Li Bingheng, a patriotic general defending Tongzhou

Li Bingheng is a very unfamiliar person to most people, even those who have a certain understanding of Qing history may not know. However, in historical records, Weng Tonggong called him a "general of literature and martial arts", Zhang Zhidong tried his best to sponsor him, the Guangxu Emperor promoted him to the position of feudal official, and Empress Dowager Cixi entrusted him with the heavy task of defending Beijing... In the defense of Tongzhou against the Eight-Power Alliance, Li Bingheng practiced the oath of "rather sacrificing his life for the country than shrinking his hands before dying", committed suicide and martyrdom, and called him a patriotic general, which seems to be not excessive.

Li Bingheng, a native of Fengtian Haicheng, he did not win the imperial examination, "entered the county as a county", later "moved to Zhi County", and soon promoted from Zaoqiangzhi County to Weizhou Zhizhou, Guangxu five years (1879) as Jizhou Zhizhou. According to the "Draft History of the Qing Dynasty", he was sympathetic to the people during his tenure in Jizhou, and the folk customs of Jizhou "heavy weaving, cloth cheap, seeking to move far away for the gold, easy grain return, and cutting its price to attract the people, the people get the rewards." Due to his outstanding political achievements, two years later, Li Bingheng was promoted to prefect of Yongping Province, winning the good reputation of "the first honest official in the north".

In the eleventh year of Guangxu (1885), the Sino-French War broke out, and the border defense in Guangxi was turbulent, and Li Bingheng was transferred to the Longzhou Western Transport Bureau to preside over the transportation of materials and other matters. At that time, the army's salaries could not be paid in a timely manner, and officials at all levels were "unattended," resulting in a low morale in the army, so Li Bingheng resolutely straightened it out, "eliminating floating expenses, not dividing the main and guest troops, giving endless grain, and rewarding the merits of battle duty with generousness."; he also founded the "Medical Bureau" to show great care for the wounded soldiers and encourage them to kill the enemy and serve the country. Because of this, Li Bingheng was extremely loved by the soldiers, and when they heard that the imperial court decided to let Li Bingheng act as the inspector of Guangxi, "cheered" support, which showed that everyone expected it. In the Sino-French War, Feng Zicai was the main front line of the war, Li Bingheng was the main rear support, and the reason why the Battle of Langshan was able to win was inseparable from Li Bingheng's excellent logistical support, but the average person only knew Feng Zicai's name and did not know Li Bingheng's efforts. Therefore, Peng Yulin and other ministers went to the imperial court: Feng Zicai and Li Bingheng "two ministers were loyal and upright, won the hearts and minds of the people, and also made the most meritorious contributions", and the imperial court recognized them for their commendations, and decreed that they would act as inspectors. During his tenure, Li Bingheng "reorganized the camp system, raised the meritocracy, sent vietnamese tourists, and gradually calmed down the Vietnamese affairs", and he also cooperated with Deng Chengxiu, minister of Guangxi Boundary Survey affairs, to map the boundary between China and Vietnam, which is actually the boundary of today's border.

Not long after, Li Bingheng was appointed as the inspector of Anhui. When Zhang Zhidong, a major minister of the Qing dynasty, recommended talents to the imperial court, he said that Li Bingheng was "virtuous enough to cherish the people, be able to make changes, spread political voices far and wide, and achieve great achievements, which is really a great instrument of good talent."

On the eve of the Battle of Dadonggou in the twentieth year of Guangxu (1894), the imperial court appointed Li Bingheng as the governor of Shandong, and the Draft History of the Qing Dynasty records that after he took office, he was "strictly disciplined, Du Baotho". Due to the huge disparity in strength between the enemy and ourselves, Li Bingheng won fewer victories and more defeats in the battles of commanding the Defense of Rongcheng and the Battle of Reinforcements in Weihai. When Li Hongzhang signed the "Treaty of Maguan", Li Bingheng, in his capacity as the governor of Shandong, wrote to the imperial court to resolutely oppose it, trained 200,000 troops, and fought against Japan.

In March of the 23rd year of Guangxu (1897), the Great Knife Society attacked the German church in Guanxian County, Shandong, and a parishioner was killed; a wave of unrest, Shandong Juye again committed another life case, and two German missionaries were killed. The German minister, believing that Li Bingheng was ineffective, demanded that the Qing court remove him from his post. The Qing court was afraid of foreigners, and although the Hanlin Academy edited Wang Ting's struggle, it still issued an edict to remove him from office, but immediately appointed him as the governor of Sichuan, who expected the German minister to exert pressure again, and the Qing court had to remove Li Bingheng from his post again. In this way, Li Bingheng became the scapegoat of the "Juye Teaching Case", hiding from Anyang for three years and doing nothing. If he had not been firmly appointed to the "Cardinal Court" as a military minister, Li Bingheng might have ended up in the countryside - in 1900, he suggested to Empress Dowager Cixi to re-employ Li Bingheng, just in time for Yu Shishang to ask for the rectification of the Yangtze River Water Division, and Empress Dowager Cixi summoned Li Bingheng to let him "patrol the Yangtze River Water Division".

Li Bingheng descended the Yangtze River, and because he laid mines along the way and prepared for a decisive battle with the armies of various countries, he was regarded as a thorn in the eye by Liu Kunyi, the governor of Liangjiang at the time. Taking advantage of the imperial court's request that Liu Kun send troops to the north to defend Beijing, Liu Kunyi, with the top hat of "King Qin going north", asked Li Bingheng to go north first, and handed over a troop to him under his command.

On July 26, 1900, Li Bingheng led an army to Beijing, when the Eight-Power Alliance had captured Tianjin, and Beijing was in danger. At the time of the visit, Li Bingheng was generous in the battle, and was greatly praised by Cixi, and immediately appointed him as "deputy to the military affairs of the Armed Guards", that is, Rong Lu's deputy, to undertake the heavy task of defending Beijing.

After a short rest, the Eight-Power Coalition invaded Beijing. On August 15, the beicang and Yangcun defense lines were in a hurry, and Li Bingheng had only 500 soldiers under his command, and he could not resist it no matter what. He immediately met with Rong Lu and asked for troops and ammunition—although Li Bingheng was nominally a deputy of the Armed Guards, the right to transfer troops was always in Rong Lu's hands. Rong Lu was high-profile on the surface, but in his bones he was anti-war, and he rejected Li Bingheng on the grounds that the troops in his hands could not make ends meet. Li Bingheng had no choice but to go to the imperial court, so he could only lead five hundred soldiers to the front line in Tongzhou.

Tongzhou was the third line of defense leading to Beijing after Beicang and Yangcun, and if lost, the enemy could drive to Chaoyangmen. The imperial court issued an edict ordering Zhang Chunfa, Chen Zelin, Xia Xinyou, and Wan Benhua to defend the four armies of Tunyang Village and Hexi Wu to resist the combined forces. Although together with Yuan Shikai's elite 3,000 new troops, the Tongzhou defense line had a total of more than 15,000 troops, but most of them held a wait-and-see attitude and delayed. Li Bingheng was the commander-in-chief of the front line, and when he held a combat conference in Tongzhou on August 7, he looked around and did not see a single general.

Li Bingheng personally went to the front line to inspect and supervise the battle, and he had always been sympathetic to the soldiers, and he found that morale was extremely low, and the soldiers not only could not get the salary, but also faced the danger of running out of food. But the imperial court has already allocated silver! Li Bingheng knew that the general was withholding, but he had no time to correct it, so he immediately ordered the soldiers to go to the nearby villages to buy grain, but the grain of the people's homes was plundered by the troops who retired from Beicang and Yangcun!

Li Bingheng was angry, but there was nothing he could do. On August 8, he oversaw his army at Hexiwu and retreated to Zhangjiawan because of his outdated troops. On August 11, the coalition forces attacked Tongzhou, and Li Bingheng was inspired to "serve the country", but the hungry soldiers were no longer able to fight and scattered. After learning that the gates of Tongzhou had been blown open by the coalition forces, Li Bingheng, who was alone in Tongzhou, wrote a testament to Cixi: "In the days of witnessing the situation, tens of thousands of troops filled the roadways, and when they heard that the enemy collapsed, there was no battle, and the villages and towns they passed were burned and plundered, so that the subject army had nothing to buy, the people and horses were hungry, and there was no place to stand." Then he prayed north and committed suicide by taking poison.

After Li Bingheng committed suicide, the imperial court "gave mercy and loyalty to the festival", but the Eight-Nation Alliance demanded that the culprit be held accountable and "re-rule" the prince and minister of the main battle. Li Hongzhang consulted with the representatives of the Eight-Power Alliance, and the Eight-Nation Alliance proposed to the Qing court a list of "war criminals" to be punished, and Li Bingheng was proudly listed. Cixi issued a decree severely punishing the princes and ministers who were in the main battle, and although Li Bingheng died on the battlefield, he "spared the discussion by dying first, and commanded him to take up his post and seize the honor."

Fortunately, Li Bingheng also had a confidant, Wang Tingxiang, who had gone to the imperial court to oppose submission to foreigners and removed Li Bingheng from his post, visited Li Bingheng after he was reinstated and entered Beijing, and made a promise to him. When Li Bingheng arrived in Fengtian, he specially asked Wang Ting to take up his post; When Li Bingheng left the town of Tongzhou, Wang Tingxiang did not shy away from life and death, and suffered together. After the fall of Tongzhou, Wang Tingxiang could not find Li Bingheng, concluded that he was dead, and immediately jumped into the river to commit suicide. The Draft History of the Qing Dynasty appended Wang Tingxiang's small biography to Li Bingheng's biography, and there was a great intention that the two were loyal and dependent.

When Tongzhou revised its history, it should not forget this patriotic general who once resisted the great powers and defended Tongzhou.

Source Beijing Evening News

Author Zhu Xiaoping

Process Editor Tai Shaofeng