In 1863, in the second year of Tongzhi, The Wing King Shi Da kai was defeated at the Dadu River and was righteous in Chengdu. Many documents have recorded the last moment before Shi Dakai was delayed. Recently, the scholar Wang Yaoli discovered the handwriting of Huang Pengnian, a famous scholar of the Qing Dynasty. Huang Pengnian, on the other hand, was one of Shi Dakai's witnesses to yiyi, and his letters with his friend Tang Jiong revealed the last moments of Shi Dakai's life.
First of all, Huang Pengnian wrote in his letter about Shi Dakai's surrender. The letter reads:
"When the stone comes against the earth, it can be said that the heavens have seized its courage, and the river is present, the mountains and rivers are steep and long, but the Dadu River is not easy to cross, and the small water to which Wang Qianhu Yingyuan belongs, and the Liangqiao River to which Ling Qianhu Cheng'en belongs, are also two or three meters long. Tusi also made a great contribution, Shi Reversed qianjin, Erjun to Wang Yingyuan false road, should not, and also to Lingyi begging road, Heiyi begging road, should not be; Fighting to the death, the Yi people throw stones from the top of the mountain to strike at them, the dead are more than ten thousand, the pawns cannot be left, and the grain is exhausted. ”
It can be seen that the defeat and death of Shi Dakai is related to the siege of King Yingyuan of the Yi tribe and his subordinate Yi soldiers. In the process of Shi Dakai's retreat, the Yi people occupied a favorable position and killed a large number of Taiping troops with rolling wood stones.
With all the grain exhausted, Shi Dakai's Taiping Army was completely in a desperate situation. Therefore, the Qing general Tang Yougeng ordered the erection of the banner of "surrendering sincerity and avoiding death" to lure him. In order to save the lives of all the people, Shi Dakai took his son Shi Dingzhong and the second and third generals to be captured, and the people were dismissed on the spot.
Later, Huang Pengnian described in his letter the interrogation of Shi Dakai by Luo Bingzhang, the governor of Sichuan. On the day of Shi Dakai's death, the Chengdu general Chongshi and the governor of Sichuan, Luo Bingzhang, sat in the lobby of the governor's office, and the civil and military officials below the envoys were present, and Shi Dakai and his two departments would sit on the prayer mat under the hall. The Qing general was above the governor, so Luo asked Chongxian.
However, Chongshi's voice was dull and manly, and although Shi Dakai was deeply imprisoned, he looked up at him angrily and talked about it, blocking Chongshi's discouragement. After that, Luo Bingzhang had the courage to say to Shi Dakai:
"Shi Dakai, killing today, is also worth it for you." You have counted that since the beginning of the incident, you have ravaged several provinces, and the three people who have died at your hands of our feudal officials have now died in one death, and there is no resentment, right?"
Who knew that Shi Da smiled and replied, "As the saying goes, if you become a king and defeat Kou, you will kill me in this life, and I will not kill you in the next life?" After that, Shi Dakai walked out of the hall with his head held high. The two generals were still standing on either side and said, "The Wing King is still in front!" When Shi Dakai was killed by Ling Chi, all three of them did not say a word, and the viewers were all horrified.
In this regard, Huang Pengnian sighed:
"This thief is very stable in demeanor, dignified in language, not profane or humble, and strong in harmony. Fang Qi died, Na Lu calmly, if my Great Qing LoyalIsts died in such a way, recounted in the annals of history, wouldn't it be BingYao for a thousand years? Who is it that such a man is not used by his courtiers, but is made a thief?"
For Shi Dakai, a strong enemy, Huang Pengnian both hated him and regretted it. In his opinion, such a strange man was not used by the Qing Dynasty, whose fault was it?
Huang Pengnian's evaluation of Shi Dakai is too "politically correct" to appear only in such private writings. In addition to Huang Pengnian, other witnesses to Shi Dakai's righteousness also depicted Shi Dakai's last heroic appearance in his notes. As recorded in the Chronicle of Li Ya:
Tang Yougeng, the commander-in-chief of Yuchuandong Town, sent Shi Dakaizhi, Liu Rong sent a message, and Shi Dakai "The qi of the ominous jie is seen in the color of words... On behalf of Liu Rong, he also wrote to Luo Bingzhang: "Because Yu Rong encountered Tang Zhen's pro-interpretation of Shi's rebellion in the province on his way, he was about to interrogate him against the rebellion, and it is reported that after the Jintian uprising, he and Hong reversed the division and cooperated with the pseudo-party and disturbed the situation in the provinces.
In addition, Zhou Qing, who also witnessed Shi Dakai being lingchi, couldn't help but exclaim, "True strange man too!"
In the author's opinion, in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Revolution, Shi Dakai may be the only perfect person. He was "visited out of the mountains" at the age of sixteen, commanded a thousand armies at the age of nineteen, was crowned king at the age of twenty, and was only thirty-two years old when he calmly died. He was a courtesy corporal and cared for the people, and although he was the wing king of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, he never showed superstition about the worship of God. In addition, Shi Dakai used his soldiers to haunt him before he died, and after his death, he still made his opponents feel uneasy, although he surrendered to save all his lives, but until the last moment of his life, he did not shake his tail to the enemy and beg for mercy, but he was a true man who had never been seen in eternity.
Shi Dakai was born gloriously and died greatly, and the heroic image of the wing king of five thousand years will forever be immortalized.