Author: Ancient Pretty Lady (Without permission, it is forbidden to copy the full text and carry it privately!) ）
During the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom War, many famous generals with "rich personalities and able to fight good wars" emerged in the Taiping Army! However, when the Taiping Army was unfavorable in the later period, many of these outstanding generals chose to surrender to the Qing court. At the moment of crisis, they all failed to fulfill their battle oaths and "live and die together and suffer together" with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
However, there were also some Taiping Army generals who were "loyal to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and swore not to surrender", and they still fought with the Qing army "to the end" when the general trend had gone! One of them is an outstanding representative of these "loyal and fierce generals": this person is wang haiyang, a general of the Taiping Army from Anhui.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="57" > was wanted by the government in his early years and followed Shi Dakai's southern expedition to the northern war! After the Tianjing Incident, he led his troops to break away from Shi Dakai's camp. </h1>
In his early years, Wang Haiyang was actually a "good man in the green forest", he made a living as a helper with his brothers when he was a teenager, and since he was a child, he developed a tough personality of "strong and aggressive, dare to do". The reason why Wang Haiyang later defected to the Taiping Army was because he had pulled up a group of people to kill several local bullies, and as a result, he was wanted by the Qing government.
Therefore, in the case of desperation, Wang Haiyang resolutely chose to join the Taiping Army. After arriving at the Taiping Army units, this unruly young man was even more "like a fish in the water", and every time he charged on the battlefield, he was a "pioneer soldier", and a large knife in his hand killed the Qing army "smelled the wind and feared".
And such a heroic and incomparable soldier naturally received the attention and weight of his "superior" Shi Dakai. As a result, under the vigorous promotion of Shi Dakai, Wang Haiyang's status in the Taiping Army was continuously promoted. Shi Dakai has always regarded him as his confidant, and Wang also greatly admired his "Bole" Shi Dakai, and has always faithfully followed the Wing King in his southern conquest of the northern war.
However, all this changed after the Tianjing Incident in 1856:
After that tragic internal incident, Shi Dakai, fearing that he was also implicated, led his army to "run away in a negative mood"! At that time, Wang Haiyang naturally followed Wang Shida "without abandoning". However, as Shi Dakai "wandered around" for longer and longer, the troops began to run into walls everywhere, and at this time, Wang Haiyang's heart also began to waver!
Although Shi Dakai had the "grace of knowing him", Wang Haiyang had soberly seen that it was absolutely "hopeless" to go on like this. Therefore, at this critical moment of "life and death", Wang Haiyang finally decided to abandon the "mentor" Shi Dakai and lead his troops back to Tianjing to "plead guilt" with Hong Xiuquan.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="84" > was not soft on traitors, and "vicious as a vendetta" against the Qing army! The Xiang army was severely "punched in the face" several times</h1>
After Wang Haiyang led his troops back to Tianjing, he quickly got Hong Xiuquan's reuse, and also avoided the fate of "total annihilation of the army" like Shi Dakai! In 1860, Zhang Zhigong, Lu Zihong and others surrendered to the Xiang army in Lingchuan, Guangxi, and Wang Haiyang, who was fighting with them at the time, "refused to surrender"! And resolutely "parted ways" with the traitors.
At that time, in order to avoid being encircled and suppressed by traitors and Qing forces, Wang Haiyang fought while leading his army to break through to Jiangxi to meet Li Xiucheng's Taiping Army. This time, Wang Haiyang's "loyalty" was also recognized by Hong Xiuquan, and in 1862 he was named "Kang Tianyi" by the Heavenly King.
On the other hand, the Qing army camp also loves and hates this "hard bone" of the Taiping Army! In fact, at that time, the Taiping Army had been defeated and retreated on the battlefields of southern Jiangsu and Zhejiang. However, Wang Haiyang has been "struggling to support" and defeated the strong Qing army many times in subsequent battles, once reversing the passive war situation.
On the battlefield of Tingzhou in Fujian Province, Wang Haiyang also killed a famous general of the Xiang Army: Zhang Yunlan. Such a strong Taiping Army general, even Zuo Zongtang had to admit: "Deng Rebellion and Wang Rebellion are the most fierce, and listening to rebellion is secondary." Therefore, the Qing general Bao Chao once specially sent emissaries to Wang Haiyang to lure him down and promised the high-ranking official Houlu.
But Wang Haiyang is really a "hard bone", and he thinks that the Qing army has come to surrender, which is simply a great shame to himself! So he immediately angrily beheaded those Qing troops. "The two armies fight and do not kill each other", Bao Chao was of course ashamed and angry after hearing the news, and it is said that he almost howled like a madman at that time: he "If he captures Wang Rebellion, he will die late, and Fang will vent his hatred!"
Wang Haiyang is such a person, although this person has always been "mixed in praise" in history, there are some controversies! But one thing everyone has to admit is that Wang Haiyang is a very rare "loyal to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom" among the people of Anhui.
In 1863, Wang Haiyang was ordered to assist Chen Bingwen in guarding Hangzhou, but Chen Bingwen and Qian Rengui and others secretly colluded with jiang Yilan of the Xiang army in an attempt to surrender the city to the Qing army. However, they were very unlucky, and this surrender attempt was finally learned by Wang Haiyang, who was also not soft-hearted, and he decisively executed Chen Bingwen's brother who was responsible for contacting the surrender: Chen Bingxiao.
Wang Haiyang never showed mercy to traitors: he once ordered his men to soak white cloth in oil, wrap the traitor Qian Guiren layer by layer, and then hang him upside down under a high pole and burn the traitor to ashes by "lighting the sky lamp". This move of his undoubtedly greatly shocked the capitulators in the Taiping Army at that time.
And when Wang Haiyang led his troops to garrison Yuhang, the Xiang army also planned to recruit him again! At that time, Cheng Xueqi, a rebel general of the British King Chen Yucheng's department, wrote a secret letter to persuade him to surrender. At that time, the Xiang Army believed that Cheng Xueqi and Wang Haiyang were fellow villagers in Anhui, and Wang Nian and his hometown feelings were likely to surrender this time.
However, the result once again made Xiang Jun and Cheng Xueqi "stunned", Wang Haiyang not only did not surrender, but wrote back angrily rebuking Cheng Xueqi: "I am really a scorpion thief, a capricious scum, and the bad deeds are even worse than those of the three surnames of Nu Lübu." Gan played a trick for the Qing demon, brutally killed the soldiers and civilians of the Heavenly Dynasty, and really did not have a half-hearted liver. ”
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="86" > he never meant to surrender to the Qing army, but killing Li Shixian was a "big stain on his life". </h1>
In February 1864, Wang Haiyang was crowned king of Kang, but this year, in fact, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom had already "exhausted its qi"! In July of the same year, Tianjing fell, the Taiping Army had lost its political appeal, and the central command system was completely destroyed, but Jiang Haiyang still had no intention of surrendering to the Qing army.
In August of the same year, Wang Haiyang led his army to resist Bao Chao's attack desperately, and did not retreat half a step until the reserves were exhausted. In the end, Wang Haibu's Taiping Army was defeated by the superior strength of the Xiang Army, and he lost nearly half of his troops in this battle. After the fall of Jiaxing and the cut off of Hangzhou's supply line, Wang Haiyang had to lead his troops to retreat with the army.
Subsequently, Wang Haiyang went to Fujian and Li Shixian, Lu Shunde and others leaned on each other as horns to block further attacks by the Xiang army! However, it is a pity that Wang Haiyang killed Li Shixian "out of selfishness"! It was in August 1865, when Li Shixian was defeated and fled to Zhenping to attach himself to Wang Haiyang.
Because when Li Shixian was besieged in Zhangzhou, he once urgently ordered Wang shixian to come to the rescue, but Wang Haiyang "borrowed the reason to not come out" in order to preserve his strength, which eventually led to the defeat of Li Shixian's army! Therefore, at that time, Wang Haiyang himself was also "afraid of crime" afraid that Li Shixian would retaliate, and at the same time, he was also worried that his military power would be taken away by Li Shixian, so he led people to kill Li Shixian for some reason.
At the most critical moment of the Taiping Army, Wang Haiyang was actually confused for a while and provoked infighting! He really shouldn't have done such a thing, which is one of the reasons why many people commented that Wang Haiyang was "sinister".
However, although Wang Haiyang killed Li Shixian, he did not surrender to the Qing army, but chose to continue fighting alone. In this regard, Wang Haiyang is still a man! However, the Taiping Army was already "scattered and had no fighting spirit" at that time, and finally Wang Haiyang became a lone army and turned to fight on the border between Guangdong and Gansu.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="88" > escaped the Qing army's pursuit, but could not escape the traitor's "black gun"! He was "killed by a headshot" during the charge</h1>
In December 1865, Wang Haiyang's army was repeatedly blocked by the northward movement, so he led his troops to capture the city of Jiayingzhou for recuperation. However, the Qing army arrived from all directions after hearing the news, and quickly surrounded Jiaying Prefecture. In fact, at that time, the internal affairs of Wang Haiyang's Taiping Army had already been mixed with many internal traitors, and the composition of the soldiers could be described as a "mixture of fish and dragons."
Therefore, liu dian, the general of the Qing siege city, began to bribe Ding Sun, a traitor to Wang Haiyang's department. From the mouth of the traitor, I learned that Wang Haiyang would always "lead the way" and rush to the front when fighting. Therefore, Liu Dian prepared dozens of musketeers in advance and ambushed them all in the positions that Wang Haiyang must pass when charging.
After the battle began on December 16, Wang Haiyang still "charged ahead" according to the custom! As a result, dozens of Qing musketeers suddenly appeared on his side, and the first salvo was "headshot" on the spot. The Taiping Army's generation of fierce generals escaped the Pursuit and Killing of the Qing Army, but they could not escape the traitor's "black gun".
After Wang Haiyang's death, more than 100,000 of his Taiping Army troops lacked such a "backbone" and soon "disappeared".
As a "top pillar" leader in the late Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, although some people commented that Wang Haiyang was "sinister"! However, he has always been at the forefront of the battle and interpreted his "loyalty" with his life! With this alone, he was much stronger than the Taiping Generals who surrendered to the Qing Army.
Image source network, invasion and deletion!