Emperors in Chinese history died in a variety of strange ways: some emperors collapsed on their posts and eventually fell down due to exhaustion; some emperors were poisoned to death by the people closest to them; and even some emperors were killed directly at the hands of rebels or forced to flee into exile. The emperor we are going to talk about today died particularly tragically: Hong Xiuquan's son, Hong Tianguifu.
Hong Tianguifu, the eldest son of Hong Xiuquan, was born to Lai Lianying, hong xiuquan's wife, in his hometown of Hua County. According to Hong Rengui, the brother of The Heavenly King Hong Xiuquan, when Hong Tianguifu was born, the roof emitted a red round light, which looked like a fire from a distance. This magical scene was as if it really existed, and he not only said this in Guangdong, but also said it in Tianjing, and even, after being captured, he nagged everywhere.
Hong Xiuquan's eldest son was born in October of the 29th year of Daoguang (October 1849) and was taken to Guangxi in May of the following year. In February of the lunar calendar in 1851, Hong Xiuquan was called "Heavenly King" in Wuxuandong Township and was enfeoffed as the young lord. Generally speaking, Hong Tianguifu was only four years old when he became the young lord. However, it is clear that, according to the information I have consulted, he is not even two years old.
At the same time, the name of Hong Xiuquan's son has also become a mystery.
The reason for this mystery comes from an internal system of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom: "Everyone avoids mentioning the name of the young lord, and his name is not allowed to be mentioned." After the Qing Dynasty court learned of this, it named this second "first rebel" "Hongfu" according to the inscription on the jade seal. After being captured, he confessed to Hong Ren, who initially gave him the name "Tiangui" by casting lots.
However, Hong Xiuquan did not like this name, so he removed the word "tian", added the word "Fu", and changed his name to "Guifu". However, after he became the young lord, Hong Xiuquan did not know that it was the brain cramp, and added back the word "Tian" that he had personally removed before, and gave his son a three-character name: "Tianguifu". As for the word "Fu", it is because the four characters of "True King Guifu" are engraved on the jade seal, and they are engraved horizontally from right to left, so that they have been misunderstood by later generations with false rumors.
In Yang Xiuqing's view, this "Heavenly Destiny Teenager" who Hong Renjie was talking about was nothing more than a naughty boy who liked to play, make a fool of himself, squander, sabotage, and hate to learn. For these behaviors of his son, Hong Xiuquan adopted a laissez-faire attitude. Although Yang Xiuqing did not want to take care of it, he still could not watch it until December of the third year of the ugly year (December 1853), he had to take Wei Changhui and Shi Dakai to solemnly ask to see Hong Xiuquan: to persuade him to strengthen the education of his son.
Although yang Xiuqing's move in history has undermined Hong Xiuquan's authority, what he said is indeed reasonable. As a successor of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Hong Tianguifu needs to be paid attention to the matter of receiving education. Fortunately, after Hong Xiuquan greatly appreciated this advice, he did strengthen the education of his son. This incident shows that although Hong Xiuquan is increasingly dissatisfied with Yang Xiuqing, he really listens to this remark about educating his son.
Then, more serious problems arose, and Hong Xiuquan's education method had serious problems: he did not allow his son to read ancient books, called ancient books "demon books", and required his sons to read only "Catholic books" and "Heavenly Father's Poems".
So, is there something wrong with this "Catholic book"? No problem. So, what's the problem?
The problem was that what he asked his son to read was the "Catholic book" he had written. Regardless of the quality of the books, in terms of quantity alone, there can be 40 books. (Only 29 books were listed until 1861, plus an estimated 40 were not included.) From these contents, we can speculate about what Hong Tianguifu can read, and we can probably imagine it.
Here, the author has taken a few pieces of the "Heavenly Father's Poem" for everyone to enjoy:
A dog with an intestine is a real lady. If it is a multitude of ghosts, how can it be matched with the sun.
- "The Heavenly Father's Poems: Twenty-Four"
If you are not religious in your service, you should fight. Hard neck does not listen to teaching, two should be beaten. Looking up at the husband, three should be beaten. Ask the king if he is not religious, and the four should be beaten. The impure breath is not quiet, and the five should be beaten. Speak loudly, six should be played. There is a beak that should not be sounded, and seven should be beaten. Face is not happy, eight dozen should. Look left and right, nine should fight. The speech is not leisurely, and it should be beaten.
- "The Twenty-Eight Poems of the Heavenly Father"
... ...
Successive emperors have attached great importance to the education of their heirs. Therefore, the emperors of ancient times would invite their sons to bring in the best teachers to ensure that their successors had sufficient cultural and political ability. Although the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was heavy on martial arts and light on literature, it was not difficult for such a large force to find a good teacher for Takako. However, Hong Xiuquan neither invited famous teachers to come nor personally taught. According to records, before Hong Tianguifu was 9 years old, it was his sister who educated him, but there is no record in the historical records after the age of 9.
In 1857, Hong Tianguifu married four wives: Hou of Anqing, Zhang of Hubei, and two Huang of Guangxi, and was assigned to live in the left hall of the palace, which means that Hong Tianguifu is an adult, although he was only eight years old at the time. After "coming of age", the first thing he was arranged to do was not to meet with other female relatives in the family to reflect the "difference between men and women". Even so, because of Hong Xiuquan's "busy official duties", Hong Tianguifu often secretly ran to visit his mother and sister.
Around 1860, Hong Xiuquan began to have his son approve the recitals of the ministers, and the rewards for the sealing of officials were also carried out in the name of his son. At this time, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom had also reached the era of "official wholesale", promotions were extremely frequent, and the appearance rate of Hong Tianguifu was particularly high. But in fact, the edicts of the canonized ministers were all transcribed by Hong Xiuquan and then stamped and distributed after Hong Xiuquan had been written, the purpose of which was to make the hundred officials respect this young lord who had made them rise to higher ranks and knighthoods, and always have a reverential heart.
On February 19, 1861, Hong Xiuquan made a decision that seemed sacred to him: he passed on his son to Jesus.
Hong Xiuquan has always called Jesus "prince", but Jesus, the "veritable" "prince", cannot be the heavenly king of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and his brother sits on this throne, which is really difficult to justify himself. To this end, he hyped up: Jesus in heaven has three sons and two daughters, but these great nephews and nieces who are far away in the sky cannot inherit the throne of heaven, so it is better to pass on his son Hong Tianguifu to Jesus and let him "half be the son of the heavenly brother and half the son of the heavenly king".
Even, in order to commemorate this great decision, Hong Xiuquan specially replaced the golden seal and jade seal that he had used for more than ten years with a gold seal and jade seal engraved with the names of "Heavenly Father Heavenly Brother" and his Hong family father and son.
In fact, Hong Tianguifu, the "young lord", should be quite boring. He had to give his father Hong Xiuquan a "Please An Ben Chapter" every morning and three meal times, but he himself could not go to see him casually, and even this "Please An Ben Chapter" had already been prepared by someone, and he only needed to copy it a few times according to the gourd painting.
In addition, he could only read the "Catholic books" written to him by Hong Xiuquan, which he did not know how many times he had read upside down, and play with his four "young ladies" for entertainment. Because life is really boring, he was particularly impressed by the gift of a surrender official of unknown origin, Xiong Wanquan, a green parrot.
This green parrot, which was solemnly named "Rui Bird" by Hong Xiuquan, could still speak, until after Hong Tianguifu was captured, he still mentioned this "Ray Bird" repeatedly in his confession, and he could also memorize the string of "bird language" word for word.
In the early morning of April 20, 1864, Hong Xiuquan died, and Hong Tianguifu, the "young lord", suddenly became the king of a country, however, he did not have any ability to govern the country at all, nor did he have any sense of governance, so he had to entrust the state power to his uncles Hong Renfa and Hong Renda, Li Xiucheng, and a strange Taoist priest Shen Gui. It was this process of entrusting the state with heavy responsibilities, and it was not his own doing, and Hong Tianguifu said in his later confession: "All the edicts they made were ready-made and then asked me to write them." ”
However, Hong Tianguifu did not do anything about the Lord. In the past, Hong Xiuquan would not let him eat pork or let him drink, but now, he can not be scrupulous. He could also get four boxes of ancient books and put them upstairs to read to his heart's content. Even if this was only a little better, it did not last too long, and just over fifty days after he ascended to the throne, Tianjing was attacked by the Xiang army.
After that, Hong Tianguifu left his two younger brothers and four young ladies and fled to Li Xiucheng's house, mounted the big white horse that Li Xiucheng had prepared for him, and was escorted by a group of soldiers disguised as Qing soldiers, and met Hong Renjie in Guangdezhou, Anhui. In July, Hong Tianguifu and Hong Rengui tried to enter Jiangxi to meet Li Shixian's team, but they were intercepted by Qing troops. At the end of August, Hong Tianguifu was attacked by qing troops in the middle of the night in Yangjiapai, Shicheng, Jiangxi, and the Taiping army was torn apart.
After that, Hong Tianguifu fled alone to the mountains, and after wandering in the mountains for six days, he tried to escape from the refugees. And according to Hong Tianguifu's own confession, after he was hungry on the mountain for six days, an old man dressed in white without a beard gave him a tea bowl of noodles, and then suddenly disappeared. Relying on this piece of bread, Hong Tianguifu hid on the mountain for two more days, but the white-robed and beardless old man did not appear again, and had no choice but to go down the mountain. After descending the mountain, Hong Tianguifu came to a family surnamed Tang and lied that he was from Hubei and surnamed Zhang.
The Tang family took in Hong Tianguifu and asked him to help cut the grass. In this person's home, Hong Tianguifu stayed for four days, during which time he happened to have the opportunity to cut his own hair. The young Heavenly King, like a headless fly, was eventually captured by the Qing army on September 13. After capturing Hong Tianguifu, the Qing army was very suspicious, and they could not imagine that the rebel leader they had captured was such a mentally handicapped teenager who did not distinguish between mules and horses, and did not know where he came from.
However, Hong Tianguifu "did not chaos in the face of danger", and wrote out all those "please ann chapters" in one breath, and directly wrote more than a dozen documents to prove that he was the ruler of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. In prison, he said that he wanted to live, thought of marrying his wife again in his twenties, and then Kao Zhuangyuan, pinning his hopes of survival on his "brother Tang", and he also wrote four poems to others, in which he was extremely flattering of the Qing Dynasty, and also ridiculed the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom as "long hair".
One of them reads:
The old man saw the high, and the world assisted the Qing Dynasty. Civilian and military general, hero Gai Shihao.
Another one is slightly longer, but the content is even more ridiculous:
It is difficult to follow the long hair, and it is dangerous to fly east and west. Now with my brother home day, go back to study and test Xiucai. Now I don't do long hair, I am bent on assisting the Qing Dynasty. Long live the Emperor of the Qing Dynasty, and it is always difficult for chaotic thieves to run. Now when I follow Brother Tang, I can only do my best to be respectful. I feel more for my brother's kindness, and I am glad to thank my brother for more and more.
I don't know if Hong Xiuquan would be angry and half dead if he saw these poems.
However, it was these four flattering poems, one of which was written on the day of his execution. Even if his desire to survive is so strong, what awaits him is still "Ling Chi" torture. At the mouth of Shijing Street, after 1003 knives, Ling Chi's torture finally ended. Hong Tianguifu, who was only 16 years old, was eventually killed by Ling Chi in the crowd, and the pieces of flesh cut off from his body were also bought by the crowd, while the remaining skeleton was thrown into the wilderness, and there was no place to bury...
Resources:
【History of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom" and "Heavenly Father's Poem"]