In the second year of Tongzhi (1863), Li Hongzhang, a famous minister of the Qing Dynasty, led the Huai army to attack Suzhou, an important base of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and together with Li Hongzhang, attacked Suzhou with a mercenary force led by the British officer Charlie George Gordon, the Changsheng Army.
Under the repeated attacks of the Huai Army and the Changsheng Army, the people in Suzhou were panicked. At that time, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was already in a weakening situation, and the Taiping Army was suppressed by the Qing army on the battlefields everywhere. Therefore, although the walls of Suzhou are strong and easy to defend and difficult to attack, the Taiping Army generals who are guarding the city cannot avoid feeling desperate.
The commander of the Taiping Army stationed in Suzhou at that time was Tan Shaoguang, the King of Mu. In the face of the current situation of the great enemy, although Tan Shaoguang had already embraced the determination to coexist and die with Suzhou, many Taiping Army generals in the city did not think so. Among them, Tan Shaoguang's "Four Kings and Four Heavenly Generals" (Gao Yongkuan, Wang Anjun, Zhou Wenjia, Wu Guiwen, Zhang Dazhou, Wang Youwei, Fan Qifa, Wang Huaiwu. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom has a total of more than 2,000 kings, and these eight people are collectively known as the Eight Kings) originally had conflicts with Tan Shaoguang, and now when faced with life and death choices, the contradictions are constantly intensifying.
When The spies of the Changsheng Army hiding in Suzhou learned of the serious disagreement between the commanders of the Taiping Army, they immediately reported this information to Gordon. So Gordon began to discuss with Li Hongzhang how to win over the eight kings of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in order to achieve the goal of capturing Suzhou without bloodshed.
Li Hongzhang sent his faction to surrender to the Qing court a few years ago, and Cheng Xueqi, who is now a famous general in the Huai army, made contact with Gao Yongkuan, the king of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in Suzhou, and the two sides quickly reached a consensus. Gao Yongkuan led his troops to surrender to the Qing court on behalf of the Eight Kings, and Li Hongzhang, on behalf of the Qing court, was willing to blame the Eight Kings and their subordinates for their past and give them glory and wealth. In order to prove his determination to Li Hongzhang, Gao Yongkuan also promised to kill Tan Shaoguang and sacrifice the city of Suzhou. However, Gao Yongkuan also kept an eye on it, asking Gordon, the commander of the Changsheng Army, who was involved in this matter, to come forward as a guarantee. Because in the concept of people at that time, the credit of foreigners was more reliable than that of the Qing court. Gordon was bent on taking Suzhou without bloodshed, so he quickly agreed to Gao Yongkuan's request.
It didn't take long for Gao Yongkuan and eight others to gather everyone together in the name of holding a military conference, and at the meeting, they stabbed Tan Shaoguang and washed Tan Shaoguang's Muwang Mansion with blood. After that, Gao Yongkuan and others ordered all the gates of Suzhou to be opened, and the Qing army easily occupied Suzhou.
Logically, Gao Yongkuan fulfilled his promise, and now it is time for Li Hongzhang to fulfill his promise. However, Li Hongzhang set up a "Hongmen Feast" and killed all eight Taiping Heavenly Kingdom kings at the celebration wine. At the same time, Li Hongzhang also arranged for the Huai army to encircle and suppress the Taiping Army, which had just laid down its weapons, and tens of thousands of Taiping Army officers who surrendered were all killed.
Li Hongzhang's suzhou killing incident became the focus of public opinion at that time, and the most angry about this matter was naturally Gordon, who was the guarantor of the Eight Kings of the Taiping Army. After learning of Li Hongzhang's treachery, he immediately broke into Li Hongzhang's military camp with a gun and demanded a duel with Li Hongzhang to save his reputation. Li Hongzhang was quite familiar with the temper of foreigners, so he avoided seeing it. On the other hand, Li Hongzhang also went to the Qing court, saying that the "Changsheng Army" had worked hard and made great achievements, and asked the imperial court to reward 70,000 taels of silver. At the same time, Li Hongzhang also entrusted Robert Hurd, an Englishman who served in the Customs of the Qing Dynasty, to deposit 10,000 taels of silver in the personal account of Hurde to Gordon, and the killing incident was put to rest.
So the question is, why did Li Hongzhang kill the Eight Kings of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom who had surrendered? Is the result of the kill good or bad? Before answering this question, let's talk about the Cheng Xueqi mentioned above. The same general who surrendered to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, why was Cheng Xueqi able to get Li Hongzhang's reuse, but Gao Yongkuan and eight other people were killed instead of betraying their faith after offering the city of Suzhou?
In fact, the reason why Cheng Xueqi and Gao Yongkuan and others were treated differently was not that there was any difference in the surrender sincerity of the two, but that the key was that the time of surrender was different.
Cheng Xueqi surrendered in the eleventh year of Xianfeng (1861), when the war between the Qing army and the Taiping army was in a white-hot stage, and for the Qing court, it was very important to unite all the forces that could be united to fight against the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. The Qing Dynasty hoped that other Taiping Army generals would follow Cheng Xueqi's example and abandon the dark and cast light at an early date, so after Cheng Xueqi surrendered to the Qing Dynasty, it was quickly reused.
Gao Yongkuan and others surrendered in December of the second year of Tongzhi (1863), when the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was basically finished, and it was only a matter of time before the Qing army destroyed the remaining Taiping army. If Li Hongzhang chose to give preferential treatment to Gao Yongkuan and others, although to a certain extent he could encourage the Taiping Generals who were still stubbornly resisting to lay down their weapons as soon as possible, it would also encourage their rebellious spirit. Because they will feel that if they can fight, they will rebel, and if they can't fight, they will surrender, which will make many people become careless.
Therefore, from the perspective of maintaining the rule of the Qing Dynasty, Li Hongzhang's choice to kill and surrender should be more favorable than appeasement.