The six-dimensional pictures of emperors of all dynasties were exposed, and the ancestors panicked

Chapter 789: The Embers of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom

Tang Dynasty and Gaozong period
Li Zhi thought the two words "Tongzhi" were really wonderful.

"It's much better than the reign titles of Tiansheng and Mingdao."

Changsun Wuji also felt so.

Because the beauty of these two words can only be understood intuitively, and each has its own interpretation.

In the eyes of the Empress Dowager, the two palaces rule together.

From the perspective of his subjects, the ruler and his subjects rule together.

From the perspective of the people, everyone is united.

Together we can achieve the best governance, which is enough to rally the people's hearts.

"There are still experts in this court."

An era name can be interpreted in any way.

……

[After the first year of the Tongzhi reign, the two Empress Dowagers nominally ruled the country from behind the scenes, but in reality, they handed over everything to Yi Xin.]

[Yixin presided over the Grand Council as the Prince Regent and controlled all government affairs. "The orders he received were the orders of the Grand Council. The edicts he wrote were the edicts of the Grand Council."]

【The format of the military council's letters to the emperor also changed.】

[The Military Affairs Office sent a letter to the court, with the words "Written by the Prince of State and Minister of Military Affairs" written at the beginning, highlighting Yi Xin's political status. ]

[At this time, the two palaces entrusted all major affairs to Yi Xin. Cixi was also "cautious and cautious, and was not willing to take on major powers openly. But she paid attention to everything in order to gain experience in politics and academics."]

【Yixin controlled the inner court, the outer court, and the royal family, and his power was unprecedented in the Qing Dynasty.】

……

Qing Dynasty and Qianlong period
Qianlong slowly closed his eyes.

He prohibited the prince from joining the Grand Council in order to ensure that the imperial power would not fall into the hands of others.

"I have calculated everything."

I didn't expect this situation to happen.

……

On the canopy.

Yi Xin sat upright in the lobby of the Grand Council, with memorials on his desk piled like a small mountain.

He picked up a letter and found it was an urgent report from the Governor of Zhejiang.

"Taiping Army..."

Yi Xin looked at the memorial and turned to the blank space at the end.

There are two red-lettered comments from the Empress Dowagers:
『Prince's Office』

Yi Xin closed the letter and raised the corners of his mouth slightly.

……

【Military achievements: conquered the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.】

【After the Tianjing Incident, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was severely damaged and there was no general in the court. 】

【Hong Xiuquan learned from his mistakes and promoted the young general Chen Yu to be the commander of the front army and Li Xiu to be the commander of the rear army.】

[In September 1858, Chen Yucheng and Li Xiucheng broke through the Qing army's Jiangbei camp.]

[In November, Li Xiucheng led his troops westward and annihilated thousands of elite Hunan troops in Sanhe Town. The Taiping Army recovered many lost territories in northern Anhui, southern Anhui and northern Jiangxi, and lifted the military blockade of the Qing army.]

[In 1862, Chen Yucheng was captured by local militiamen in Shouzhou, Henan Province, and was killed shortly afterwards.]

[Just when Chen Yucheng was defeated, Li Xiucheng led his army to attack Shanghai, and Li Hongzhang led the Huai Army to reinforce. ]

……

On the canopy.

A minister with a thin figure and bright eyes looked at the soldiers below the stage.

A large yellow flag stood behind him.

"plum"

……

【Li Hongzhang was the son of Li Wen'an, a famous Anhui scholar.】

【Li Wen'an was Zeng Guofan's classmate in the imperial examination. After Li Hongzhang passed the imperial examination, he was sent to Beijing by his father to study under Zeng Guofan.】

[After the Taiping Rebellion broke out, Li Hongzhang first returned to his hometown with his father to organize militia, and then became a staff member of Anhui Governor Fu Ji. Soon after, he joined Zeng Guofan's shogunate. ]

In the 1861th year of Emperor Xianfeng's reign (), with the help of Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang expanded and reorganized the Anhui militia. He formed the Huai Army with well-trained and well-paid militiamen according to the organization of the Hunan Army, which became another armed force to suppress the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

……

{There is actually no essential difference between the Huai Army and the Xiang Army. Basically, from the Xiang Army to the Guo Army, the style and concept are the same.}
{For example, when the Hunan Army first started, it had good spirit and discipline, and strong fighting capacity. Later, as its numbers grew and its mission became bigger, the Hunan Army degenerated.}
{After the recovery of Nanjing, Zeng Guofan himself admitted that the Hunan Army was in a state of decline, so he dismissed many of them.}
{In addition, the Hunan Army was full of family and hometown concepts. The soldiers only knew that they had direct superiors, but did not know that there was a supreme commander, let alone a country.}
{Once, Zeng Guoquan went back to his hometown to recruit soldiers and temporarily handed over the existing troops to Zeng Guofan for command. These troops did not follow the rules. Zeng Guofan had no choice but to urge Guoquan to return to the camp as soon as possible. So the Hunan Army was the beginning of a private army.}
{The spirit of the Xiang Army was later passed on to Li Hongzhang's Huai Army, and the Huai Army was later passed on to Yuan Shikai's Beiyang Army.}
{We know that the Beiyang warlords since the Republic of China used their private armies to divide the country and hinder unification. The root cause is that the old law of military management was fundamentally flawed.}
……

Great Qin.

Ying Zheng looked at the words on the sky.

"Yuan Shikai..."

"The Beiyang Army..."

Liu Bang put his hands in his sleeves and shook his head:

"It's really not surprising at all."

“It’s still the same old path in the end.”

……

The period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty
"I agree with the previous statement, but I disagree with the conclusion."

Huo Qubing held his knees and said solemnly:

"The ills of the army in its later years were not the drawbacks of the old method of training soldiers, but an inevitable choice made as things developed."

“New things are always full of vitality, but they will become old as they age.”

"He said that the Hunan Army was in its twilight years, while the Huai Army was in its infancy. It was just a matter of time."

Liu Che leaned against the soft pillow and looked at Huo Qubing.

This set of thinking...indeed, Sun Tzu and Lao Tzu have some similarities.

"Everything has two sides. The military's duty is to obey their superiors."

Huo Qubing raised a finger and spoke eloquently:

"There is nothing wrong with only obeying your own general. On the contrary, an army without a strong relationship between the general and his subordinates will have no fighting power."

"The low combat effectiveness caused by the Song Dynasty's military system is really heartbreaking."

"So whether you want to have combat effectiveness or prevent separatism depends on the trade-offs you make at the time."

……

Qing Dynasty, Kangxi Period
Twisting the jade ring, Kangxi found himself calmer than he had expected.

After all, when the Hunan Army appeared, the basic trend became clear.

It was also the premise for the demise of the Qing Dynasty.

Kangxi felt that he could accept it.

As for the foreigners...

"Foreigners are not a serious threat to us."

Yinzhen said:
"He only flaunts his power for a short time, but it is nothing more than a lack of knowledge of the national conditions."

"Because I don't know, I'm not prepared."

"We are sending people to the sea to find out the truth. We are not ashamed to ask questions and join forces with the treasures of the Qing Dynasty. The so-called coalition is nothing but a joke."

"The bottom line is that if the system doesn't change, everything will return to square one."

Yinzhen looked at Kangxi and pointed out the biggest problem in history.

"When people rule, there will always be a time when they slack off."

"Official aura will never be eradicated."

“How can we ensure that chaos does not arise internally?”

Kangxi nodded, then looked at his son who would accomplish a great cause in the future, and said seriously:

"Then what do you think?"

Yinzhen licked his lips, which were cracked due to thirst.

“We can’t be confined to the land.”

"Land will eventually run out, but annexation will never disappear."

"We need to find another way out, and that way..."

Yinzhen raised his head and met Kangxi's slightly gloomy eyes.

“The Song Dynasty passed through here.”

……

Qing Dynasty, Guangxu Period
"Yuan Shikai..."

Guangxu frowned.

He had heard Kang Youwei mention this before.

It seems that he has 7,000 newly-built armies...

Cixi's eyelids twitched.

So is this person a reformist or a conservative?

Cixi glanced at the thoughtful emperor again.

No matter what faction he belongs to, once he said this he can only be a member of this palace’s faction.

As for whether to secede or not...

She has confidence as long as she is there.

They can't make any big waves.

……

[However, when the two sides were fighting, the intervention of the great powers reversed the war situation. ]

[Initially, foreign invaders maintained a neutral attitude towards the war between the Qing court and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.]

[However, after the Second Opium War, the British and French invaders decided to join forces with the Qing Dynasty to suppress the Taiping Rebellion in order to protect their vested interests.]

[In the first year of the Tongzhi reign (February 1862), the "Chinese and Foreign Defense Office" was established in Shanghai, responsible for the unified planning of the defense of Shanghai.]

[The British and French troops stationed in Shanghai have reached several thousand. The foreign rifle team was expanded to 5,000 people and renamed the "Ever-Victorious Army". Together with the Qing army, they attacked the Taiping Army around Shanghai.]

……

Yanhan·Lingdi Period
Liu Hong looked at his ministers and said sternly, "We have to be honest about this. I allowed the Xiongnu to suppress their rebellion because they had a good attitude at the time, right?"

The ministers looked at their noses with their eyes and their hearts with their noses.

After Yu Fuluo stayed in the Central Plains, when the Han Dynasty declined and the world was in chaos, this Xiongnu tribe became bandits and robbed people everywhere.

He joined forces with the Baibo bandits in Xihe, destroyed Taiyuan and Henei, and plundered various counties.

We are all outsiders, there is no difference.

……

Tang Dynasty - Daizong Period
Li Yu's head ached from watching this.

How similar this scene is.

Asking outsiders to quell the rebellion, what will be the final price?
He still can't forget what the Uighur soldiers did.

Is it really worth paying such a price to quell the rebellion?
……

Song Dynasty: Ningzong Period
Zhao Kuo pinched his beard and thought.

Rationally speaking, he should not join Mongolia.

But from a perceptual point of view.

As long as the Jin Dynasty is not destroyed, the shame of Jingkang will exist forever.

Revenge? Or subjugation?

Zhao Kuo began to think seriously.

……

[At the beginning of the first year of the Tongzhi reign (1862), Li Xiucheng led five armies to leave Hangzhou and set out from Suzhou, attacking Shanghai for the second time by water and land.]

【He warned foreign invaders along the way that it would be best for them not to interfere with the Taiping Army's actions, and that they should love each other and not interfere with each other. If they aided the rebels in their evil deeds, they would be like an egg hitting a rock and would bring about their own destruction.】

【Li Hongzhang's Huai Army united with the foreign invaders and launched a frenzied counterattack against them.】

[The two sides fought fiercely in Nanqiao Town, Fengxian, and the French naval commander Brod was shot and killed. The Taiping Army eventually had to withdraw from Nanqiao Town.]

[In mid-April of the first year of the Tongzhi reign (1862), Li Xiucheng personally led a large army to launch a counterattack against the invading army, and successively recovered the county towns of Jiading and Qingpu.]

[In Qingpu, the deputy commander of the "Ever-Victorious Army", Falsde, was captured alive. ]

[In early May, when the Taiping Army approached the outskirts of Shanghai, the invaders hid in Shanghai in fear and did not dare to fight.]

Zuo Zongtang wrote to Zeng Guofan, saying: "The bandits from Qingpu and Jiading came in droves, and the foreign troops fled. The foreigners were afraid of the Taiping rebels, just like we were. We left them alone and left, revealing our true feelings."

……

Ming Dynasty and Hongxi Period
"Just say it!"

Zhu Zhanji slammed his fist on his palm, with a look of regret on his face.

"How can it be impossible to hit it?!"

"Foreigners are not invincible!"

Big Fatty sat on the chair, breathing heavily, and Queen Zhang wiped his sweat with a handkerchief.

"It is true that foreigners are afraid of the Taiping Rebellion, because it is true."

Zhu Gaochi took a sip of tea and said:

"But to say that you suddenly give up and quit is just looking at the skin and bones but not the flesh and blood."

Zhu Zhanji is not Zhu Qizhen, he is not stupid.

As soon as Zhu Gaochi mentioned it, he reacted.

"Dad, I understand now. The so-called joint defense between China and foreign countries actually means that the Qing government and the foreigners have the same interests in jointly defending the trading ports."

"But we can borrow troops to help suppress the Taiping Army in areas outside the ports."

"There are many contradictions between the two sides, and there are all kinds of suspicions and doubts."

……

Qing Dynasty, Daoguang Period
Daoguang was mending his clothes, muttering:

"If the foreigners were to engage in suppressing the Taiping Rebellion, it would lead to a widespread war."

"In this way, we can just sit back and watch, and pass all the burden and consumption on to them."

"In essence, the foreigners and the Qing government were not of the same mind."

Du Shoutian bowed to Daoguang and said:
"It would be fine to borrow foreign soldiers to help defend Shanghai and protect the people and property of Chinese and foreigners."

"It is not acceptable to borrow foreign troops to help suppress Suzhou and recover China's territory."

Daoguang looked at the patched dragon robe and said nothing for a long time.

Du Shoutian had no idea what the emperor was thinking, so he could only stand there quietly.

"you say……"

Daoguang suddenly said:

"Can the Qing Dynasty and the Taiping Army plot against each other and play the good cop and the bad cop?"

Du Shoutian was confused.

He can recognize every single word, so why can't he recognize them when they are put together?

Daoguang remained silent as he looked at Xianfeng who had not responded in the chat group.

The only reason he thought of this was because he saw Lao Liu's ability.

There is Lao Liu as a backup.

Why couldn't Yizhu emulate Emperor Guangwu of Han?
Heart to Heart: Bronze Horse Emperor

……

[Just when Li Xiucheng achieved a major victory in the suburbs of Shanghai, Zeng Guoquan led the Hunan Army to besiege Tianjing, and the situation in Tianjing began to become completely critical.]

[Hong Xiuquan issued three orders in one day urging Li Xiucheng to return to support Tianjing. Li Xiucheng had to temporarily abandon the plan to capture Shanghai and led his troops back to Tianjing.]

[From August 20th to October 5th, Li Xiucheng led his army to fight bloody battles with the Hunan Army outside Tianjing for 46 days. The Hunan Army was almost unable to support it, and Zeng Guoquan was injured in the face.]

[Since the Taiping Army was short of food and fodder, and had no winter clothing, it was difficult for them to persist in the offensive, so Li Xiucheng took the initiative to stop the offensive and, in accordance with Hong Xiuquan's orders, crossed the river to attack northern Anhui, marched towards Hubei, and then captured Wuhan and occupied the rear of the Hunan Army, forcing the Hunan Army to evacuate Tianjing.]

In the spring of the second year of the Tongzhi reign (1863), Li Xiucheng moved to northern Anhui. Unexpectedly, there was a famine in northern Anhui, and many Taiping Army soldiers died of starvation and disease.

[In May, the Huai Army took action again and captured Yuhuatai. Hong Xiuquan once again urgently ordered Li Xiucheng to return to rescue. When Li Xiucheng led his army to cross the river and return to the south bank, the river water surged, and coupled with the shortage of food, more than 100,000 soldiers were killed or injured, and the morale of the soldiers declined. ]

……

The period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty
Liu Che looked at the battlefield where all kinds of unexpected events occurred and felt that the Taiping Army was doomed.

"The Taiping Army..."

The emperor felt mixed emotions for a moment.

Logically speaking, the Taiping Army were bandits, and every emperor disliked their challenge to imperial power.

But he also didn't like the Qing Dynasty because it did not inherit the Han Dynasty's clothing.

However, we cannot but acknowledge the orthodox position of the Qing Dynasty. After all, such a large area as the Western Regions was actually controlled by the Qing Dynasty.

Complex, Liu Che's mood was complicated.

"It would be great if it was the Han Dynasty..."

……

[While Li Xiucheng was fighting hard outside Tianjing, Li Hongzhang led the Huai Army and the "Ever-Victorious Army" to counterattack.]

[The situation began to become seriously unfavorable to the Taiping Army.]

[In the first month of the second year of the Tongzhi reign (1863), British officer Gordon led the "Ever-Victorious Army" and joined forces with the Huai Army to capture Taicang, Kunshan, Wujiang and other places in the summer of that year, and advanced towards Suzhou.]

[In August, troops were sent to besiege Wuxi.]

[On the second day of November, Wuxi fell and the Taiping Army's retreat was cut off.]

[On the 21st day of the first month of the third year of the Tongzhi reign, Zeng Guoquan led 50,000 Hunan troops to capture Tianbao City on the top of Zijin Mountain.]

[On February 24, the Hunan Army stationed outside Taiping Gate and Shen Ce Gate, forming a siege on Tianjing.]

[On March 1864, , the Huai Army fought jointly by land and sea and captured Chendu Bridge in the southwest of Changzhou, cutting off the Taiping Army's access to Jintan and Danyang.]

……

On the canopy.

Wearing a red scarf and with a thin face, Hong Xiuquan no longer has the vigor and vitality of his past.

He looked through the palace gate at the rising sun in the sky.

Then he slowly closed his eyes.

There were cries of grief in the hall.

In the blink of an eye.

Tianjing was engulfed in flames.

The Qing army raised their butcher knives again.

Just like when we entered the country that year.

……

【Food is running out in Tianjing City, and the situation is difficult.】

[Li Xiucheng asked Hong Xiuquan to issue an order to raise grain in order to stabilize the army and appease the people. Hong Xiuquan issued an edict saying: "Everyone in the city should eat sweet dew, which can help maintain health."]

【Li Xiucheng advised Hong Xiuquan to release the people in the city because there was no food in the city.】

[Hong Xiuquan rebuked Li Xiucheng: "You have disregarded the dignity of the state and dared to allow my brothers and sisters to travel abroad. Everyone should obey my order and prepare more sweet dew, which can fill your stomach and prolong your life. I have no right to make such a request."]

[In February, Zeng Guoquan surrounded Nanjing and used ladders to attack the city, but failed.]

[In March, more than ten tunnels were dug outside Chaoyang, Shen Ce, and Jinchuan Gates in preparation for knocking down the city walls. The Taiping Army organized forces to dig and destroy the city from inside, while speeding up the construction of Yuecheng so that they could continue to fight to the death after the city walls collapsed.]

[On April 1864, , Heavenly King Hong Xiuquan died of illness at the age of .]

【Five days later, the entire court supported the young Heavenly King Hong Tianguifu to ascend the throne, and the Loyal King Li Xiucheng took charge of all military and political affairs.】

【But by this time, the Taiping Army was already doomed. 】

[One month later, the Hunan Army captured Tianjing.]

[Under Li Xiucheng's cover, the Young Heavenly King managed to escape, but Li Xiucheng himself was captured and sacrificed.]

[After the massive looting, the Hunan Army set fire to the capital, with flames rising to the sky throughout the city, which continued to burn until July 25.]

[The Taiping Army soldiers in the city either died on the battlefield, were captured and killed, or set themselves on fire. Among the more than 100,000 people, not a single one surrendered.]

[The Hunan Army besieged the city for more than two years, during which time more than 10,000 people died of disease and 9,000 died in battle, also paying a high price.]

[In October, Hong Tianguifu, Hong Rengan and others were captured in Shicheng, Jiangxi, and were killed in Nanchang in November.]

[The remaining Taiping forces continued to fight for about a year before being suppressed by Zeng Guofan's Xiang Army and Li Hongzhang's Huai Army.]

【At this point, the Taiping Rebellion came to an end. 】

(End of this chapter)