When Shi Da opened the army and defeated the Dadu River, Zeng Guoquan had already led the Hunan army to besiege Tianjing for a year, and Li Hongzhang and Zuo Zongtang also led the Huai army and the Hunan army to begin to organize large-scale counteroffensives in the battlefields of southern Jiangsu and Zhejiang.
In order to save the situation, Hong Xiuquan used his brains and began to introduce a new basic national policy, the so-called new national policy, which is actually an old-fashioned trick in history - sealing the king.
The practice of sealing the king was first prevalent in the Western Zhou Dynasty. After the establishment of the Western Zhou Dynasty, the implementation of the patriarchal system based on the sub-feudal system, under the premise of taking care of the basic principle of "blood first", Zhou Tianzi divided the territory to the Shang Dynasty nobles, descendants, founding heroes, etc., these people have obtained different sizes of territory, collectively known as the princes and kings. These vassal states were the states within states of the Zhou dynasty, and Zhou Tianzi was the head of the state alliance.
The original intention of the division was to let these vassal states defend the center, but after they became strong, they fought each other, tossed for hundreds of years, this bloody day was called the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States in history, after hundreds of years of fighting, and finally was unified by Qin Shi Huang into the Qin Dynasty, the feudal system was abolished, and the feudal king was declared to be temporarily closed.
After Liu Bang established the Han Dynasty, he implemented the feudal system and the county system on the one hand, and the practice of sealing the king appeared on the stage of history again. The Rebellion of the Seven Kings once again proved that the practice of dividing the king was not conducive to the stability of the imperial power, so the "Tui En Order" came into being, and the princes and kings existed in name only.
After such a comparison of the Han Dynasty, most of the later generations were more cautious on the issue of the king, and the general king only had his name but not the truth, and the so-called prince was only treated more generously, or had a little privilege, but there was no territory and army, and he could not set off the wind and waves.
The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom also followed this practice in history, starting from Yong'an to Tianjing was captured by the Hunan army, and the king has not stopped.
If you want to say that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom has created the most history, the king is undoubtedly one, and the princes of the entire Taiping Heavenly Kingdom have added up to more than 2,700, and it is estimated that it will take more than 50 buses to load, and at least two trains will be required, and a few temporary carriages may be added.
This is an unprecedented indiscriminate closure incident that has been criticized by many later generations, and the dynasty with the most kings in history is probably only one percent of it, which is really terrifying!
In fact, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was also relatively "stingy" at the beginning, far less "generous" than in the later period, and the number of princes in the early stage was on a downward trend.
Let's briefly take stock of this problem.
Before the Tianjing Incident, the kings of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom only had the five kings of the east, west, south, north, and wing of Yong'an, and the king of heaven was actually the head of state, although he was called a king, but he was actually a king. After the capital of Tianjing, only two were sealed, Yan King Qin Rigang, Yu King Hu Yihuang, Feng Yunshan and Xiao Chaogui died in battle, and later Hu Yihuang also died of illness, and there were only four existing princes before the Tianjing Incident: Yang Xiuqing, the East King, Wei Changhui, the North King, Shi Dakai, the Wing King, and Qin Rigang, the Yan King. During the Tianjing Incident, three more died, one left, and the first batch of princes were all wiped out, and there was no one left.
During this time, Hong Xiuquan was more cautious on the issue of sealing the king, and the vacancy left by the dead prince has been empty, and no new prince has been replaced, and the prince's team is becoming more and more depressed. The reason for this, in addition to Hong Xiuquan's fear that the king would affect his authority because of the lesson of the East King, so he was extra cautious, there was actually a hidden reason, and this reason was not thoroughly dug until Hong Xiuquan died.
In order to consolidate the Hong family, after the Tianjing Incident, Hong Xiuquan began to canonize the "king with the same surname", King Hong Renfa and King Hong Renda, the purpose of which is to use his brother to prevent and clamp the only "king with a different surname" Shi Dakai. Hong Xiuquan changed from canonizing a king with a different surname to canonizing a king with the same surname, and the essence of the change after Liu Bang defeated Xiang Yu is the same - relying on a king with a different surname to fight the country, and relying on the king with the same surname to sit on the country, although the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom did not complete the task of fighting the country at this time.
After Shi Dakai was forced away by the king with the same surname, everyone expressed great dissatisfaction with Hong Xiuquan's practice of "sealing the king with the same surname and sitting on the country", in order to appease people's hearts, he had to revoke the two kings with the same surname Anfu and suspend the king, but after Hong Renji came, Hong Xiuquan was canonized again with the same surname, and Hong Renfa and Hong Renda were also named King Xin and King Yong again.
However, Hong Renji is a "light pole king", there is no soldier in his hand, and he has no prestige, in order to encircle Chen Yucheng and Li Xiucheng, the two generals, to fight the country, so they have been canonized as the king of England and the king of loyalty, and reopened the prelude to the canonization of the "king with different surnames".
Because of the lessons of Yang Xiuqing and Shi Dakai, Hong Xiuquan has always been wary of the king with a different surname holding heavy troops, but Jiangshan can't be fought without one, so he thought of a way that he thought was very smart.
There is a precedent in history for this method, in Jia Yi's words, it is "all the princes and less their strength", and the words of the lord father Yan are called "Tui En Ling", in short, it is to make Chen Yucheng and Li Xiucheng's subordinates also kings, so as to weaken their forces and military power, and prevent them from supporting their own troops and not listening to dispatches.
After Chen Yucheng died, Li Xiucheng's family was dominant, and Hong Xiuquan always felt that Li Xiucheng was not very reliable, so he successively crowned his generals as kings.
Now the situation is so bad that Hong Xiuquan is simply more addicted to being a king, no matter what he is thirty-seven twenty-one, as long as he has a little war exploits, he will be crowned a king, he expects that these people will follow him with blood and sacrifice after they have the throne.
We can understand the changes in Hong Xiuquan's thinking from the perspective of words alone. Let's look at the title of the king in the early stage, the earliest five kings of Yong'an "east, west, south, north, wing", which shows that Hong Xiuquan still has the ambition to rule the world in all directions at this time, as for the title of the two kings of "Yan and Yu", it also reflects Hong Xiuquan's desire to level Beijing and overthrow the Qing government in one fell swoop. However, the title of the king in the later period is far less enterprising and ambitious than in the early stage, and the titles of the second batch of kings are "Yi, An, Fu, Gan, Ying, Zhong, Zan, Shi, Fu, Zhang", which mainly reflects the set advocated by Confucianism, which shows that Hong Xiuquan's mind is full of "sitting on the country and guarding the country" at this time to stabilize the Hong family's idea of keeping the world.
As for the third and fourth batches of kings after 1861, especially after 1863, I'm sorry, there are only so many Chinese characters, and when the commonly used words are used up, they use cold words, and when they run out of cold words, there is no way, they are all called kings, not yet, just invent a word, a small character above, and a king character below, which means Xiao Wang, which is probably a kind of political wisdom with the characteristics of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
As the saying goes, the boat is high and the water is also rising, the king is more sealed, and the other "Yi, An, Fu, Yan, Yu, Hou" six knights will follow the more and more, as for the official position below the prime minister, it is even more exciting, and if you want to seal it, the descendants use the prince as much as a dog, and the prime minister walks all over the street to describe the situation at that time, although it is ugly, but it also reflects the extent to which the official canonization was flooded and arbitrary at that time.
It is said that there must be brave men under the heavy reward, and the enthusiasm of these people to be promoted should be bursting, but facts have proved that Hong Xiuquan's "bribery policy" not only did not have the due incentive effect, but also produced many negative effects.
After 1861, the number of princes skyrocketed, and the first thing these people did after becoming princes was to repair the palace and engrave gold seals to show off their prestige. These are all benefits stipulated by the system, and if you don't enjoy them, you won't enjoy them in vain. It is said that the best business in Tianjing at that time was the engraver industry that made gold seals, because according to the official system of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the king and the young king held the jade seal, the prince held the gold seal, the senior cadres held the silver seal, and the middle and lower-level cadres held the wooden seal. In line with the principle of "the right not to engrave, expired and invalid", these people have gone all out to engrave for themselves.
For a time, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's gold and silver seals flew all over the sky. Engraved out, of course, hang in the office to show off, you see, mine is a gold seal! Pure gold! So those who took the silver seal were not convinced, in terms of qualifications and military merits, you are not as good as me, why do you take the gold seal and I take the silver seal? The wooden seal is even more unbalanced, at that time there was no environmental awareness, I feel that this wood is too cold, or not as good as heavy metal magnanimity and pomp, a piece of rotten wood to lose a person, where to get it!
As for the knowledge of titles, it is even greater, this is called several times a day, and the kings are too unreliable, aren't the kings parallel and ordinary kings? It's not as enjoyable as the famous exclusive prince! Those who were named Xiao Wang didn't even have a formal pronunciation, so they felt even more faceless.
In such a comparison, where do you have any mind to study how to kill the enemy and make meritorious contributions, you see those related households, which one is not a king with a special name? It's not as affordable to kill the enemy as to give a gift to the door. For example, Dong Jinquan, the seventy-year-old head of the Tianwang Mansion, was named the King of Dreams, and Hong Renfa's seventh son, Hong Heyuan, was named the prince when he was still nursing in his arms.
The enthusiasm of the generals fighting on the front line has been seriously dampened, and more people have begun to fish in troubled waters and concentrate on speculation and drilling. Some quasi-traitors who did not have a firm position also began to send gifts through the back door to buy officials, such as Qian Guiren of Sufu Province, he created a pair of pure gold lions and a pair of golden phoenixes to give to Li Xiucheng, and was later named the king, and then became a traitor, and made a "great contribution" to the collapse of southern Jiangsu, which shows that the king did not really play a role in buying people's hearts.
Of course, Hong Xiuquan will not be ignorant of the truth of "scarcity is precious", when the king exceeds the normal scale, the irritating fatigue caused by the indiscriminate sealing makes the king completely lose the incentive effect, and the result can only make everyone completely numb. If we have to say that there is any stimulating effect, it can probably only stimulate everyone to find out how to change the wooden seal for the silver seal, the silver seal for the gold seal, and then change to a larger house, and then marry a few more wives according to the official-based marriage law, and that's it.
The official-based marriage law mentioned above has also been distorted and unspeakable during this period. For example, in Sufu Province, it is said that the generals of the Taiping Army at that time were also engaged in the business of trafficking women, and at the cheapest time, they were sold for 24 yuan each.
History is often extremely ironic, and the countless gold and silver seals of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom have not been left to this day, and their fate is really laughable. Today, there are only two jade seals that we can see, one of which we will talk about later, and this remaining jade seal has played a big joke with people, leaving a mystery of heaven that has not yet been explained.