In March 1853, Hong Xiuquan led the Taiping Army to occupy the city of Nanjing, renamed Tianjing, as the capital of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and built a large-scale Tianwang Palace in the city. In order to besiege Tianjing, the Qing army set up the Jiangnan camp and the Jiangbei camp respectively, but they were successively attacked by the Taiping Army. However, in 1862, the situation changed, and after occupying Anqing, Zeng Guofan dispatched troops to plan a military operation with the main goal of recovering Nanjing.
Zeng Guoquan led the main force of the Xiang army down the river, and along the way, it reached The Yuhuatai in Nanjing on May 30, thus kicking off the Prelude to the Battle of Tianjing. Hong Xiuquan hurriedly sent someone to urge Li Xiucheng to return to help, and Li Xiucheng was attacking Shanghai. Since then, the Taiping Army has been continuously defeated, and Tianjing City has fallen into crisis. Under the strict supervision of Hong Xiuquan, Li Xiucheng had to abandon Suzhou and lead the main force to rescue.
However, Li Xiucheng also failed to change the situation of the war in Tianjing, he led more than 100,000 troops to engage the Qing army at Yuhuatai, the two sides fought fiercely for more than 40 days, and the Taiping army failed to break through the Qing defense line. Li Xiucheng led his army into the city, Li Shixian retreated to Moling Pass, and the battle to rescue Tianjing ended in failure. At that time, the army under Li Xiucheng's command was the strongest, and he failed to succeed, which meant that there was no foreign aid in Tianjing City.
After Li Xiucheng entered the city, he found that the situation in the city was very bad, due to the long-term siege of the Qing army, the supply of grain in the city was already very difficult, and Tianjing City had actually fallen into the situation of "no grain and grass in the city, and no reinforcements outside". Li Xiucheng then came to the Heavenly King's Mansion and proposed to Hong Xiuquan to "let the city not go", that is, to break through from Tianjing and move to other places in order to make a comeback. However, Hong Xiuquan was furious and severely reprimanded Li Xiucheng.
Li Xiucheng was not reconciled, and said a large paragraph to explain the actual situation one by one, but he did not expect Hong Xiuquan to roar: "I should follow god's holy will and the holy will of my heavenly brother Jesus, and be the only Allah of all nations under the world, why be afraid of it." The iron barrel of the country and the mountains, Er does not help, someone to help. Er said that there are no soldiers, and the heavenly soldiers of the Fallen are more than water, so why be afraid of those who have been demons! The time at this time was probably the end of 1863 and the beginning of 1864.
A few months later, Tianjing City was completely in a situation of no food, and Li Xiucheng came to report again, "There is no food in Hecheng, and there are many men and women who have died. Hong Xiuquan immediately ordered, "The whole city eats sweet dew, which can be healthy." The so-called "sweet dew" is the weed. On May 30, 1864, Hong Xiuquan issued his last will, "The masses are at ease, and they will go to heaven, receive heavenly soldiers from the Heavenly Father and Heavenly Brother, and secure Tianjing." ”
Two days later, Hong Xiuquan swallowed his last breath, some people said that it was a death from illness, and some people said that it was suicide. A month and a half later, the Heavenly Soldiers did not come, the Qing army came, they attacked the city of Nanjing, and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was destroyed. So the question is, why did Hong Xiuquan reject Li Xiucheng's suggestion? In fact, from Hong Xiuquan's words, we can see that he completely "went into the fire" and lost the sanity of a normal person, probably he really regarded himself as the son of God!
Regarding Hong Xiuquan's words, Li Xiucheng left many records, and Hong Xiuquan once scolded Li Xiucheng, "Er is afraid of death, he is born with the true destiny of the Lord, and he does not need soldiers to determine the unification of the world." Li Xiucheng was very helpless, he concluded: "The Heavenly King speaks of heaven and earth, and does not use state affairs as an excuse", "The affairs of the Heavenly King are to blame people for that day's words." From these words, it is not difficult for us to judge that Hong Xiuquan is no longer a normal person, he has completely fallen into his own "myth".
References: 1. "Li Xiucheng's handwriting of relatives"; 2. "Taiping Heavenly Kingdom"; 3. "Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Historical Journal"