In January 1866, King Wang of Kang led his troops to charge and kill, and fought a decisive battle with the main force of the Xiang army outside jiayingzhou, and Wang Haiyang was killed by guns because of the betrayal of the traitor Ding Sun. In February, with the king Tan Tiyuan leading the army to break through, Huang Fourteen disclosed the information to the Xiang army in advance, and the Taiping army was ambushed and the entire army was destroyed. Tan Tiyuan was seriously wounded in the battle, jumped off a cliff on horseback, and was captured by Huang Shaochun, a general of the Xiang Army and former taiping general, and sent to Guangzhou to be executed.
In the Battle of Jiaying Prefecture, the Southern Taiping Army was completely destroyed, and more than 700 large and small officials were captured, and they had no ability to resist the Qing army. The fierce defeat in the Battle of Jiaying Prefecture originated from the Battle of Zhangzhou, Wang Haiyang saw death and could not be saved, Li Shixian's hundreds of thousands of soldiers and horses were completely destroyed, and the Taiping army was scattered, which was the starting point of the demise of the Taiping Army in the south. It can be said that Wang Haiyang suffered the consequences, pit his teammates, and finally pit himself.
In July 1864, the Xiang army "Jizi Battalion" conquered Tianjing, the young king Hong Tianguifu fled, and the loyal king Li Xiucheng was captured, but the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom did not perish, and hundreds of thousands of Taiping troops were still active in the north and south of the great river. In the north, it was mainly Lai Wenguang and the first king Fan Ruzeng, but they did not have many troops under their command, so they could only unite with the "Twist Army" and fight with the Eight Banners and Horses.
The Southern Taiping Army, with its very strong strength, is the hope for the comeback of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Li Shixian, King Kang, Wang Haiyang and other princes did not participate in the defense of Tianjing, and their strength was not damaged, and the total number of soldiers and horses under their command was more than 300,000. Relative to the north, the strength of the Taiping Army in the south made the Qing Dynasty restless.
In August, the young king Hong Tianguifu broke through from Huzhou, planning to go to Jiangxi to defect to Li Shixian and Wang Haiyang, and then go to Hubei to join Chen Decai and establish a base in Guanzhong. However, Li Shixian was unruly, and he was already dissatisfied with the Hong family, so he directly left Jianchang and went south to Fujian and Guangdong.
With 300,000 troops heading south, the Qing forces in Fujian and Guangdong were relatively weak defensively, and Li Shixian and Wang Haiyang made very smooth progress, winning successive battles. In October, Li Shixian conquered the capital of Zhangzhou in Fujian Province, and divided his troops to occupy the nearby counties and towns, laying a new base area. At this time, the former "foreign gun team" tough general, the American Bai Qiwen wanted to come to the rescue, and was thrown into the water by Li Hongzhang halfway and drowned.
After the capture of Zhangzhou, the Qing Dynasty was very panicked, so it ordered Lin Wencha, the viceroy of Fujian, to lead troops to encircle and suppress it. In November, Lin Wencha led 2,000 Green Battalion soldiers and more than 10,000 "regimental training" armed forces to Zhangzhou in an attempt to retake the city. Lin Wencha was a famous general of the Qing Dynasty, who made his fortune by suppressing the rebel army and was very strong in combat. However, Lin Wencha was too light on the enemy, and he thought that the Taiping Army was just a ragtag group, and the result was very unlucky.
Lin Wencha rushed all the way to kill, and the Taiping army first set up an ambush at Wansong Pass and rushed down from both sides of the mountain. The Qing army was ambushed, the position was in chaos, and Lin Wencha was killed by guns and shells in the battle, and was killed on the battlefield. The Taiping Army took advantage of the situation to pursue, and the "regimental training" forces were annihilated by thousands of people, and the Fujian Qing army was terrified.
The Battle of Wansongguan showed that without the assistance of the Xiang Army, the Green Camp was vulnerable. To this end, Cixi hurriedly dispatched the Xiang army into Fujian to fight, under the unified command of Zuo Zongtang, the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang. Zuo Zongtang and Li Shixian, opponents during the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom War, the two fought many times, winning and losing each other, but Zuo Zongtang was more powerful. The Xiang army entered Fujian and came straight to Zhangzhou, and Li Shixian felt pressure.
In December 1864, the Xiang army entered Fujian, and Liu Dian, Huang Shaochun, Wang Debang, Gao Liansheng, Kang Guoqi and other tough generals all followed, and the lineup was very luxurious. However, Li Shixian was guarding a dangerous place, did not easily fight with the Xiang army, and specifically attacked the weak points of the Xiang army, although Zuo Zongtang could fight, but the progress was not smooth.
Against the Taiping Army in the city, Zuo Zongtang's tactics were no different from those of his old friend Hu Linyi, that is, to engage in "fortress" tactics, besiege the city, and consume opponents with strong logistical advantages. In this way, the Taiping Army once again faced a dilemma, and after five months of siege, Li Shixian felt pressure.
Seeing the truth in the tribulation, Li Shixian asked Wang Haiyang to lead troops to break the siege, cut off the grain transportation line of the Xiang Army, and attack Zuo Zongtang with the Taiping Army in the city, and the battle was decided. Wang Haiyang had his own plans, he did not want to be subject to Li Shixian, but wanted to control all the people and horses of the Southern Taiping Army, so he ignored Li Shixian's request for help. Li Shixian sent emissaries twice, but Wang Haiyang not only ignored them, but also directly led his troops to Guangdong and watched Li Shixian's defeat and death.
In May 1865, the Taiping Army ran out of grain and grass, and Li Shixian abandoned Zhangzhou and broke through. Zuo Zongtang set up an ambush halfway through, and the Taiping Army was hungry and tired, and was not an opponent of the Xiang Army at all. In the fierce battle, Li Shixian fell off his horse, the Xiang army took advantage of the situation to kill, Li Shixian personally killed several people, and then under the cover of his own soldiers, he escaped from the water, and the entire army was destroyed.
After fleeing the battlefield, Li Shixian entered the deep mountains and old forests to avoid the pursuit of the Qing army. However, Li Shixian still did not give up the battle, he shaved his hair, disguised himself as a beggar, and went out day and night to Guangdong to meet Wang Haiyang. Who knows, Wang Haiyang was afraid that Li Shixian would hold Zhangzhou responsible for the defeat, so he assassinated Li Shixian at night, executed Li Shixian, and said that he had defected and surrendered, and he was helpless.
At the Battle of Zhangzhou, Wang Haiyang, the king of Kang, saw death and did not save, and sat and watched the defeat of Li Shixian, the king of the squire, which was the starting point for the fall of the Southern Taiping Army. Li Shixian, the younger brother of Li Xiucheng the Prince of Zhong, was also one of the "five main generals" of the later period, and could nominally command the three armies to coordinate the actions of the Taiping Army in the south. Unfortunately, Wang Haiyang not only failed to rescue Zhangzhou, but also assassinated Li Shixian, causing the Taiping army to be distracted, and many generals surrendered to the Qing Dynasty, which is the reason for the disastrous defeat at the Battle of Jiayingzhou.
Bibliography: History of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom