Author: Chen Shengqiao
In the last years of the Qing Dynasty, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom rebelled in Guangxi and went north, and Shaoyang, Hunan, which bordered Guangxi, bore the brunt of it. In order to protect his homeland and the imperial court, a Shaoyang man named Jiang Zhongyuan called out to his hometown of Xinning, and gathered a group of people to form an army called the "Chu Army" (the earliest Xiang Army), pounced on the Taiping Army like a fierce tiger, frustrated its front, defeated its sharpness, and stubbornly supported the Qing Dynasty that was about to collapse, and also won the opportunity for himself and his hometown children to enter.
Jiang Zhongyuan himself was promoted from Qipinzhi County to Erpin Inspector in just three years with military merit, refreshing the record for the fastest promotion of Han Chinese in the Qing Dynasty. After he died in the fourth year of Xianfeng (1854) as the governor of Anhui, he was replaced by Liu Changyou, a fellow villager in Xinning, who carried the banner of the "Chu Army". And this Liu Changyou was even more blue than blue, not only carrying forward the "Chu army" and making it a tiger and wolf division that rivaled Zeng Guofan's Xiang army, but also he himself relied on his outstanding military achievements to become the governor only a year later than Zeng Guofan, and then he came later, once surpassing Zeng Guofan as the directly subordinate governor with the title of "the first governor of the Great Qing Dynasty".
Liu Changyou was also the first person among the Shaoyang people to become governors since the establishment of the Manchu Qing Dynasty.
It is said that Liu Changyou is the person who deserves a big book in Shaoyang's history, but today, don't talk about foreigners, even Shaoyang people, there are very few people who know his life and deeds in detail. Let me share huang's history books and tell you the story of Liu Changyou.
Liu Changyou, Zi Mo, Yin Qu (一作印渠), was born in the twenty-third year of Qing Jiaqing (1818), the same year as Marx. Compared with Zeng Guofan, who was born in an ordinary farming and reading family, Liu Changyou can be called the second generation of the rich. His father made a fortune by managing timber and native products, and on the one hand, he built a compound called "Yuqingtang" in Xinning County, Baoqing Province, with a couplet hanging on the gate: "The house of Jishan will have yuqing, and the blessed people can read", showing the strong family style.
It is said that Liu Changyou grew up black, his face was like black charcoal, he was known as "Xiao Bao Gong", and he did not like to talk much, but he was extremely intelligent and liked to read. In the fourteenth year of Daoguang (1834), the 16-year-old Liu Changyou was admitted to Xiucai (the first cattle man of the late Qing Dynasty, Zeng Guofan, took the exam seven times, and was not admitted until the age of 22), ranking first class. In the seventeenth year of Daoguang (1837), Liu Changyou entered Yuelu Academy to study. He studied at Yuelu Academy for a total of 11 years, entered a state of intoxication, and only went home for two Spring Festivals, during which every time he took the Annual Examination (Qing Dynasty Xiucai had to take the exam every year to supervise his studies), the results were all ranked first. Because of his outstanding grades, Liu Changyou was later elected by Hunan Province as a "tribute" to study in The Guozijian in Beijing.
Additional note: Bagong refers to the selection of the best Xiucai Gong in a province to enter the GuoziJian to study, which is equivalent to the identity of a person and can participate in the entrance examination. Those who pass the examination can be awarded the Seven Pins of Jingguan or Renzhi County. In the early Qing Dynasty, it was selected once every six years, and after seven years in Qianlong, it was selected every twelve years, and the number of places in each province was extremely limited.
Liu Changyou and Jiang Zhongyuan are both Fellow Xinning and are good friends. If Jiang Zhongyuan was born bohemian, heroic and righteous, super strong in combat effectiveness, like a male lion, then Liu Changyou is calm and calm, good at strategy, and as witty as a tiger. Zeng Guofan once said to Himself in response to Liu Changyou: "This person has a soldier in his chest, and I can no longer spy on it."
Liu Changyou and Jiang Zhongyuan have complementary personalities, are a pair of the best partners, and create Qigong as soon as they cooperate.
In the second year of Xianfeng (1852), at the invitation of Jiang Zhongyuan, Liu Changyou joined the Chu army founded by Jiang Zhongyuan and attacked the Taiping Army in Guangxi for the first time. Analyzing the war situation, Liu Changyou keenly realized that after the Taiping Army attacked Quanzhou in Guangxi, it would definitely go straight down to Hengyang from the border of Hunan and Guangxi and prepare to occupy Changsha, so he designed for Jiang Zhongyuan: before bypassing the enemy, set up an ambush at Ziyidu (a ferry port on the Xiang River, northeast of Jeonju City), and launch a fire attack on the Taiping Army that was sailing north to prevent it from going north to capture Hengyang and Changsha. Jiang Zhongyuan adopted all of this suggestion. The final result of this battle was that Jiang Liu and his men commanded baoqing Xinning soldiers to successfully snipe tens of thousands of Taiping troops in the north, not only winning a complete victory, but also killing Feng Yunshan, the southern king of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, forcing the Taiping army to change its route to the south of Hunan and attack Yongzhou; and then attacking Guiyang Prefecture from Daozhou through Ningyuan and Jiahe to the east, until the beginning of July, after a delay of nearly three months, before occupying the important town of Chenzhou in southern Xiangnan and stabilizing its position.
The Battle of Ziyidu was Jiang Zhongyuan's battle of fame and the key battle for the Qing court to defeat the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and survive. Someone has made an incisive analysis of this: "If the Battle of Wuyidu falls, Changsha falls, and Hunan falls into the hands of the Taiping Army, Zeng Guofan of Ding You (who died and returned home to guard filial piety) will not be able to return to his hometown to recruit brave soldiers or even be captured by the Taiping Army, and zeng, Hu, Zuo, and Li Zhongxing's famous ministers will never emerge, and there will no longer be such an armed force as the Xiang Army in history." "But fewer people know that the Battle of Ziyidu was successful, and Liu Changyou made a great contribution to his advice.
After that, Jiang Zhongyuan led the army abroad and fought against the Taiping Army in Hubei, Jiangxi, Anhui and other provinces, and Liu Changyou went to the aid many times. In the fourth year of Xianfeng (1854), after Jiang Zhongyuan, who had been promoted to the governor of Anhui, died in battle in Luzhou (present-day Hefei, Anhui), Liu Changyou succeeded Jiang Zhongyuan in carrying the banner of the Chu army and always maintained the independent structure of the Chu army, participating in the suppression of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom alongside Zeng Guofan and Zuo Zongtang.
In the ninth year of Xianfeng (1859), Liu Changyou ushered in his own battle of fame: defeating Shi Dakai.
Among all the heavenly kings of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the wing king Shi Dakai can be described as the god of war. This 16-year-old military genius who came out of the mountains, commanded the Qianjun at the age of 19, and became king at the age of 20, commanded the Taiping Army against the 44-year-old Zeng Guofan in Jiujiang and Hukou, Jiangxi Province, in the autumn of the fourth year of Xianfeng (1854), that is, when he was 23 years old. At the beginning of the following year, Shi and Zeng formally engaged, and Shi Dakai commanded the Taiping Army to defeat Zeng Guofan's Xiang Army Marine Division, forcing Zeng Guofan to commit suicide by diving. After more than a year, Zeng Guofan was chased and beaten by Shi Dakai, and if it were not for the "Tianjing Incident" in the Taiping Heavenly Strife and Shi Dakai's recall to Nanjing, it is really difficult to say whether Zeng Guofan could have retreated completely.
Liu Changyou and Shi Dakai also fought and lost, but he became more and more courageous. For example, Shi Dakai fled from Tianjing to fight in Hunan, and when he marched into Yongzhou, Liu Changyou fought with him fiercely, and Shi Dakai was unable to break through Yongzhou and was forced to move to attack Baoqing (present-day Shaoyang). Shi Dakai's attempt was to take Guizhou and enter Sichuan to establish a base area after capturing Baoqing.
At the end of May of the ninth year of Xianfeng (1859), Shi Dakai led an army of 300,000 people to besiege Baoqing City from the east, west and south, of which Shi Dakai personally led 100,000 elites to garrison the south of the city, and a major battle that determined the military and political situation in the late Qing Dynasty began.
At that time, the qing army leader in charge of guarding Baoqing was Zuo Zongtang. Before Shi Dakai's troops arrived, Zuo Zongtang and others immediately ordered Jianbi to clear the field and burn all the temples in the minfang street market outside Baoqing City, so that the Taiping Army lost the barrier and cover for the attack.
Because Baoqing City was surrounded by water on three sides of the mountain, it was easy to defend and difficult to attack, Shi Dakai initially adopted a strategy of encircling and not fighting against the Qing army defending the city, planning to launch a fatal blow when they ran out of ammunition.
In June of that year, Shi Dakai personally commanded a large army to attack in ten ways, and seeing that Baoqing City was in danger, the Xiang army guarding the city suddenly came to the rescue of two troops: one was Liu Changyou who led 9,000 Chu Yong to more than 50 miles east of Baoqing City; the other was Li Xuyi (Li Xubin's brother) who led nearly 10,000 Xiang Yong from Hubei to rescue.
"In order to cure the way, when the heart is cured first, Tarzan collapses in front of him and the color remains unchanged, and the elk is happy on the left and does not look at the moment." At the critical moment, Liu Changyou's calm, calm and scheming personality like a tiger played a huge role in the Xiang Army's decisive victory in the entire battle. He and Li Xuyi discussed and decided to take a strategy against Shi Dakai, that is, to attract Shi Dakai's attention with his own troops, while Li Xuyi went around to the north of Baoqing City and launched a fixed-point attack on the Taiping Army.
Liu Li cooperated in implementing the tactic of "attacking the west from the east", and Zuo Zongtang and others led the Qing army to take advantage of the situation, resulting in a major defeat of Shi Dakai and forced to flee back to his hometown in Guangxi via Yongzhou.
In this battle, Liu Changyou won consecutive battles. He began to hunt down and kill Shi Dakai from Shaoyang, chased him to Guilin via Yongzhou, defeated Shi Dakai several times, and drove him into Gui County, Guangxi (present-day Guigang City, Shi Dakai's hometown), with a total journey of more than a thousand miles. After this battle, Shi Dakai's troops were seriously injured, and although they made a comeback later, they were already at the end of the crossbow, and from then on they embarked on the road of death step by step.
Due to successive victories and great achievements, in the eleventh year of Xianfeng (1861), Liu Changyou was promoted to the inspector of Guangxi at the age of 43. In the first year of Tongzhi (1862), he was promoted to the governor of Liangguang. Liu Changyou was the youngest Xiang governor in the history of the Qing Dynasty and the first of the Shaoyang people to become governor.
In the second year of Tongzhi (1863), Liu Changyou once again set a record: he was promoted to the position of "the first governor of the Great Qing Dynasty", becoming the first Han Chinese to sit on this high position in the late Qing Dynasty (Zeng Guofan did not sit in this position until 5 years later). Cixi was promoted to liu Changyou's official position first to balance Zeng Guofan (then the governor of Liangjiang); second, Liu Changyou was indeed a brave and resourceful tiger general and loyal to the Qing Dynasty. It is said that when Cixi was about to appoint Liu Changyou as the governor of Zhili, a group of Manchu nobles jumped up, and Cixi said a word about it: Whoever opposes it will be invited to deal with the Taiping Army, and no one will squeak.
Additional notes: The Qing Dynasty had 8 governors in the local area, including: the viceroy directly under the governor, the governor of Sichuan, the viceroy of Fujian and Zhejiang, the viceroy of Yungui, the viceroy of Shaanxi and Gansu, the viceroy of Huguang, the viceroy of Liangjiang, and the viceroy of Liangguang (at the end of the Qing Dynasty, General Shengjing was changed to the governor of the three eastern provinces, because of its short setup time, it is customary to say that the Qing Dynasty still set up 8 governors). These governors can be described as feudal governors who hold a lot of power on one side. The Qing Dynasty's direct subordination (the jurisdiction is roughly equal to present-day Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei and parts of Henan, Shandong, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, and Liaoning), its territory is arching against the Beijing Division, and the political and geographical factors are very important, so it is particularly valued by the Qing court, and it is also particularly valued in the minds of Xinjiang officials, and it is said that "directly subordinate to the leaders of the provinces".
Liu Changyou not only could fight, but also train troops, and once helped Zeng Guofan train into the Xiang Army.
According to historical records, in the first month of the third year of Xianfeng (1853), Zeng Guofan was ordered to go to Changsha to train as a deputy regiment, and it was very necessary for generals who had gone through the battle front to help him train Xiang Yong. The ideal candidate in his mind was Jiang Zhongyuan, but Jiang Zhongyuan went to Hubei with Zhang Liangji, the new governor of Huguang. Although Jiang Zhongyuan left, he left 1200 well-trained Chu Yong for Zeng Guofan, and recommended Liu Changyou, who was "quite capable of knowing soldiers" to Zeng Guofan. Liu Changyou stayed in Changsha to train Xiang Yong for Zeng Guofan, and he established the Xiang military camp system with reference to the Chu military camp system, so to speak, the Xiang army did its best to obtain the true tradition of the Chu army. Wang Ding'an of the Qing Dynasty said in his "Records of the Xiang Army": "The rise of the Chu army, the meng of the Xiang army", "Jiang Zuo was the first voice, and he once succeeded his martial arts." ”
Liu Changyou also rescued Zeng Guofan.
In the sixth year of Xianfeng (1856), Shi Dakai attacked Jiangxi, Zeng Guofan sat in Nanchang, at this time Luo Zenan died in the military camp, Zeng Guofan camp no one available, seeing that the camp was about to be attacked by Shi Dakai, at the time of great danger, it was Liu Changyou who led Xiao Qijiang and other 5,000 people Chu Yong from Hunan into Jiangxi to help Zeng Guofan resist the Taiping Army.
Liu Changyou not only has outstanding military ability, but also has a strong national heart and a forward strategic vision.
In the seventh year of Guangxu (1881), the French army repeatedly invaded northern Vietnam, coveting Guangxi and Yunnan, and tried to enter southwest China. Previously, Japan had invaded and occupied Ryukyu and constantly harassed Taiwan and Korea. Liu Changyou was the governor of Yungui at the time, and firmly advocated resisting foreign insults. After his recommendation and promotion, the Qing court reused Feng Zicai and Liu Yongfu to resist the French army and curb the French influence in Vietnam to keep the enemy out of the country. He also put forward a royal insult proposition that shocked the government and the opposition: send troops to Japan, kill chickens and scare monkeys, and deter France. It is necessary to nip Japan's expansionist forces in the bud to avoid any trouble!
Liu Changyou not only proposed to send troops to Japan, but also put forward a specific battle plan: "For the crime of Emperor Fuqi's first atrocity against Japan, Minister Jian Su will have the prestige to raise the troops of the three eastern provinces and leave the Songhua River to lin sakhalin island; don't order an army to go out of Korea to strangle its west; and then select the generals who are familiar with The Strategy and the Water Division, and the boat division led by Ningbo and Dinghai will lead the boat division to Nagasaki to attack its south." ”
However, at that time, various factions in the political arena of the late Qing Dynasty were entrenched, and the foreign claims of multiple factions were not to safeguard the interests and security of the country, but to collapse the opponents, so it was impossible to form a foreign policy that was unanimous with the whole country. The most obvious manifestation was Li Hongzhang, who had always advocated compromise with the outside world in exchange for peace, and when he heard Liu Changyou's resolute resistance to the French and destroyed the Wu, he was immediately frightened, and on the premise that Feng Zicai had won the great victory at Zhennanguan, he actually sneaked to Shanghai to negotiate peace with the French; at the same time, prevented the imperial court from adopting Liu Changyou's plan. Zuo Zongtang, a veteran general of the Xiang Army, scolded: "As far as China is concerned, ten French generals are not as bad as one Li Hongzhang"; "Li Hongzhang will be cursed for eternity by mistake."
Liu Changyou was also a clean official and a good husband.
During his tenure as governor of Guangxi and governor directly under his command, in order to set an example for his subordinates, Liu Changyou also set strict requirements for his family, forbidding local officials to enter or leave his family's residence without authorization, and resolutely putting an end to bribery. In the seventh year of Tongzhi (1868), Liu Changyou was impeached and demoted to retention because of his ineffective suppression of the Cangzhou Yanmin Uprising. When he left the imperial capital with 200 accompanying Chu Yong to return to his hometown in Hunan, his colleagues knew that he was a clean and honest official, had no floating wealth, and he was afraid that it would be difficult to feed his entourage along the way, and he donated 30,000 taels of silver to him, but he refused to accept it. Liu Changyou walked to Dezhou, Shandong, and the Dezhou government said that the Zhili lords had sent the thirty thousand taels of silver that they had refused to receive, but Liu Changyou still insisted on not accepting it, and asked him to send someone back to Zhili.
When they arrived in Nanjing, his old friend Zeng Guofan "knew that the public was clean and honest, the followers were hungry, and the second time they had three thousand gold for brave grain", Liu Changyou still refused to accept it, and Zeng Guofan had to secretly send people along the way to prepare accommodation for Liu Changyou and his party. Passing through Changsha, Liu Kun, the governor of Hunan, saw Liu Changyou and his party, and was deeply touched and upset, and reported to the imperial court: "It is rare for ministers to return to their hometowns such as Liu Yinqu (Changyou) who are simple and cold. ”
It is said that heroes are sadder than beauty off. Liu Changyou was also clean and self-righteous throughout his life, marrying only a lady in one room and not taking concubines, which could not but be said to be very rare with his status and the actual social situation at that time.
In the eighth year of Guangxu (1882), Liu Changyou was rejected by the imperial court because he was dissatisfied with his claims, and resigned from the government in anger. In the thirteenth year of Guangxu (1887), Liu Changyou died of depression at the age of 70. The Qing court gave him the nickname "Wu Shen". A few years later, the Sino-Japanese Sino-Japanese War broke out, and after the defeat of the Qing Dynasty, it was forced to sign the Treaty of Maguan, ceding the Liaodong Peninsula (which was later unsuccessful due to the intervention of the three countries to return the Liao), the island of Taiwan and its affiliated islands, and the Penghu Archipelago to Japan, and compensating Japan with 200 million taels of silver.
Regarding Liu Changyou's life's achievements, a generation of Wenzong Wang Minyun gave him a coffin to conclude: "(Liu Changyou) began to lead the township army, and the first group of marshals. Chu, Xiangyi Brigade, Jiang, Zeng Shenglie, Gong Zhiye. (Wang Minyun's "Wushen Liu Cemetery Inscription")
About author:Chen Shengqiao, a native of Shaodong, Hunan. He has worked as a journalist for professional financial magazines and a newspaper editor-in-chief. Amateur focus on local writing, hoping to do a modest job in popularizing the history and culture of Great Shaoyang. If you like it, please pay attention to today's headline "Great Shao Folks" column, read more articles and like, collect and forward. Thank you