHeng Village, because of his kindness and good storytelling, there was a little boy in the village nicknamed "Di Xiang" (Sun Yat-sen) who liked to listen to the 94-year-old man tell stories, especially the story of the Taiping Army.
Every time this elderly man talked about the gripping moment, the "Emperor Elephant" would always listen to it with disdain and concentration, and when he heard that the Taiping army had fallen into the water, the "Emperor Elephant" could not help but clap his hands and applaud.
But later, when he heard Feng Shuangguan talk about the outcome of the taiping army's defeat, the "emperor elephant" asked him: "Feng Agong, then why did the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom not overthrow the Manchu Qing?" ”
Every time at this time, Feng Shuangguan said with a bitter smile: "Grandpa I was about to say it, but unfortunately, after the civil unrest in heaven, all the merits were eventually destroyed."
Feng Shuangguan paused and then said, "Little Emperor Elephant, you look very much like Hong Xiuquan, and when you grow up, go and be Hong Xiuquan!" ”
Since then, the "Little Emperor Elephant" has played the game of fighting between the Taiping Army and the Qing Army in the name of Hong Xiuquan, and his friends have also called him "Hong Xiuquan", and Sun Yat-sen has since called himself "Hong Xiuquan Second".
It was only at this time that the young Sun Yat-sen, nicknamed "Emperor Xiang", did not know that the 94-year-old man in front of him had been the prime minister of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
It was not until forty years after the fall of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom that Sun Yat-sen, who lived in Japan, said to Liu Chengyu, the elder of the Xinhai Revolution: "The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom dynasty is the glorious history of the great national revolution in our country, and only the official books of the Qing court are difficult to collect. ”
The implication is to suggest that Liu Chengyu collect historical materials of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and compile them into a book to clarify the false forgery of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in the academic circles.
Later, in editing the "History of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom War" and reading the "Personal Experience of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Revolution" compiled by the British, Sun Yat-sen learned that the person who told him the story of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was actually the minister of the Tianping Heavenly Kingdom.