When it comes to the fierce generals of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the most famous ones are Lin Fengxiang and Li Kaifang.
Since the Jintian uprising, Lin Fengxiang and Li Kaifang have both served as tiger generals in the vanguard of the whole army, attacking Guilin, Changsha, Wuchang, Zhenjiang, Nanchang, and other places.
Attacking Wuchang City, Lin Fengxiang was the first general to lead an army to wuchang City, and was made a deputy minister of Tianguan.
During the siege of Nanjing, Li Kaifang was the first general to lead an army to the city of Nanjing, and was given the title of Prefectural Official.
After Hong Xiuquan set the capital at Tianjing, he sent Lin Fengxiang, Li Kaifang, and Ji Wenyuan to lead more than 20,000 people to raise their swords and go north.
This Northern Expeditionary Army set out from Yangzhou, marched alone, crossed six provinces, passed through Anhui, Henan and other places, entered Zhili, approached Tianjin, the soldiers were sharp, shocked Gyeonggi, contained a large number of Qing troops, and was mighty!
Unfortunately, this move was only a partial deepening of the division, and the prefectures and counties that were passed were not defended, and gradually entered the situation of a lone army expedition and the rear road was cut off.
In September 1854, because there were no reinforcements and food and salaries were difficult to sustain, the Northern Expeditionary Army was forced to withdraw south from Jinghai and Duliu towns.
In Dongguang County, Lin and Li divided their troops and fought separately.
Li Kaifang led his army south to Linqing to receive reinforcements, while Lin Fengxiang insisted on holding the town of Lianzhen in Dongguang County.
Li Kaifang learned halfway that the reinforcements had collapsed, and on the one hand sent people to report to Lin Fengxiang, and on the other hand, he entered Gaotang Prefecture and refused to pursue and kill the Qing Dynasty minister Sheng Baojun, and The bitter Hou Lin Fengxiang came to meet and returned to the south together.
However, Lin Fengxiang was intercepted and killed by the Senggelin's troops on all sides in Lianzhen, and could not break through.
Lin Fengxiang could not break through, simply calmed down, tree city, dredging ditch, and sangGelinqin for days and days of fighting, repeated fighting.
Such a lone army actually fought against the monk Greenqin for nine months!
On March 7 of the following year, Lin Fengxiang's army ran out of ammunition, lin Fengxiang himself was seriously wounded and exhausted, and was captured by the Qing army surrounded on all sides when he led some of his soldiers to retreat into the tunnel dark room.
Chen Sibo, a native of Wuchang, was wrapped up in the Taiping Army in Wuchang, marched to Tianjing, accompanied the army on the Northern Expedition, and defected when he was trapped in Lianzhen, and wrote a "Record of Resurrection", which detailed Lin Fengxiang's courageous state when he was captured: "On the nineteenth day of the first month (lunar calendar), Lin Fengxiang suffered two gunshot wounds on his right arm and left leg, and began to break through the camp among the thieves, half-dead under the knife and gun, half dead in the canal water, and destroyed in one day."
Subsequently, the attendant Ruilin and the general Jingwen Dai
Lin Fengxiang was sent to Beijing.
On March 15, Lin Fengxiang was sentenced to death by Ling Chi in Kouxi City, Caishi City, Beijing.
The torture process was so tragic that some viewers were frightened to death.
Li Huan of the time recorded in the "Bao Chang Zhai Series Manuscript" that at that time, he saw and heard that in the first month of the second month, the imperial court rebelled against Lin Fengxiang in the Beijing vegetable market. On the day of the execution, the people watching the liveliness were like a wall blocked, and the water could not be drained. I also went to see the liveliness that day, but it was crowded and crowded, and I couldn't see it with my own eyes. The next day, it was rumored that the viewer had died of shock. Jiang Youxiao Qianquan was sent to prison that day, and I asked him for details. He said: "Sixteen executioners were arranged, each holding a small iron grasp with a wooden handle, working together, cutting slowly from all over the body, and it did not take much time, from the top of the head to the heel, the flesh was exhausted, and only the bones were left." I asked again, "There are spectators who are dying of shock, really?" Xiao replied, "Sitting with me was my colleague Lian Jun of Manchuria, and behind him stood a man, wearing a white felt hat and a sheepskin jacket, a creditor of the Lian Jun family, surnamed Zhu, a native of Shanxi, who followed Lian Jun to observe the execution." Lian Jun instructed him: "There are many military service in the field, and idle people cannot come near, so you can follow me and stand behind my seat." We were all wearing red hats, except he was wearing a white felt hat, and the executioner deliberately mischief threw it at him every time he cut off a piece of flesh, and the blood splashed on his face. Poor zhu people, because the people in front of and behind them are tightly squeezed, their hands cannot be lifted, their feet cannot be moved, their breaths are full of blood and flesh, and the leader is swollen. By the time the execution was over, he had fainted and fell to the ground, swaddled back to his apartment, and died. Alas, the executioner's heart is fierce! His hand is perfect!
However, although the executioner was fierce and his technique was absolute, Lin Fengxiang was full of hardness, "where the knife is reached, the eyes are still looking at it, and finally there is no sound", really big hero, big haojie!
To make up a note, there is an article on the Internet recently: Before the execution, the Xianfeng Emperor wanted to see if Lin Fengxiang was the legendary three heads and six arms, personally watching at the head of the gate in the morning, when the monk Greenqin led the soldiers to escort the prisoner car to the Jinshui Bridge outside the noon gate, the Xianfeng Emperor saw clearly, but he was a medium-sized Jiangnan Hanzi, neither burly nor majestic, wen crepe crepe, completely a teaching gentleman.
There are many errors in this online article, which must be corrected: first, it was not the monk Gelinqin who escorted Lin Fengxiang to Beijing; second, Lin Fengxiang was not a Jiangnan Hanzi; third, Lin Fengxiang was definitely not a teacher; fourth, the Xianfeng Emperor did not see Lin Fengxiang.
In fact, after Lin Fengxiang was captured, it was The attendant Ruilin and the chief soldier Jingwen Dai who escorted him to Beijing. The monk Greenqin did not stop, moved to Gaotang Prefecture, and joined forces with Shengbao to take Li Kaifang.
Li Kaifang was surprised to see the banner of the monk Greenqin, knew that Lin Fengxiang's army had been destroyed, and had no fighting spirit, so he opened the east gate at night and galloped southeast on horseback, intending to enter Feng County, Jiangsu Province, and cross the Yellow River to return to the south. However, before rushing to Feng Guantun in Chiping County, the cavalry of the monk Greenqin's army had already chased after him like the wind and encircled the encirclement.
At Feng Guantun, Li Kaifang and the monk Greenqin wrestled with each other until April 24, when they were captured.
The monk Gelinqin sent Li Kaifang and his subordinates Huang Gongduan, Xie Jinsheng, Li Tianyou, Tan Yougui, Wei Mingfu, and Cao De to Beijing, and the rest of the more than 100 soldiers were all killed at Feng Guantun.
Li Kaifang went on a hunger strike on the road, and the sill officials repeatedly advised him, but refused to eat.
On April 27, seven people were executed at the execution ground, and Li Kaifang was dying of hunger. Huang Yiduan, however, was full of vigor and vigor all the way, kicking two executioners and injuring two before the execution.
In 1863, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom posthumously named Li Kaifang as the king of please and Lin Fengxiang as the king of the court.
Li Kaifang was a descendant of the Zhuang family, whose ancestral home was Wuyuan County, Guangxi (present-day Dalitun, Longying Village, Liangjiang Town, Wuming District, Nanning City).
Later generations did not know Lin Fengxiang's origins, but because he and Li Kaifang were like Jiao Meng, they speculated that he was also from Wuyuan County, Guangxi.
Why can't I figure out Lin Fengxiang's origin?
The above-mentioned online article calls Lin Fengxiang a "Jiangnan Hanzi", and also says that "he is neither big nor majestic", "Wen crepe and crepe, completely like a teaching gentleman", which is absolutely nonsense.
Lin Fengxiang, a person who is "less debauched and uninhibited, a little longer and braver", is a burly and majestic person, who had a similar experience with Wu Song in his early years: arguing with people, fists and feet, mistakenly injuring people's lives, and in order to escape the arrest of the government, he had to die in the end of the world and the wind and frost.
This made many people, including people within the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, unclear about Lin Fengxiang's place of origin.
Moreover, most of the people up and down the Taiping Army were poor peasants and coolies, and their education level was not high, although the political power was established, there was no detailed construction of member archives, and there was no historical official record, so There was no record of Lin Fengxiang's place of origin.
The most important thing is that once the rebellion fails, the rebels will not only be tortured by Ling Chi, but the whole family, young and old, including the relatives of the Nine Tribes, will be executed, and even the ancestral grave may be planed. Therefore, before the great cause is finally successful, no one will easily report their true place of origin, so as not to affect their relatives.
Rao is like this, Lin Fengxiang was born from the "Wuyuan County Saying" evidence, and later it was found by people.
In 1928, Li Fazhang wrote "History of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom", which mentions that there are stone tablets and genealogies in Linxu Guangsi Village in Wuyuan County, and the name of "Lin Fengxiang" and his brother "Lin Fengji" are inscribed on the stone tablets.
Accordingly, after the establishment of the Guangxi Tongzhi Museum in 1960, after extensive investigation, it was printed and published as a book entitled "Compilation of Survey Materials of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Revolution in Guangxi", of which the article "Guangxi Investigation of Lin Fengxiang's Place of Origin" held the view that Lin Fengxiang was a native of Wuyuan County, and the "Wuyuan County Theory" was almost conclusive.
However, the "Temple Ding Stele" is engraved with the date of erection, which is 1794; the time of Lin Fengxiang's murder is 1855. There was a gap of 61 years.
That is to say, if the "Lin Fengxiang" engraved on the "Temple Ding Stele" refers to Lin Fengxiang, the fierce general of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, then Lin Fengxiang should have been over 61 years old when he was killed.
This is seriously inconsistent with lin fengxiang's record of righteousness in his prime, but almost all the information related to Lin Fengxiang's deeds shows that Lin Fengxiang was killed in his prime.
In 1980, when the Ming and Qing Archives Department of the Forbidden City in Beijing was sorting out the archives of the Qing Dynasty Capital Patrol Office, it accidentally found a piece of "Lin Fengxiang's Confession". The Confession was recorded by Qing court officials during his time in Beijing and compiled into a fold. The full text is 402 words. In the "Confession", Lin Fengxiang claimed that he was "Chinese New Year's Eve one year old" - it is not excluded that Lin Fengxiang may lie about his age, but it is impossible to lie about his age in his 60s as 31 years old.
Therefore, the time of the erection of the "Three Realms Ancestral Temple Temple Ding Stele" must be before Lin Fengxiang was born, then the "Lin Fengxiang" engraved on the stele definitely does not refer to this Lin Fengxiang, not to mention, there is still a difference between "Xiang" and "Xiang" of "Lin Fengxiang".
That is, Lin Fengxiang was born from "Wuyuan County".
But the emergence of the Confession also provides another way of saying where Lin Fengxiang came from.
The "Confession" states: "(I) am a native of Guiping County, Guangxi Province, and live in a new village in this county. Chinese New Year's Eve one year old. His father, Lin Lichun, was fifty-four years old. The mother is deceased. His brother Ah Man was eleven years old. I didn't take a wife. ”
The book "Records of the Rise of Yue Kou" (the first volume of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Historical Materials Series compiled by the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom History Museum) by the Half-Nest Resident scholar asserts: "Lin Fengxiang is a native of Guiping County, and set up a wanton sale in Xunzhou City. Mr. Luo Ergang, a well-known expert in the history of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, also held this view in the "Taiping Heavenly Kingdom History Manuscript • Biography of Lin Fengxiang".
But from another point of view, what the Confession says can just be refuted by lin Fengxiang, who is by no means a Guangxi Guiping person.
The reason is very simple: Lin Fengxiang, as the "head of rebellion" of the Qing court, and died extremely hard, was not a greedy person who was afraid of death, and it was impossible to clearly and safely confess his place of origin and family situation. According to the "Confession", if it were not for the fabrication of the interrogation officials, it would be Lin Fengxiang's prevarication to deceive the Qing court, which is not enough to believe. Moreover, in 1862, when the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom posthumously crowned Lin Fengxiang for the throne, there were heirs who attacked the knighthood, and the "I did not marry a wife" mentioned in the "Confession" was enough to know that this was a prevarication and deception.
So, where is Lin Fengxiang?
Jian Youwen's book "History of the First Righteousness of the Taiping Heavenly Army in Guangxi" (published in 1944) mentions the "people of Jieyang County, the capital of Chaozhou, Guangdong", but does not draw a positive conclusion.
Inspired by this, After entering the Chaozhou XiuzhiGuan in 1946, Lin Dehou, a Qiaolin of Jieyang, focused on examining Lin Fengxiang's birthplace and wrote the "Biography of the Two Generals of Jieyang in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom" (that is, Lin Fengxiang and Luo Outline).
Lin Dehou not only searched for Lin Fengxiang's birthplace, but also consulted Lin Fengxiang's family tree and obtained more credible information.
First, let's look at Lin Fengxiang's genealogy: Lin's "ancestor Of Nanshan, born in Putian." At the end of the Song Dynasty, from the tide of Fujian, qiankeng plug was built in jieyang county in the ninety miles west of the zhixi, and thirteen was passed to Qianyu, which was first moved from Qiankeng Zhai (Jieyang) to the west gate of the city, and now Lin Cuowei also. Qianyu has a son, Lan Yao, who wants to be born of jade, who is born of Yinggao, who is born of a high birth, who is born of Rong Guang, and who is also the father of GuangFeng Xiang. From The ancestor of Qiankeng Village, Nanshan, to the 19th Fengxiangfan. In the city, the ancestor Qianyu was moved, and fengxiang was the seventh emperor. Guang's wife, Ni Shi, sheng Fengxiang and the second daughter. ”
Lin Dehou's visit to Lin Fengxiang's hometown can be seen in the "Preface to the Biography of the Two Generals of jieyang in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom": "In 1946, he visited the former residence of Fengxiang's parents. The first sight of the famous will be the birthplace of the forest Cuowei. In the low house to the west, the house is empty and uninhabited, and the middle is for Feng Xiang's parents to be the lord, so he draws a frame to record the date of his birth and death. Screw its room old Lianfang. Lian Fang is Feng Xiang's nephew, and at the age of sixty, he sold pigs to give Panchuan's show to Sun Ye. ”
"Selling pigs to give Panchuan No Show" says that after Lin Fengxiang lost his hand and killed people in his hometown in his early years, he wanted to avoid being arrested by the government, but he was bitter. In the end, it was uncle Lin Xiuzhong who sold four piglets and only then scraped together some money to provide him with a run.
The book also mentions: "(Feng Xiangmu) Ni Shi died on July 19, 1833, the thirteenth year of Qing Daoguang (1833), at the age of three Chinese New Year's Eve. Feng Xiang was about eight years old. From this, it is calculated that Feng Xiang was born about the fifth year of Daoguang (1825), and he was killed in the fifth year of Xianfeng (1855), which happened to be thirty-one years old, which coincided with the "Chinese New Year's Eve one year old" stated in the Confession.
In addition, the book also records a recollection of Fengxiang's nephew Lianfang: "When I was young, I saw my grandmother (that is, Fengxiang's aunt and uncle Lin Xiuzhong's wife) every autumn, and I made an old embroidered robe, which was precious and secret when it was dried. Yu Zhen so come, know: this Er Uncle Feng Xiang battle robe also. Re-show the taiping army's early commemoration of a large number of coins: this Uncle Ye'er gave the family to commemorate the people in each room, four pieces each. Its Taiping Army was killed. The old village of Beizang (i.e., Qiankeng Village) was slept by twenty people. The Gai military system is based on the twenty people as a small group, camping against the enemy, and fighting the same as death, so it is the system. The robes and commemorative money, which still existed thirty years ago, are now long decayed and lost. ”
At this point, the mystery of Lin Fengxiang's origin was completely solved. Namely: Lin Fengxiang was born in 1825 in Lincuowei, Ximen Dadeyegong Lane, Rongcheng, Jieyang County, Guangdong Province, and was killed on March 15, 1855 in Xishi, Beijing.