In the late reign of the Qing Dynasty, due to the fainting of those in power, the people lived in the depths of the water for a long time. Especially after the Opium War, the Qing government stepped up its exploitation of the people in order to pay huge reparations.
At this time, corrupt officials and local tycoons and gentry wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to make a big profit, so every time the imperial court ordered the collection of taxes, they always had to add a few percent to the original, and these achievements became their pockets.
From 1846 to 1850, serious natural disasters such as floods, droughts and insect plagues broke out in the Liangguang area, and the broad masses of the people faced the threat of death every day.
Many people really could not stand this situation of internal and external difficulties, and uprisings broke out one after another. Among these rebel armies, the most influential was the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement led by Hong Xiuquan. The Taiping Rebellion lasted fourteen years and was the first peasant war in Chinese history to spread throughout China from the south.
Photo: Stills of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement
This war carried the determination of too many working people to resist the decadent rule, and thus became a peasant war of unprecedented scale in the history of the world. Although the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement was carried out vigorously, due to the limitations of the peasant class itself, it finally faced a defeat.
After the capture of Tianjing City in December 1863, the Taiping Army began to flee. Li Xiucheng gave up his warhorse to the Young Heavenly King, and gathered more than a thousand remaining people to protect the young lord out of the city, but unfortunately their escape plan was repeatedly snuffed out by the Qing army, and it was not until midnight that they put on the clothes of the Qing army and left the city.
Just out of the city and was chased by the Qing soldiers, at this time Li Xiucheng had to stay behind to intercept the Qing army and send the remaining one hundred and ten people to flee south with the young Tianwang. Among the fleeing party, there was a person with a very special identity, he was originally seven thousand years old in the Taiping Army, and later in order to escape to the point of raising ducks for a living, the result was that he had to flee to the Americas, who was this person?
Photo: Stills of the Taiping Army's escape
1. The 7,000-year-old taiping army claimed to command more than 100,000 soldiers and horses
This person was Hong Xiuquan's nephew Hong Kuiyuan, the eldest son of Hong Xiuquan's brother Hong Ren, who began to follow his father in the southern conquest of the northern war from 1859, claiming to have commanded 100,000 soldiers and horses.
There is no reliable historical record of this, and even if you look through the ancient texts, you can't find a record of how many soldiers Hong Kuiyuan led and how many battles he fought, so some scholars believe that this statement may be exaggerated.
After all, no matter how old or young, those who have made significant contributions in history will certainly have relevant historical records. For example, Chen Yucheng, who participated in the Jintian Uprising at the age of fifteen, took on the task of supervising military food at the age of seventeen, and led troops to attack Wuchang at the age of eighteen, all of which can be verified by specific historical documents.
Image: Chen Yucheng stills
However, the deeds of Hong Kuiyuan are not without a little historical basis, according to the british translators who once interviewed the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the Hong Kuiyuan he saw was a pure white child, and he would shake hands when meeting people of equal status and greet them in English.
At first glance he was a good and polite boy, but when he spoke to his subordinates, he quickly put on another high face, although he was not very old, but full of authority. This can't all be blamed on him, after all, he was a proper Hong Second Generation, and he was crowned the King of Lang at a young age, and he was also called seven thousand years old, so if such an achievement was placed on others, he might also be arrogant.
Hong Kuiyuan made a big noise every time he traveled, and demanded that all officials in the Korean army avoid it, and if they collided with his honor guards, they would undoubtedly be beheaded.
Image: Hong Kuiyuan stills
Second, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement failed, and Hong Kuiyuan became a duck keeper for life
As the saying goes, after seeing a leaf and knowing autumn, after seeing Hong Kuiyuan's performance, it is not difficult to guess the reason for the ultimate failure of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement. At the time of the critical survival of Tianjing being conquered, Hongren, in order to protect his eldest son, asked the Heavenly King to let Hong Kuiyuan lead his troops out of the city to fight.
In fact, the clear-eyed people all know what the purpose of Hong Ren's arrangement is, nothing more than to wait until the time when Tianjing is in danger, and Hong Kuiyuan can use this condition to escape smoothly. For the old father's painstaking arrangement, Hong Kuiyuan naturally did not live up to it.
After the Xiang army attacked Tianjing in 1864, the fate of the taiping heavenly kingdom was doomed to be irreversible, and Hong Kuiyuan saw that this situation did not feel right, and immediately decided to abandon his troops and run all the way south. When he fled to Fujian, his warhorses were exhausted, and he finally returned to Guangdong by relying on his ability to ask for food.
Hong Kuiyuan was originally a high-ranking person in the Taiping Army, and now that he was in trouble, he was naturally indignant in his heart, and in order to continue to survive, he had to condescend and demote himself to become a duck breeder.
It may be that he used to enjoy a good life in the past, and he was always grumpy when dealing with ducks who could not understand human speech, and once he really couldn't bear the behavior of ducks running around, so he scolded them: "I once commanded 100,000 male soldiers, and they all respected me, do you dare to disobey my orders?" ”
Image: Screenshot of duckling data
Third, his identity was repeatedly exposed and he had to live abroad, and he married a black wife to continue the string
We all know that his words are nothing more than a complaint to dispel the depression in his heart, but these words expose Hong Kuiyuan's identity information, and more coincidentally, people with hearts listen to these words and report them to the government.
Hong Kuiyuan originally thought that he was dead this time, but fortunately a German priest rescued him. The priest dressed Up Hong as his servant, took him away, and then sent him to the church to study.
Since then, Hong Kuiyuan has lived in anonymity every day, and has truly become an ordinary person. He hid in the ecclesiastical academy for many years, and finally married and had children. He thought that this life should have been spent like this, but the Qing army once again found out his location and brought someone to arrest him, and Hong Kuiyuan had no choice but to flee to the Americas with his wife.
Image: Stills of the priest dressing up Hong Kuiyuan as his servant
After arriving in the Americas, perhaps because of regional reasons, or because of the overwork along the way, Hong Kuiyuan's original wife died in the Americas. Later, Hong Kuiyuan married a black woman and gave birth to a son: Hong Weiling.
This person is a medical doctor at George Washington University in the United States, and some people say that his child has become the owner of a car shop. In any case, compared to the countless soldiers who died in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, Hong Kuiyuan was lucky.
But how much luck is there like this? Life is inevitably ups and downs, what we need to do is to guard against arrogance and impatience, if Hong Kuiyuan can be kind to his subordinates when he is proud, perhaps when he is frustrated, there will be no one to help him, and there will be no life experience that he has no choice but to run abroad later. What do you think about that?
Article author: Zi Haojun
The whole picture and text was originally produced by Zihao Film and Television Production Studio!