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In the previous chapter (the first Minister of Chincha who confronted the "Heavenly King" (center): Exhaustion) We talked about this Li Xingyuan who carefully planned everything, but "the heavens are not beautiful", and the rainy weather for several days made the time for the attack have to be repeatedly retreated. At that time, Li Xingyuan looked at the clear sky here, and then thought that the front line not far away was raining, and his heart did not mention more suffocation and fire. It can be said that how good the weather on Li Xingyuan's side is, how big the anger in his heart is.
In this case, the rain on the front line was sparsely rained for a month, and the Qing army had to rest in place for a month. It was hard to wait until the weather cleared, and without Li Xingyuan's reminder, Xiang Rong, the generals of the Qing Army, were also anxious, and quickly convened a front-line military meeting to urgently discuss specific march plans so as to quickly complete the "encirclement and suppression." After discussing the plan, all the Qing troops gathered at the front line simultaneously launched an attack on the Taiping Army in an attempt to wipe it out in one fell swoop. The process of the battle can be said to be very fierce, the officers and soldiers and the "bandits" did not give in to each other, although at first the officers and troops had the upper hand, but because they were ambushed by the "bandits" on the way to continue the attack, the morale was reduced, and the place occupied by the "bandits" was relatively strong, and the officers and troops could not quickly capture it for a while. Faced with such a situation, Xiang Rong had no choice but to temporarily order the withdrawal of troops and set up camp in a dangerous place near the lair of the "hui bandits", so as to prevent the continued expansion of the "hui bandits". Although on the surface it seems that both sides have their own victories and losses, in fact, this attack and suppression is a failure for the officers and troops, because this attack and suppression did not break the situation in which the officers and troops and the "hui bandits" were in a state of stalemate as Li Xingyuan predicted, and then eliminated the "hui bandits" in Jintian in one fell swoop.
However, for Li Xingyuan, although the attack did not achieve his expected purpose, it also showed the strength of the Qing army, so Li Xingyuan did not shake his confidence because of this defeat. In his opinion, Xiang Rong had won consecutive battles in the previous suppression of "bandits" in various places, so this time it must not be a problem, the stalemate at this time was only temporary, and after Xiang Rong reorganized, as long as he launched another attack on the Taiping Army, he would eventually win victory. It is precisely for this reason that Li Xingyuan did not severely rebuke the crowd after learning the news of the defeat of Xiang Rong and others, and even in the letter he wrote to Xiang Rong, he only reminded Xiang Rong to seize the opportunity to launch another attack on the "bandits" in Jintian during the few days when the weather was clear, so that he could quickly eliminate the "bandits" in Jintian and not give them time to rectify.
But at this time, another unexpected situation occurred, Li Xingyuan calculated everything and planned everything, but did not calculate that the leading commander Xiang Rong's attitude towards the Taiping Army had changed drastically because of the defeat in this battle. At the very beginning of the encirclement and suppression of the Jintian "hui bandits", Xiang Rong's attitude was very cautious, and he strongly advocated that heavy troops must be gathered to encircle and suppress the Jintian "hui bandits", and never took the initiative to attack when the troops were not yet sufficient, until the arrival of various reinforcements, he began to actively advocate the dispatch of troops to encircle and suppress, and even because the weather had been raining continuously, the officers and troops were hindered from marching and felt anxious, so that Zhou Tianjue, the temporary inspector, had to advise him many times.
However, after the day was clear, the defeat suffered by Xiang Rong in leading his army to attack the Jintian "hui bandits" was the first defeat since Xiang Rong entered Guangxi, and in the previous encirclement and suppression, Xiang Rong could be called a victory in every battle. It can be said that this defeat made Xiang Rong once again begin to worry about the insufficient strength of the official army and the inability to completely defeat the Taiping Army in Jintian, hoping that Li Xingyuan would write to the imperial court and ask the imperial court to once again send officers and soldiers from all over the country to Guangxi for support. This view of his was also expressed in a letter to Li Xingyuan later, and Li Xingyuan also found a change in Xiang Rong's attitude after receiving the letter, and this change in Xiang Rong greatly dissatisfied Li Xingyuan, who was looking forward to the success of the First World War, unceremoniously criticized him in his reply letter to Xiang Rong, directly accusing Xiang Rong of not attributing all the reasons for his defeat in attacking and suppressing to the lack of troops, the number of officers and men on the front line was enough to suppress the "bandits" in Jintian, and the reason why he would attack and defeat was more because he ignored the use of tactics. It is simply based on the number of officers and men to fight.
In the following letters, Li Xingyuan once again expressed dissatisfaction with Xiang Rong's postponed attack, and even used the phrase "the general is the courage of the soldiers, and there are no brave and cowardly soldiers" to allude to Xiang Rong, which translates to the meaning of "soldiers instigate one, will instigate a nest". At the same time, xiang rong's reasons for slowing down were refuted, demanding that Xiang Rong should strengthen his heart of encirclement and suppression; the current situation is still favorable to the officers and troops, and as long as they seize the opportunity, they can win victory. Under the bombardment of Li Xingyuan's letters, Xiang Rong had to give in, and in his reply to Li Xingyuan's letters, he said that he would soon lead the army to suppress the Taiping Army again. After receiving Xiang Rong's reply, Li Xingyuan saw from it that Xiang Rong had changed, so he repaid Li with a peach and took a step back himself. He wrote to Xiang Rong to express his relief, saying that he could understand Xiang Rong's difficulties, and at the same time told Xiang Rong that he had asked for troops from all over the world to come to his aid, and also assigned Lao Fangbo to buy ordnance for the officers and men under his command in Guangdong. Subsequently, Li Xingyuan asked Xiang Rong to take advantage of the current "sunny weather for several days" to continue to attack.
However, Li Xingyuan did not expect that before his reply, the Jintian "Hui Bandits" had already taken the lead in launching an attack on the officers and troops, but the battle ended in the victory of the officers and troops, and the Qing army not only repelled the attacking Jintian "Hui Bandits", but even pursued the Jintian "Hui Bandits". During the pursuit, the Qing army not only caused great damage to the "bandits" in Jintian, but also captured a large number of military supplies. After successive defeats in the offensive, this victory can be said to be hard-won. In the face of this victory, Li Xingyuan was of course happy, but he was only happy for a while, because there were still many problems waiting to be dealt with. First of all, although the "bandits" in Jintian were damaged by the strength of the blow, the "bandits" in other parts of Guangxi developed again. Second, at present, most of the Qing army's "bandits" are used to attack the Jintian "bandits" with all their might, and there is no other force that can be divided to encircle and suppress the "bandits" in other parts of Guangxi. In the end, Li Xingyuan found a fatal problem, that is, the military salaries allocated by the imperial court were simply not enough to support the continuous operations of the officers and soldiers. As the saying goes, "the three armies have not moved, the grain and grass have gone first", military salaries and these things are very important in marching operations, once these things are missing, then the morale and marching plan of the entire army will be greatly affected, and even affect the direction of the entire war situation.
Faced with various problems, Li Xingyuan also felt powerless, and at this time, he could only write to the Qing court and ask for support. However, yuanshui could not save the near fire, and Li Xingyuan also knew that the qing court assistance would take a while to arrive, so in the process of waiting for the qing court's assistance, Li Xingyuan could only forcibly support it. However, due to long-term mental exhaustion, its body loss is too large to support its continued work. First the leader was dizzy, then "that is, he was weak and could not walk", and even his speech was not very clear, "it is rare to reduce and mentally troubled, not the situation seen when he first arrived". Although he asked a doctor to treat him, he had no surgery and died of ineffective medicine stones only half a month after his illness. However, although Li Xingyuan died as a result of suppressing the Taiping Army, because he did not complete the tasks assigned by the Qing court, this led to the Xianfeng Emperor being extremely dissatisfied with him. This dissatisfaction was manifested in the inscription of the sacrifice written for him by Pan Zengying, a scholar of the Hanlin Academy after Li Xingyuan's death, which was directly identified by the Xianfeng Emperor as "the honor of the sacrifice inscription is too real, and there are too many words", Li Xingyuan's dispatch is inappropriate, just reading that he died in the wang accident Eryou, but the merits are not hidden, should be explained in the text, so that it should be deleted and amended separately.
At this point, the first Minister of Chincha who broke the wrist with the Taiping Army officially withdrew from the stage of history, the Taiping Army continued to develop vigorously, and the next to fight with the Taiping Army was Zeng Guofan, and it was with their support that the Qing court was able to continue his life, but these are not the things we need to discuss in this article.
References: Draft History of the Qing Dynasty, Qing Shilu, Complete Works of Li Wengong
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