"Heroes who do not judge success or failure" throughout the ages, although some people have suffered defeats, they have enjoyed praise in history, because their starting point is good, and the spirit he has left behind is worthy of admiration. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, when the great powers invaded, the people who were still suffering and wanted to live a down-to-earth life, Shi Dakai, who came from a rich peasant family, saw that the world was unfair, so he donated all his family property, participated in the Jintian Uprising, and was named the main general of the left army and the "wing king".
The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was a peasant war of unprecedented scale in the history of our country and even in the history of the world, when the Qing Dynasty was corrupt in the official arena and the people's livelihood was in difficulty, and it was not necessarily wrong for them to expose the uprising, and later generations also gave praise to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, believing that they were saving the lives of the people.
However, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom could not escape the word "decay", in 1953, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom set the capital jinling, changed its name to Tianjing, the kings began to enjoy themselves, widely selected beautiful women, destroyed the people's houses in order to build the royal palace, and took the wealth of the national treasury for themselves, but only Shi Dakai cleaned himself, never did these things, never deviated from the original intention.
Therefore, Zuo Zongtang calmly commented: "Cunning and humble, known as the heart of a group of thieves, its wisdom is above the thieves, and looking at its deeds, it is quite important to win people's hearts, and it is urgent to seek talents, and it is not very attached to the cult slang, it is the suzerainty of thieves and I am afraid of it." ”
Shi Dakai participated in the uprising, the picture is a moment of pleasure, he first considered the situation of others, at that time the people were still in the depths of the water, Shi Dakai's task has not yet been completed, how can he stop his own steps?
Shi Dakai made many military achievements, and the great battles with Zeng Guofan in Jiujiang and Hukou were particularly famous, the Xiang army was defeated and could not be defeated, zeng Guofan, as the commander, wanted to apologize for his sins with death, but was rescued by his subordinates. In the author's opinion, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom can last for 14 years, which has a lot to do with Shi Dakai.
In 1856, the Tianjing Incident occurred, the Eastern King Yang Xiuqing was killed, and his subordinates were even more tragically killed, shi Dakai, who was staying at the front, rushed back to stop it after hearing about this, and reprimanded the Northern King Wei Changhui for killing innocents indiscriminately, but Wei Changhui classified Shi Dakai as the Eastern King's Party, and Shi Dakai escaped from Tianjing.
However, Shi Dakai, whose moral character and ability are on the line, has already won the support of all the military and the people, and is revered as the "righteous king", Shi Dakai may not have the intention of seizing power, he knows that infighting is not beneficial to the development of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and it has quickly stabilized people's hearts, but this scene makes the Heavenly King Hong Xiuquan feel threatened.
The following year, in order to avoid further infighting, Shi Dakai left Tianjing and went to the hinterland of Sichuan, intending to preserve his strength here, but the internal changes in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom had been learned by the Qing army, and in May 1863, Shi Dakai and his troops arrived at the Dadu River, but fell into a desperate situation.
Shi Dakai was embattled, and his success or failure was already very obvious, so he took the initiative to negotiate with the Qing army and was willing to exchange his own death for a way to follow the generals of the three armies, but Shi Dakai's move was quite controversial by later generations, and some people thought that the result of his greedy life and surrender to the enemy was delayed.
Even if this was not the case, Shi Dakai was obstinate, became an army of his own, was too conceited, and credulously believed in the Qing army, and had illusions about it, and as a result, the Qing army betrayed his faith, except for three hundred old and young people who survived, all were killed, and the fate of 2,000 brothers confirmed that he was indeed stupid.
Is Shi Dakai stupid? In the author's opinion, it is not necessarily, circulating in the folk sayings, Shi Dakai is considered to be "the most perfect image of the peasant uprising in China", but the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom has decayed internally, the target has deteriorated, Hong Xiuquan can no longer tolerate Shi Dakai, who still maintains a positive image, and Shi Dakai cannot be an enemy of Hong Xiuquan, nor does he want to die at the hands of Hong Xiuquan, let alone seek perfection, so he has to leave.
Shi Dakai's enemy is the Qing Dynasty, the Qing court also regards the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom as a traitor, after Shi Dakai was delayed, the taiping heavenly kingdom's regime was quickly flattened by the Qing army, although the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom had undesirable places in the later period, and eventually withdrew from the historical stage, but this also foreshadowed the decaying Qing Dynasty, and finally it would also end.