<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > Anqing fell and the empire was fading</h1>
In 1862, 17 months in history, the Battle of Anqing, which was a matter of life and death for the empire, ended with the total defeat of the Taiping Army.
The most important barrier west of the capital Tianjing was lost, there was no danger to defend along the Yangtze River, and under the afterglow of the empire, the defeat of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was gradually revealed, and mourning was everywhere.
After a brief period of repair and replenishment of the Xiang army, on March 24, 1862, the Ninth Marshal Zeng Guoquan led the newly victorious division from Anqing to attack Tianjing, the capital of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
What was surprising was that the Jizi battalion marched at a rapid pace, and the 20,000 people and horses in the area were able to break through the bamboo all the way, and within ten days, several cities along the Yangtze River were even connected, and at the end of May, they had reached the yuhuatai on the outskirts of the city, and the tunbing army was under the capital city.
When the Xiang army approached the city, Hong Xiuquan, the Heavenly King of Tianjing City, who had long been accustomed to a life of pampering and pampering, was suddenly in chaos, and after temporarily organizing people and horses to go out of the city to break the enemy and failed, despite the fact that Li Xiucheng, the king of Zhong, was defeating the British and French troops in Songjiang, he ordered him to return to The King of Jingqin three times a day.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > has been fighting for a long time, and it is difficult to solve the siege under the city</h1>
The final decisive battle of the old enemy finally slowly opened under the Tianjing City, but before that, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom had actually had serious internal problems.
In the later period of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the princes divided their territory and the kings supported themselves, and Hong Xiuquan, as the nominal supreme leader of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, actually only controlled the capital and a few surrounding areas, and the Taiping Army that could be directly mobilized was only the 100,000 people in the Tianjing City.
As the largest "warlord" in the Taiping Army at that time, Li Xiucheng, the King of Zhong, not only established the "Sufu Province" in the rich lands of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, but also had millions of troops.
On the eve of the imminent disintegration of the empire, Li Xiucheng, who had far exceeded the number of land and troops in charge of the central government, maintained vested interests in the territory of Jiangsu and Zhejiang as his only idea and fundamental purpose.
His core interests and Hong Xiuquan, who vowed to defend Tianjing City to the death, were definitely in conflict.
This conflict evolved to the strategic level, that is, on the one hand, Hong Xiuquan was mad and ordered Li Xiucheng to return aid at any cost, and on the other hand, it was indeed the king of Zhongwang's various prevarications and delays.
As a result, under Hong Xiuquan's coercion and inducement, Enwei and Shi, Li Xiucheng, who was helpless, had to lead the thirteen kings of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and lead an army of 300,000 to the north to serve the king.
The 300,000 Taiping Army fought against the 20,000 horses of the Xiang Army's Jizi Battalion, and there seemed to be no suspense in victory or defeat, but the result of the war and the comparison of troop strength often had no inevitable causal relationship.
On the 46th of the battle, Li Xiucheng, who did not intend to attack Tianjing and lacked the determination to attack the stronghold, although his troops were ten times greater than that of the enemy and his weapons and equipment were excellent, but the successive days of engagement could not shake the Xiang army in the slightest, and the loss of troops was helpless, and once he learned that the war in Jiangsu and Zhejiang was tight, King Zhong did not hesitate to give up his plan to continue the attack, turned around, and went straight to his own territory.
The Battle of Yuhuatai was lost again, and the crisis of the Siege of Tianjing was not only not alleviated, but Li Xiucheng's Sufu Province faced a new threat.
Originally, Li Hongzhang noticed the important strategic significance of Su Fu very early on, and held that "Suzhou, Chang, Hangzhou, and Jia were the most wealthy areas in the southeast, occupied for four years against the masses, collected grain taxes, took advantage of the macro, and at times used the wealth and millet to help Jinling and transferred them to various roads." Jinling is its old nest, and Su, Chang, Hang, and Jia are the roots of Jinling.
In order to cooperate with the frontal battlefield battle in Tianjing, Li Hongzhang's Huai army has been sparing no effort to create trouble in Sufu, at this time, taking advantage of Li Xiucheng's northward journey to Tianjing, the Taiping Army lacked the opportunity to unify command and began to step up sweeping of the outer cities of Suzhou.
With the return of King Zhong, the situation in the rear was temporarily stabilized, but Hong Xiuquan's edict came again.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > "into the north to save the south", but was drawn from the bottom of the pot</h1>
Faced with the dilemma of Tianjing, the Heavenly King, who did not have much experience in commanding wars, whimsically formulated a battle plan of "entering the north and saving the south". That is, to attack the Lianghuai region to contain and mobilize the strength of the Xiang army, in order to achieve the purpose of relieving the siege of Tianjing, and the executor of the plan was still Li Xiucheng, the king of Zhong.
After years of wars in the north and south of the Huai River, the Miao training and twisting armies are everywhere in the polder, the population is sparse, the land is thousands of miles, and Hong Xiuquan, who has been living in the palace for many years, has not considered bringing hundreds of thousands of soldiers with him, how to survive and develop?
Li Xiucheng was familiar with Lianghuai and understood that this was a grain-deficient area in a no-man's land. However, the king's order was difficult to violate, and he could only helplessly raise his spirit and send troops again.
You officials and masters may have to ask, Li Xiucheng wants money and money, people, and rich base areas as a guarantee and support, why should he repeatedly obey Hong Xiuquan's orders?
First of all, in terms of personal feelings, Li Xiucheng was still loyal to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and Hong Xiuquan, which was also the most critical reason, in addition, at that time, Li Xiucheng's old mother and family members were hostage in Tianjing, and the behavior of the king of Zhongwang would be somewhat taboo.
Moreover, although the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was weakening day by day, it was still the biggest banner among the anti-Qing forces after all, and if it did not listen to the dispatches, it would be tantamount to openly breaking with Hong Xiuquan, and Li Xiucheng's situation and status would be quite embarrassing.
Therefore, Yu Gong and Private, and Yu Li Zhongwang had to draw elites from his base camp again and again to fill the holes in tianjing city.
The old trick of "entering the north to save the south" to encircle Wei and save Zhao was actually used during the Battle of Anqing, when in order to relieve the siege of Anqing, the Taiping Army advanced in four directions, and the Xiang Army's base camp, Hubei, was in danger, but Zeng Guofan remained indifferent.
And now that the Xiang army has surrounded the capital of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the unworldly achievements are at hand, even if Li Xiucheng hits the Forbidden City now, I am afraid that the Xiang army will not have the idea of withdrawing.
The course of the war did not have any accidents at all, no matter how Li Xiucheng made a fuss in the boundary between the two Huai, Zeng Guofan was calm, and the Qing army also adopted the tactic of fortifying the wall and clearing the wilderness, resulting in the Taiping Army's endless road, no grain to be requisitioned, and the spread of the plague in the army, and countless hungry and sick people.
Forced by helplessness, Li Xiucheng could only give up his plan to continue to the north, but on the way back to the south, the Yangtze River Tianyuan Jiuhuanzhou fell into the hands of the Xiang Army.
Li Xiucheng's return route was blocked, that is, there was no response and lack of boats to cross the river, and finally 100,000 elite northbound troops were trapped in Jiangbei, looking at Guo in Tianjing City, but they could not fly across the graben, and almost the entire army was destroyed, and finally only Li Xiucheng led the remaining 15,000 people to flee back to Tianjing.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > the bird in the hall, not knowing that the building will fall</h1>
"Entering the north to save the south" failed, the Xiang army would not relax the rhythm of the attack, the war outside tianjing city was hot, but the house leaked in the overnight rain, and the urgent documents in Suzhou were also sent to the Tianjing Zhongwang Mansion like snowflakes.
Li Xiucheng pleaded with the Heavenly King to go out of Beijing to fight in Suzhou, but Hong Xiuquan refused to allow it.
Lee So-sung
Hong Xiuquan's mood toward Li Xiucheng was very contradictory, on the one hand, Tianjing now needed Li Xiucheng to stabilize the situation and calm people's minds, while on the other hand, the king of Rilongzhong, who had a heavy army and a prestige, was always something he did not want to see, and in the end Hong Xiuquan did not trust the generals with foreign surnames.
If Li Xiucheng is allowed to return to his territory, and Tianjing has no one to preside over the overall situation, who can guarantee that Li Xiucheng can continue to fight for him and his empire?
As far as The King of Zhongwang is concerned, Suzhou cannot be lost under any circumstances.
Li Xiucheng has been running Suzhou and Zhejiang for many years, and the rich Sufu Province is not only a strategic rear area and a source of supplies for Tianjing, but more importantly, it has become a private kingdom of the Li family, and wealth and army are attached to it.
Suzhou is the core of the entire Sufu Province, and for Li Xiucheng, it is his "Tianjing City".
After Li Xiucheng argued on the basis of reason at least five or six times, and painfully chen the pros and cons, Hong Xiuquan thought about it again and again, and finally reluctantly agreed, but what is extremely ridiculous is that there needs to be conditional in exchange.
Hong Xiuquan asked Li Xiucheng to provide 100,000 taels of silver.
In the face of principles, one hundred thousand taels of silver have become the conditions for solving the problem, tianjing city is in danger, and Hong Xiuquan, as the king of a country, is thinking about things outside the body such as money.
Birds and birds are in the hall, I don't know if the building will fall! When the survival of the country becomes a monetary transaction between monarchs and subjects, such a regime does not die, then it is really unreasonable.
As long as the problems that can be solved with money are not a problem, not to mention that after operating in Suzhou and Zhejiang for many years, Li Xiucheng, the king of Zhong, is not short of money at all, and he converts the silver two and family jewelry hidden in the Zhongwang Mansion of the Ming Dynasty of Tianjing ming, and a total of about 70,000 silver taels are presented to the Heavenly King.
In the end, Hong Xiuquan had to make a covenant with Li Xiucheng for three chapters: within forty days, he must return to Beijing, and pay back the missing silver twice; otherwise, he will be severely punished according to the law of the land and will never be forgiven.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > left and right, and the important town fell one after another</h1>
When Li Xiucheng, the King of Zhong, finally returned to Suzhou as he wished, a rebellion had just occurred in the northern town of Changshu, and the defender Luo Guozhong threatened 20,000 soldiers to surrender to the enemy.
The center of Sufu Province is Suzhou, located in the southwest of the Sufu base area, the eastern line is guarded by taicang, Xinyang, Kunshan and other important towns, and Fushan, Changshu and Zhaowen guard the northern line.
The change of hands in Changshu caused a gap in the impeccable Suzhou outer defense line, so the first thing that King Zhong had to solve was to retake Changshu.
In January 1863, Tan Shaoguang, the Governor of Zhongwang, and Huang Zilong, the King of Chao, attacked Changshu and sent Cai Yuanlong, the king, to taicang Prefecture.
The military operation to attack Changshu was quite smooth, Tan Shaoguang won three battles and three victories, and soon led his army to the city, and King Zhong immediately went to the front line to supervise the division and led the Taiping army to attack day and night.
The rebels in the city suddenly felt that "the situation was particularly critical" and "I am afraid that it would be difficult to last", but when Changshu was about to change hands, it ushered in the mercenaries of the Huai Army, the main force of the Changsheng Army led by the British Gordon.
Taking advantage of the taiping army's main force to surround Changshu, Gordon secretly attacked the northern fortress of Fushan, and then the whole army went south to aid Changshu.
Under the city of Changshu, Gordon attacked Tan Shaoguang and other barracks with several huge cannons for three hours, and then the infantry launched an attack, the Huai army and the Luo Guozhong rebels took the opportunity to counterattack, Tan Shaoguang fought for two days, and finally retreated to Suzhou because of the defeat of the giant cannons, and after more than 70 days of bitter fighting, the Taiping army regained Changshu and lost.
After Changshu, Li Hongzhang ordered his brother Li Hezhang to join forces with Cheng Xueqi and lead his troops to attack Taicang. Unexpectedly, he was also caught in the Taicang Taiping Army's deception plan of Wang Cai Yuanlong, and the loss of soldiers would not be said, Li Hezhang also injured his thigh, and escaped from Taicang alone.
Li Hongzhang then dispatched the Changsheng army to attack Taicang, Gordon still opened the road with long-range cannons, the two wings were equipped with riflemen, and they bombarded the pheasant on the city wall, and then used gunboats to fire cannons in the heart of the river outside the city to assist in the battle, the Taicang city wall was blasted out of the gap by artillery fire, and then several hand-to-hand combat between the two sides in the city, the Taiping army gradually became weak, Cai Yuanlong was injured, helpless to abandon Taicang, and retreated to Haining with the remnants of the army.
The biggest weakness of the Taiping Army was the one-sided combat, the lack of water divisions, and the lack of warships equipped with huge cannons running across the water. And in the Sujia area of the Taihu Lake Basin, the rivers run amok and there is no water division, so it can really be said that it is difficult to move at every step, let alone marching and pursuing and killing the enemy?
With the entry of the Changsheng Army, equipped with the most advanced weapons of the time, the Taiping Army became more passive on the outskirts of Suzhou. At this time, the building will fall, and although the number of soldiers of the Taiping Army is large, the soldiers are detached from morality and lack fighting spirit.
After Taicang, Kunshan was also lost, and the threat of war was gradually approaching the core city of Suzhou.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > the mountain rain is coming, and the loyal king is difficult to support</h1>
After Changshu, Taicang, and Kunshan, Jiangyin on the Yangtze River outside Suzhou, Wujiang in the east of Taihu Lake, and Dongting Dongshan were also lost one after another, and Li Hongzhang, who had been compressed by Li Xiucheng in a corner of Shanghai and could not move, finally had time to breathe, and the team grew rapidly, and more than 60,000 People of the Huai Army, together with Gordon's 6,000 Changsheng Army, directly attacked Suzhou with a thunderous momentum.
At this time, the enemy's current Suzhou city was already surging undercurrents, and Li Xiucheng advocated letting the city go away and abandoning Suzhou to find another way out.
Among the high-ranking generals, Tan Shaoguang, the King of Mu, was determined and advocated that people be in the city and stick to Suzhou. However, due to the losses of the previous battle on the outskirts of Suzhou, its direct subordinate troops only had more than 10,000 people.
And the Nawang Gao Yongkuan and the Kang Wang Wang Anjun, who had heavy troops, had long been worn down by the paper drunken gold fans in Suzhou City, and gradually developed the heart of rebellion.
Before the defense of Suzhou began, these people began to secretly communicate with Cheng Xueqi, a rebel general of the Taiping Army in the Huai Army, hoping to use the city as a weight in the surrender negotiations, and of course did not agree to the idea of the King of Zhong abandoning the city.
Because of his two hearts, in the subsequent defensive battle of Suzhou City, Gao Yongkuan and others began to work out of strength, and even openly disobeyed.
Li Xiucheng found that the signs were not right, and did not immediately use the toughest measures to prevent the troops from mutinying, because three-quarters of the existing garrison troops in Suzhou were direct subordinates of Gao Yongkuan and Wang Anjun, and these people were complicit, and King Zhongwang was also powerless, and could only find Gao Yongkuan and eight other generals for a direct showdown:
The Lord was covered in dust, and his power was not long. Er is a man of two lakes, and this matter is up to Er, and I don't have to harm each other, and I can't stay in Er now. If I have his heart, I am a famous general in the country, and who dares to take me to it?
King Zhongwang's statement was a laissez-faire and acquiescence to the betrayal of his subordinates, but these ghostly little people wept bitterly in front of Li Xiucheng and swore that they would never have two hearts.
The war outside suzhou was scorching, and the forty-day period agreed between Li Xiucheng and the King of Heaven was approaching, and in desperation, King Zhong handed over the command of Suzhou City to the loyal King of Mu, Tan Shaoguang, and returned to Tianjing alone.
Knowing that at this time Suzhou was already raining, Li Xiucheng's departure at this time undoubtedly gave Gao Yongkuan and others a chance, and more importantly, before leaving, Li Xiucheng did not explain to Tan Shaoguang that Gao Yongkuan and others seemed to have a negative heart, resulting in King Mu not being wary of the traitors.
Li Xiucheng's inaction laid hidden dangers for the suzhou tragedy soon after.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > under the nest, Suzhou Can Survive Alone</h1>
On December 1, the mountain moon has been tilted, and the night will be dawned. Li Xiucheng and Tan Shaoguang cried bitterly goodbye.
After Li Xiucheng left, the control of Suzhou had actually fallen into the hands of Gao Yongkuan and others, and an agreement was reached with the Huai army outside the city to cede Suzhou, and was guaranteed by Gordon, saving lives and property after the city was destroyed.
On December 3, Gao Yongkuan and others planned to trick Tan Shaoguang into going up the city wall to see the battle situation, and took the opportunity to push him down and arrest the Huai army under the city, but they failed.
Tan Shaoguang finally sensed Gao Yongkuan's intention to treason and surrender to the enemy.
On December 4, amid the rumbling of enemy artillery fire, Tan Shaoguang hosted a banquet at the Palace of Xuanmiao Guanmu to entertain eight people, including King Gao Yongkuan, King Kang Wang Anjun, Biwang Wu Guiwen, Ning Wang Zhou Wenjia, and the Heavenly Generals Wang Youwei, Fan Qifa, Zhang Dazhou, and Wang Huaban.
During the banquet, King Mu sternly accused the other generals sitting in the meeting of betraying the country and seeking glory, and when the crowd saw that the matter was exposed, Wang Anjun immediately drew his sabre and stabbed Tan's head and neck, and King Mu was injured and fell to the ground, and the crowd rushed up and cut off his head.
The next day, the traitors sent Tan Shaoguang's head to Cheng Xueqi and opened the door to surrender.
Although Suzhou changed hands, the kings of Na, Bi, Kang, and Ning still had heavy troops in their hands, and the bloody lessons of Taicang's fraudulent surrender not long ago are still vividly remembered.
On the side of the bed, Li Hongzhang, who is scheming and calculating, will not allow others to snore?
Just when these traitors were dreaming of adding officials and promoting them to the throne, what they did not expect was that Li Hongzhang had no intention of abiding by the agreement, and what greeted them was not gold and silver treasures, but the butcher knives of the Huai Army.
On December 6, on the third day of gao Yongkuan's surrender, Li Hongzhang set up a banquet and Cheng Xueqi as an escort to entertain the surrendered.
When the wine was hot, Li Hongzhang took the opportunity to get up and leave, Cheng Xueqi threw the cup as a trumpet, and the knife and axe hands who had already been ambushed outside rushed in, instantly cutting down the overwhelmed people.
In the end, like Tan Shaoguang, the Mu king whom they personally murdered, all these shameful traitors were beheaded and shown to the public.
After dealing with the surrendered generals, the atrocities of the Huai army had just begun, and within a few days, the large and small palaces in Suzhou were looted, and tens of thousands of unarmed Taiping troops after surrendering were locked up in the backyard of the Twin Pagoda Temple and massacred en masse.
In the afterglow of the empire, the city of Suzhou under the nest has thus become a purgatory on earth.