The Tianjing Incident

After making Tianjing its capital the Taiping won great military successes, and in the first half of 1856 it destroyed the Qing’s Jiangbei and Jiangnan Camps, reaching its military peak. But its leaders gradually lost touch with the masses, indulged in pleasure and corruption, and fought over power. East King Yang Xiuqing held military and political power, grew arrogant over his achievements, and often claimed that “the Heavenly Father had descended” to suppress Hong Xiuquan and the other kings, sharpening conflicts. In August 1856 Yang used the Heavenly Father’s name to force Hong to name him “Ten Thousand Years.” Hong outwardly agreed but secretly ordered North King Wei Changhui and Assistant King Shi Dakai, who were away commanding troops, to return and kill Yang. In September Wei rushed back to Tianjing overnight, killed Yang and his family, and slaughtered over twenty thousand of the East King’s men and innocent civilians. When Shi Dakai returned and rebuked Wei for the killings, Wei tried to harm him too; Shi escaped over the city wall by night, and his family was killed. Shi raised troops at Anqing to set things right, Wei then attacked the Heavenly King’s palace, and in November Hong ordered Wei executed. Shi was summoned back to run the government, but Hong distrusted him. In 1857 Shi angrily left Tianjing with many elite troops and fought independently across Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Hunan, Guangxi, Guizhou, Yunnan and elsewhere; in 1863 he was surrounded by Qing forces at Zidadi by the Dadu River in Sichuan, captured and killed. The incident split the Taiping leadership, cost many outstanding commanders and elite troops, and let the Qing counterattack. It was the turning point of the Taiping’s decline, and exposed the limits of the peasant class.