Tomb of Zuo Zongtang in Baizhu Village, Shimen Township, Changsha, Hunan
For nearly a year and a half, from the Xianfeng Uprising on January 11, 1851, to June of the following year, the Taiping Army fought against the Qing army in Guangxi. After that, under the leadership of Hong Xiuquan, he rushed out of Guangxi and entered Hunan. In Shonan, the Taiping Army was shocked by the important towns of Lianke Daozhou and Chenzhou, and the Qing court was shocked. The Taiping army's sudden attack on Hunan made Cheng Cai, the governor of Huguang, extremely frightened, and wanted to hide in the provincial capital to avoid disaster, and wrote to Sai Shang' governor, who was still in Guangxi, to teach Hunan. Sai Shang'a again dismissed Hunan military affairs to Cheng Cai. In view of this situation, the Xianfeng Emperor, on the one hand, strictly ordered Sai Shang'a and Cheng Cai to handle the military affairs of Hunan, and on the other hand, he was reappointed as the governor of Guangxi, Hunan, and Hubei provinces, hoping to strengthen the defense of the inner line. In this way, Zhang Liangji, who served as the inspector of Yunnan, was appointed as the governor of Hunan.
The Taiping Army besieged Changsha, and the situation in Sanxiang was critical. Hu Linyi then recommended Zuo Zongtang to Zhang Liangji, the new governor of Hunan. Zhang Liangji accepted the recommendation, and on the way to Hunan to take office, he sent a special person to the mountain three times to invite Zuo Zongtang to go out of the mountain and enter the curtain, and after Zhang Liangji sent people to urge him, Hu Linyi actively urged, as well as the persuasion of his friend Guo Songtao's brothers, plus Daoguang's twenty-ninth year (1849) when he met with Lin Zexu in Xiangjiang, he heard Lin Zexu personally praise Zhang Liangji as a straightforward and sensitive official, zuo Zongtang decided to apply, and from then on became Xiangfu's guest. At this time, the Battle of Changsha was in full swing.
After capturing Chenzhou, Xiao Chaogui, the King of the West, led thousands of Taiping troops from Chenzhou to launch an attack on changsha city, and the Battle of Changsha was launched. At this time, at the time of the handover of the old and new inspectors in Hunan, Zhang Liangji had not yet arrived in Changsha, and the defense of the city was taken care of by Luo Tongdian, the deputy military affairs. However, soon the main force of the Qing army was transferred to Changsha, and Zhang Liangji and Zuo Zongtang also arrived one after another, and the situation was alleviated. Only four days after Zhang and Zuo entered Changsha City, the main force of the Taiping Army led by Hong Xiuquan and Yang Xiuqing also arrived in the south of Changsha City, and the battle between the two sides became more intense. As soon as Zuo Zongtang entered the Xiang Curtain, he assessed the situation and put forward several important suggestions to Zhang Liangji, who immediately put them into practice. One of the most important of these was that he believed that the Taiping Army was carrying the water city behind its back, and only the earthen walls of the Western Road and the Longhuitan Were the Taiping Army's grain supply line and the only route to the west, so he advocated sending an army to the west first, holding the key places, preventing the Taiping Army from escaping, and then completely annihilating it with one drum.
At this moment, the Taiping Army besieged Changsha City with all its might, and repeatedly collapsed the city walls, and Zuo Zongtang had to stay in the city and die. However, the Taiping Army attacked Changsha for more than 80 days and failed to recover, and Hong Xiuquan decided to withdraw. Late on the night of November 30, the main force of the Taiping Army was transferred from Changsha via Longhuitan, and then moved to Yiyang, Yuezhou and other places, rushing out of Hunan and entering Hubei.
Zuo Zongtang showed his superior military talent when he first came out of the mountains; the first time he grasped power, he did not look ahead and look backwards like some people did, but dared to act boldly and never could do anything. His decisiveness impressed the Qing generals. Because of Zuo Zongtang's merits in defending Hunan, the Qing court ordered the use of Zhi County and added the title of Zhi, and he received the official title for the first time and entered the career path. During the few years of his staff in Hunan, Zuo Zongtang became more and more politically mature, learned how to grasp and use power, and became more and more sophisticated in the use of power, which gave him the quality and foundation to enter the highest ruling level. This is more clearly seen later in his political career.
Zuo Zongtang's former residence
After the Pacification of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Zuo Zongtang devoted all his energies to the preparation of the Fuzhou Shipping Bureau, and he planned to build China's own shipbuilding enterprises, build a powerful navy, resist the armed aggression of the great powers, and achieve the goal of a rich country and a strong army. However, soon after the rise of the Twister army and the hui uprising in Shaanxi, Yang Yuebin, the governor of Shaanxi and Gansu, failed to handle the matter effectively, so the Qing government specially appointed Zuo Zongtang as the governor of Shaanxi and Gansu on the grounds that "Zuo Zongtang was well-known in prestige, skilled in tao, and able to take measures in military affairs and local affairs", and ordered him to immediately go to suppress it. Zuo Zongtang never shirked the tasks assigned to him by the imperial court, although this disrupted his grand plan to save the country through industry, but when the Qing Dynasty faced an urgent crisis, he immediately put aside the matter at hand, recommended Shen Baozhen to replace him, and quickly arranged it.
The Twister Army was a rebel army that was transformed from the Twister Party during the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom period and was active in Anhui, Henan, the southeast of Shanxi and the northern part of Jiangsu. In the third year of Xianfeng (1853), the Taiping Army's Northern Expedition passed through Anhui and Henan, and the Twisters responded one after another, and the Twister Rebellion arose. In the fifth year of Xianfeng (1855), the leaders of various twister armies gathered in Anhui Yanheji to establish a five-flag military system of yellow, white, red, black and blue. In the second year of Tongzhi (1863), the Qing army monk Greenqin attacked the Pheasant River, the Twist army was defeated, and the rest of the Twist army moved to various places. The following year, after the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was basically defeated due to the fall of Tianjing, the northern remnants of the Taiping Army, under the leadership of Lai Wenguang, the King of Zun, joined the Twist Army under the command of Zhang Zongyu the King of Liang and renhua Bang the King of Lu to form the New Twist Army.
The New Twister Army was reorganized according to the formation of the Taiping Army, and changed the infantry to cavalry, which greatly improved the ability to fight on the plains. Tongzhi 4th year (1865); The Twister army annihilated the elite Mongol swindler Monk Greenqin in Caozhou, Shandong, killing the monk Greenqin, and then severely damaged the Xiang army and Li Hongzhang's paramilitary army of the Zeng Guo Clan who came to suppress it, and the momentum was revived. In the fifth year of Tongzhi (1866), the New Twister Army was divided into two branches in Xuzhou, Henan, one was the Eastern Twister Army, led by Lai Wenguang the King of Zun and Ren Huabang the King of Lu, and the other was the Western Twister Army, led by Zhang Zongyu, the King of Liang, and marched into Shaanxi and Gansu, echoing each other.
Zuo Zongtang was facing the Western Twister Army.
When Zuo Zongtang set out from Fujian, he only took 3,000 Chu troops with him, and he asked Liu Dian to assist in the military affairs of Shaanxi and Gansu and entrusted him to recruit another 3,000 troops from Hunan. He received the Huangzhou Shouling in Hubei, learned that most of the Twister Army had entered Hubei Province, and received a message from the Qing court about the unfavorable suppression of Shaanxi. He decided to raise an additional 6,000 people in addition to the original 6,000 people, and synthesize 12,000 people. In view of the characteristics of the Twister Army in riding on foot, Zuo Zongtang advocated training the horse team and building artillery vehicles. He not only asked Gao Liansheng, the land admiral, to accompany him in the campaign, but also consulted Inspector Jiang Yilan of Guangdong to buy 2,000 good foreign guns from Hong Kong. Zuo Zongtang regarded grain supplies and western conquests as important points for military operations. He suggested the establishment of the Shaanxi-Gansu Houlu Grain Station in the city of Hubei Province and the Gansu General Grain Station in the city of Shaanxi Province. Zuo Zongtang asked that in addition to fujian, Guangdong, Zhejiang and other provinces still planning to relieve the salary of the gansu, Hu Xueyan, a member of the procurement and transshipment bureau set up in Shanghai, borrowed 1.2 million taels of silver from foreign merchants to meet the urgent needs.
Just as Zuo Zongtang was actively plotting to enter Shaanxi and Gansu, the Qing court specially appointed Zuo Zongtang as the minister of Qincha to supervise the military affairs of Shaanxi and Gansu. The Qing court agreed with Zuo's military strategy of "entering Shaanxi, you must first clear the thieves outside the customs", and ordered Zuo Zongtang to enter Shaanxi quickly, and the Qing court also ordered him to concentrate on supervising and suppressing after he arrived in Shaanxi, and his governor of Shaanxi and Gansu was temporarily served by Mutushan, and Zuo Zongchang was still the governor of Shaanxi and Gansu and the minister of Qincha, supervising the military affairs of Shaanxi and Gansu. After Zuo Zongzhao received the order, he immediately threw himself into the fierce battle.
On February 20 and 24, the Left Chu Army marched from Hankou to Shaanxi in three ways: front, middle, and rear. On June 18, Zuo Zongzhao arrived at Tongguan, Shaanxi, and was stationed outside Xiguan. At this time, the Territory of Shaanxi was active in the Twist Army and the Shaanxi Hui Army, as well as armed forces such as Dong Fufan. Zuo Zongtang advocated that the Twist army must be completely annihilated in Shaanxi territory, so as not to spread to other regions and make it more difficult to recover.
Therefore, Zuo Zongtang always regarded "suppressing twisting" as his primary task, and he personally stationed himself at Tongguan near Henan to prevent twisting from invading Henan and threatening the Central Plains.
The Western Twister Army, after being attacked by Zuo Zongtang and Liu Dian from eastern Shaanxi and southern Shaanxi respectively, was forced to march to northern Shaanxi in early September and turned into Beishan in an attempt to open the passage into Shanxi. Zuo Zongtang hurriedly redeployed his forces in an effort to prevent the Twist army from entering Shanxi, and at the beginning of his entry into Shaanxi, he thought that it was more difficult to suppress the Twist than the Taiping Army. Therefore, after he arrived at Tongguan, he fortified at the junction of Shaanxi and Henan and Shaanxi and Hubei to prevent the Twister army from invading Henan and Hubei, but unexpectedly the Twister army broke through to the north, and coupled with the containment of the Shaanxi Hui army, Zuo Zongtang's battle against the Twister army was not effective. In late October, the Twister army successively captured the cities of Yanchuan and other cities in northern Shaanxi. Zuo Zongtang dispatched only 10,000 troops from Liu Songshan, 3,000 from Guo Baochang, and 3,000 from Liu Houji.
On December 18, the sixth year of Tongzhi (1867), the Western Twister Army forcibly crossed the Yellow River and entered Shanxi from Shaanxi. Zuo Zongtang was very panicked and sent Liu Songshan and Guo Baochang into Jin to pursue him, and he himself also pulled out his team to enter Jin. The Western Twister Army entered Zhili from Shanxi via Henan and approached the Lugou Bridge on February 6, 1868, the seventh year of Tongzhi (1868), and the Qing court was greatly shocked. In view of the situation in which the Western Twister Army was directly subordinated, the Qing court first ordered Li Hongzhang, the minister of Qincha, who was directly subordinate to the Twister Army, and then handed over the governors of the Bureau, Guan Wen and Zuo Zongtang, to the Ministry of Punishment for strict handling, so that they could make them guilty and make meritorious contributions. In early February, Zuo Zongtang led an army to the outskirts of Baoding. Li Hongzhang, Guan Wen, and Ding Baozhen, the governor of Shandong, also stepped up their efforts to block the Western Twister army that had entered the zhizhi. Despite being severely reprimanded by the imperial court, Zuo Zongtang was not discouraged, but became more cautious and rearranged the battle.
Former residence of Liuzhuang Zuo Zongtang
Zhang Zongyu led the Western Twister army from Shaanxi into the jin, Yu, and Zhi provinces, and responded to the rescue of Lai Wenguang of the Eastern Twister Army to relieve the siege of the Eastern Twister Army at the canal. However, by the time the Western Twister Army had only reached Jin and Yu, the Eastern Twister Army had been completely annihilated by Li Hongzhang's Huai Army at the Battle of Yangzhou on January 5, 1869, and Lai Wenguang was captured and rebelled in Yangzhou. Zhang Zongyu did not know this, and still led the Western Twister army to the north, although approaching Gyeonggi, but also fell into the siege of the Qing army.
Zuo Zongtang personally led the army to pursue, and the reward was clearly determined to stimulate morale. Pursued by the Qing army, the Western Twister Army was forced to withdraw from its direct subordinates and crossed the Zhanghe River into Henan on the night of March 23, 1868, the seventh year of Tongzhi (1868). In early April, Zuo Zongtang's overseers pursued them to Zhangde, Henan. The Western Twister Army then entered the western part of the shanxi from Henan and transferred people directly to Jinghai. On April 26, Zuo Zongtang rushed to Suizhou, Shandong. In early June, the Twist army lost the battle under zhili and transferred to Haifeng, Ningjin, Lingxian, Linyi, and Jiyang in Shandong, and then turned from Lingxian to the southwest into Rendezhou. In mid-to-late June, Zhang Zongyu led the Western Twister Army to try to cross the canal from Gaojiadu, Dezhou, but the Qing army repelled and was forced to retreat to Deping, Pingyuan, and Chiping. At the Battle of Chipingnan town on August 16, the Western Twister Army was completely defeated by the Huai army, and only Zhang Zongyu led more than ten horsemen to break through to the Tujiao River, and did not know the end. At this point, the Twister Rebellion failed. The Qing court rewarded Zuo Zongtang with the title of Prince Taibao.
Zuo Zongtang suppressed the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement and the Twist Army Uprising before and after, sparing no effort, and was able to persevere in the crisis, dare to do things, and be good at doing things, so his status was constantly improving and his power was also increasing.