Sasha today in its history.
Author: Sasha
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【Sasha Lecture Hall No. 1612】 (Lecture 514 of the Military Series)
Why did Hong Xiuquan seal up to 2700 princes? On July 22, 1864, Li Xiucheng, the loyal king of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, was captured at Fangshan, a suburb of Nanjing.
Why did the king of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom suddenly flood into disaster?
In ancient times, the title of king and knight had a very great significance, far more cattle than being an official!
In the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Dong Zhuo offered a reward for cao cao who had arrested and assassinated him, and promised a reward of thousands of gold and a marquis of ten thousand households.
A thousand gold is to give money, naturally it is very good.
Money is not well taken care of, and it will soon be squandered, but the ten thousand households are different.
Ten thousand households are things that can be passed on to their descendants, and they are very stable incomes.
The so-called Ten Thousand Households, literally understood, is the tax revenue of ten thousand households, which is handed over to you instead of the government.
Everyone pays attention to ten thousand households, not ten thousand people. Even if calculated according to the calculation of four or five people in a household, ten thousand households are equivalent to forty or fifty thousand people to support you, which is equivalent to the financial income of a county today.
Today, China's most remote and impoverished counties, even if there are only a few tens of thousands of people, the annual fiscal revenue is more than 100 million, generally starting from hundreds of millions.
It can be seen that the ten thousand households are very cattle, with a fixed income every year, not to mention other privileges.
And the Marquis of Wanhu is still only a marquis, and if it is a prince, it is completely different.
The king of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom is very similar to the Iron Hat King of the Qing Dynasty.
The so-called Iron Hat King is passed down from generation to generation, and the title will not be reduced.
Many princes of the Qing Dynasty, each generation is to be demoted, generally after a few generations will cancel the knighthood, in order to reduce the financial burden of the state.
The Iron Hat King is not bound by this, and it will not exist until the Manchu Qing perishes.
The Iron Hat King of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, in addition to the luxurious mansion given by the emperor, it was very easy to become a high-ranking official, and there were excellent treatments: 10,000 taels of silver and 10,000 yuan of lu rice.
These were also state appropriations, and the Iron Hat King generally had large tracts of land rewarded by the emperor, which allowed peasants to pay rent.
In principle, the King of the Iron Hat or the Prince of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom is synonymous with the powerful, glorious and rich for generations.
Even if ordinary people are indifferent to fame and fortune and do not seek luxury, they will definitely consider their children and grandchildren.
As long as you can be crowned king, you can benefit future generations.
In Hong Xiuquan's religious conception, only God Jehovah is the emperor, and no one else can be called a king.
In the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the king was the person of the highest status, and he reached the top. Hong Xiuquan himself is just a heavenly king.
During most of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the status of the king was extremely high, definitely no less than that of the Iron Hat King of the Manchu Qing.
When Yong'an was crowned king in 1851, there were only 6 kings in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom: Yang Xiuqing was the Eastern King, Xiao Chaogui was the Western King, Feng Yunshan was the Southern King, Wei Changhui was the Northern King, Shi Dakai was the Wing King, and Hong Xiuquan was the Heavenly King.
Hong Xiuquan is the supreme leader in name, but in fact he is a religious leader with a name.
In terms of real power, Yang Xiuqing, the Eastern King, had the highest status and could control other kings.
And Yang Xiuqing was also commanding the Taiping Army in battle, and his status could not be low.
Except for Yang Xiuqing and Hong Xiuquan, the other kings were the first class of the Western King, the second class of the Southern and Northern Kings, and the third class of the Wing King.
The reason why the Western King has a higher status is related to Xiao Chaogui, who often claims to be a "heavenly brother". In Hong Xiuquan's religious theory, Jesus is the Heavenly Brother, he is the Heavenly Brother, and it is obvious that Xiao Chaogui's status cannot be low.
Moreover, Xiao Chaogui and the actual leader Yang Xiuqing were friends or in-laws, and the relationship was extremely close.
There were only 6 kings in total, but 2 soon died.
On the way to Nanjing, Xiao Chaogui, the King of the West, was killed in Changsha and feng Yunshan, the King of the South, was killed in the battle of Jeonju, leaving 4 kings.
In 1854, Qin Rigang was also named the King of Yan, Hu Yihuang was the King of Yu, and the Fourth King of Yan and Yu.
Not long after, the two men were deposed from the throne.
From this point until the Tianjing Incident, the number of kings did not change, only 4 people.
It can be said that the gold content of the kings of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom is extremely high, much more cattle than the 12 iron hat kings of the Manchu Qing.
The king of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was well treated and full of style.
When The Heavenly King Hong Xiuquan went out, there were as many as 64 caravans; the Eastern King Yang Xiuqing had a slightly less caravan, with 48 people; the Northern King's caravans had 32 people, and the Wing King's caravans had 16 people.
As far as the palanquin itself is concerned, the palanquin carried by eight people is enough. So many caravans, just to put up the shelves.
In addition, there are many treatments for the king, some of which are very exaggerated, such as the standard of marrying a wife and taking a concubine.
In 1854, less than a year after the capital Tianjing, Yang Xiuqing married 36 women. Before he died 2 years later, there were already 56 women.
This is not to say that Yang Xiuqing does not want to marry again, it is really physically unbearable. His personal doctor believes that Yang Xiuqing suffered from severe kidney deficiency symptoms due to excessive indulgence, and had to rely on longan and other aphrodisiac kidney tonic drugs to maintain.
At first glance, this doesn't seem like a big deal. You know, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom can abstain from sex. In the city of Nanjing, sexual relations occur between husband and wife, the old brother lights the sky lantern, and the new brother is beheaded.
This position of high power can be passed on to future generations without restriction.
Obviously, being a king in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom is still very cattle.
During the Tianjing Incident, the king of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom underwent great changes.
During the infighting between Hong Yang, The Eastern King Yang Xiuqing and the Northern King Wei Changhui were killed, and the Wing King Shi Dakai broke away from the Taiping Army.
There are only 2 kings left, and the wing king still has to run.
When Shi Dakai did not make a public break, Hong Xiuquan appointed his brother Hong Renfa as the King of An and Hong Renda as the King of Fu to blackmail Shi Dakai.
Not long after, Shi Dakai and Hong Xiuquan broke up completely, and the latter fell into a state of serious paranoia, and even his own people did not believe it.
He quickly cut off Hong Renfa and Hong Renda, and it seemed that in the future he would be solipsistic, leaving only one king.
Unfortunately, Hong Xiuquan's ability could not be compared with yang Xiuqing, the eastern king, and he could not stabilize the overall situation politically and militarily.
In desperation, he could only continue to be crowned king in order to stabilize the situation in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
In 1859, Hong Renjie, who had a good relationship with foreigners, was named the King of Gan, hoping that he would carry out internal political reforms and establish good relations with foreigners, but he quickly failed.
Subsequently, Hong Xiuquan made several key generals king, Chen Yu became the king of Ying, Li Xiu became the king of loyalty, Meng De'en became the king of Praise, Li Shixian was the king of service, Yang Fuqing was the auxiliary king, and Lin Shaozhang was the king of Zhang.
Under the military inferiority, it is necessary for the king to stabilize the generals.
By 1861, the king of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was still limited, with a total of 10 people.
Only from then on, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom began to take a serious downward spiral.
In September 1861, the Xiang Army conquered Anqing, and the Taiping Army defenders Ye Yunlai and Wu Dingcai and more than 16,000 people of the whole army were all killed.
Anqing is the western part of Nanjing, the most important strategic fulcrum. Once Anqing is lost, Nanjing will certainly not be able to save it. Under these circumstances, the Taiping army's hearts fluctuated, and many defected to the enemy, or directly deserted and fled home.
Seeing that the failure was in front of him, Hong Xiuquan began to frantically crown the king.
Originally, being crowned king was the supreme honor, and even a famous general with great military achievements did not have a chance.
By 1864, in just 3 years, Hong Xiuquan had sealed more than 2,000 kings, to the point where Wang Ye was walking all over the place.
Why?
Hong Xiuquan tried his best to write a blank cheque to win over his subordinates, so that he could fight for him.
These more than 2,000 kings are also divided into ranks.
Huang Wenying, the king of Zhao, said that the king was still divided into five classes: Hong Xiuquan, Hong Rengui, Shi Dakai, and others belonged to the first class and manipulated the government; the king of Ying, the king of loyalty, and the king of the attendants who held the military power were second-class kings; the king of Kang, the king of blockade, and the king of listening to the king were the third class kings; the king of compassion was a fourth-class king; and the fifth-class kings were all called kings.
In the last years of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the economy was already very decaying, and most of the kings and the common people's lives were not much different.
In fact, it is useless for Hong Xiuquan to arbitrarily crown the king, and no one is a fool.
To use the line in "Garland on the Mountain": The battle was given to an official who sent him to death!
On the contrary, the emergence of these more than 2,000 kings accelerated the collapse of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
Heavenly Dynasty, it's over!
statement:
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