At the end of the Qing Dynasty, the country was plagued by internal and external troubles, and externally, the Western powers surrounded China like tigers and wolves; internally, various uprisings broke out frequently, among which the famous Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement was the most vigorous, and at its heyday it occupied half of China.
As far as the Qing government is concerned, I can't beat the foreigners, and I can't beat you? So he sent Li Hongzhang to lead a heavy army to suppress the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and finally broke through Tianjing, the capital of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and the uprising was declared a failure.
Among them, there was a Taiping army general who rebelled, which eventually led to the birth of a child who grew up to bring disaster to the country and the people, what is going on?
Mutiny and repression
When the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom rose to power, it once occupied the entire Jiangnan region, but unfortunately, after Hong Xiuquan was in Tianjing, there was a great internal conflict, which caused Shi Dakai to leave the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, so it fell into decline.
The Qing government seized this opportunity and sent Li Hongzhang to suppress the rebels, and then foreign powers also joined the campaign against the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, but in a short time, the regime was in jeopardy.
Due to the internal contradictions in the Heavenly Kingdom, many generals had the idea of surrendering to the Qing government, and Gao Yongkuan was one of them, he was named the king of Na, and he had considerable weight in the Taiping army.
At that time, the Qing army led by Li Hongzhang and the "Changsheng Army" led by the British Gordon jointly captured Taicang, Kunshan and other places occupied by the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and then pointed directly to Suzhou, which is a heavy place, quite rich, and the Taiping army is also heavily guarded here.
A big battle seemed to be about to break out, Li Hongzhang led the army to attack Suzhou many times, not only did not achieve any effect, but the army suffered heavy casualties, and for a while he was worried.
At this time, Gordon's spies reported to the two of them that Tan Shaoguang, the lord of Suzhou, and Gao Yongkuan, seemed to have a considerable conflict, and this news made Li Hongzhang have a plan.
In Gao Yongkuan's view, Suzhou is just a state, even if it is rich, the materials will run out one day, and the Qing army is constantly replenished, and there are foreigners to help, although the Taiping army has won a few battles, but in the long run, it will still be defeated.
Therefore, his suggestion was to abandon Suzhou and make another discussion, but Tan Shaoguang, the general who defended the city, did not agree with Gao Yongkuan's view, Suzhou is the land of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, how can it be said that it will be released? What is the difference between this and the weak Qing government?
Tan Shaoguang's meaning is also obvious, leading the entire army to fight to the death with the Qing army, and coexist with Suzhou.
Gao Yongkuan saw that Tan Shaoguang was so stubborn, so he quarreled with him, and then he had the heart of surrender, after this information was known by Li Hongzhang, he thought of a way, that is, to recruit Gao Yongkuan's army.
They first sent some of the former Taiping army to appease Gao Yongkuan, touting that the Qing Dynasty was still strong today, and if the Taiping army continued to fight with the Qing army, it would inevitably be annihilated.
Gao Yongkuan, who heard these words, really wavered, made up his mind to take refuge in the Qing government, in order to show his sincerity, he set a trap to kill Tan Shaoguang, and then opened the door to offer the city, just like that, Suzhou fell into the hands of the Qing government effortlessly.
However, Gao Yongkuan's personality remained unchanged after surrendering, he still supported the army and respected himself, and he was unwilling to shave his hair and keep braids, which made Li Hongzhang very wary of him, suspecting that he did not really surrender, and one day, he ordered the execution of Gao Yongkuan and those Taiping soldiers who surrendered.
Bring calamity to the country and the people
However, Gordon, the leader of the "Victorious Army", was very dissatisfied with Li Hongzhang's decision, and he did not consult Gordon at all, so he committed suicide by privately demoting these troops and generals, in other words, Gordon gave Li Hongzhang advice and killed the enemy, and as a result, all the credit for killing the enemy army fell on Li Hongzhang's head.
Who can bear this? In this way, Gordon and Li Hongzhang also had a big quarrel, in fact, Gordon was not only complaining about himself, but also for Margery.
He was a foreigner who had become a Chinese national, and had followed Li Hongzhang to participate in the campaign to conquer the Taiping Army in Suzhou, and afterwards, Li Hongzhang gave him Gao Yongkuan's daughter Xu Marriage, in other words, Li Hongzhang killed his father-in-law without Margery knowing.
At this time, Margery could only mediate so that the relationship between the two did not continue to deteriorate.
In 1867, Margery and his wife gave birth to a baby boy, whom he named Ma Jiye, and his English name was George Makartni.
However, this child has been ridiculed by others since he was a child, as a mixed-race child, he is almost unpleasant, he lived in China until he was ten years old, and in his early years, because of his Western-oriented appearance, he was ridiculed by Chinese children, calling him a "foreign devil".
This brought a painful scar to Ma Jiye's childhood, and after the age of ten, he went to England to receive education, and was called "Chinese pig" by British children.
He blamed his mother for this situation and hated her deeply, and Ma Jiye never mentioned his mother in any of his works.
When he grew up, with his fluent bilingual in Chinese and English, he was favored by the British, hoping that he could establish a permanent diplomatic mission in Xinjiang, so Ma Jiye returned to China.
With his fluency in Chinese, and the fact that he lived almost as a Chinese on weekdays, he soon won the affection of Qing officials, who recognized Ma Jiye's status as a so-called "British traveler" and allowed him to negotiate.
In 1898, Ma Jiye proposed the so-called border plan for the Aksai Chin region of Xinjiang, which led to a large number of China's territories being included in the Indian territory, laying the groundwork for the subsequent Sino-Indian border conflict.
In 1908, the Qing government was completely desperate, and under pressure, they agreed to the British request to set up a consulate general in Kashgar, Xinjiang, and Ma Jiye became the first consul general.
After that, Ma Jiye did almost nothing, first infiltrated Xinjiang, supported puppets to provoke a split between Xinjiang and the central government of China, and then wantonly lured the people of Xinjiang to join British nationality, and even wanted Britain to directly send troops to occupy Kashgar.
Later, he also supported the so-called British "adventurers" to go to China to plunder cultural relics, resulting in the loss of a large number of cultural relics in Dunhuang and Xinjiang, which have never been recovered.
For China, Ma Jiye is a demon.
epilogue
It's a pity that Ma Jiye left China in 1918, and the mainland was unable to blame him for the situation at that time, so he could only suffer this loss.
The most infuriating thing is that he was knighted by the King of England, and when he returned to England, he was able to live out his old age in peace, and until his death in 1945, we were unable to condemn him in any way.
Reference: Qing Dynasty officials laid the foundation for the "British Collection" Solidarity Network