War is a confrontation between two groups. In addition to fighting with real swords and guns on the battlefield and conquering cities and territories, the struggle for the right to speak is also very important: mastering the right to speak The party can expand its own influence through public opinion means in order to obtain more resources; at the same time, it can attack the enemy through smearing, spreading rumors and other means, creating chaos within the enemy, damaging the opponent's morale, and striving for some instability in the enemy camp. The "rebellion" of the forces

The competition between the two sides for the right to speak is the "war of public opinion". As the saying goes, "attacking the heart is the best"!

During the Taiping Rebellion in the second half of the 19th century, the Hunan Army and the Taiping Army not only engaged in fierce battlefield battles along the Yangtze River, but also staged a wonderful public opinion drama in the "invisible field". war?! Like the final outcome, this confrontation still ended with the victory of the Hunan Army.

So, what is this showdown like?

1. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom: It is natural and right to fight against the evildoers in Heaven!

On January 11, 1851, Hong Xiuquan’s 38th birthday, the God-worshiping congregation launched an uprising in Jintian Village, known as the "Jintian Uprising" in history. Later generations usually regarded this day as the outbreak of the Taiping Rebellion. At that time, since the end of the 18th century, the Qing Dynasty had shown a trend of decadence, with various large and small civil uprisings emerging one after another. The Taiping Rebellion was really inconspicuous at the beginning.

However, the development speed of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was unexpectedly rapid! Fighting from Guangxi, advancing to Jingxiang, and then heading eastward, the front line of the Yangtze River was full of wind and erosion. On January 12, 1853, the Taiping Army unexpectedly captured Wuchang, the capital of Hubei Province, an important town in central China! On March 19, 1853, the Taiping Army actually captured Jiangning and established its political power as the capital! This is the city in China that is second only to the capital. In other words, in just 2 years, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom has swept over half of the country!

In the history of Chinese peasant wars, this speed is very rare! The fundamental reason is naturally that the social contradictions in the Qing Dynasty were already quite acute. Taking the "man-land contradiction" as an example, according to the productivity at that time, the average per capita required 4 acres of arable land to maintain basic life. However, after population expansion, by the mid-19th century, the per capita arable land in the country was There are only 1.7 acres, but in Guangxi Province, where the Taiping Rebellion broke out, this number was actually 1.1 acres!

Under such circumstances, it would be strange if society did not fall into chaos! But why was the Taiping Rebellion the one that caused the biggest fuss in the end? Why was the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom able to attract more power and obtain more resources? There are naturally many reasons, among which the advantage of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in public opinion is naturally also a reason. So how did the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom carry out public opinion propaganda?

In 1852, the Taiping Army published a number of propaganda articles to promote their own ideas, the most representative of which was "Fengtian Chonghu Hu Promulgation and Promulgation of the Four Directions". In these propaganda articles, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom promoted its own ideas. There are two main ideas: national justice and religious ideas!

The so-called national justice is an attack on the "legitimacy" of the Manchu and alien regimes. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom regime listed the Manchu rulers for destroying their clothes, disrupting the race, discriminating against the Han people, and ruling brutally. It is hoped that the traditional "Hua-Yi" distinction will intensify the conflict between Manchu and Han. ... The Manchurians are wreaking havoc and causing chaos in China. However, China is as big as the world and the people of Kyushu are allowed to do whatever they want without being surprised. How can China still be regarded as a human being? "Feng Tian Quest for Hu Xi and Promulgate the Four Directions"

As for religion, it unites its own team through propaganda of "Worship God Cult", and at the same time attracts some poor people to join. The so-called "World Worship Cult" in "Worship God Cult" The idea of ??equality as one family and everyone enjoying peace has a strong appeal to these people at the bottom who live in dire straits and have no cultural literacy.

It should be said that the propaganda of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom still had a certain effect. Zeng Guofan's "Thieves' Love" recorded: "Those who hate thieves are imaginary, while those who favor thieves are real. This is especially worrying." , or it can be said that the villagers help the thieves in fighting everywhere.

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However, the propaganda of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom has great hidden dangers!

2. Zeng Guofan: "Fight to defend our religion?"

The Taiping Army was so powerful that the decayed Eight Banners Green Camp was already vulnerable, so the main opponent of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom later became Hunan. This army was born out of the Tuanlian (local militia) in Hunan. It actually represented the interests of the Han local gentry. Zeng Guofan of the Hunan Army was an intellectual adhering to traditional ideas. He naturally understood the importance of public opinion warfare, so he also The public opinion counterattack against the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom began, and his representative work is "A Confrontation with the Cantonese Bandits"!

"A Confrontation with the Cantonese Bandits" is a very well-known article. In the early days when the class view of history was also referred to as a class concept, history textbooks rated this article as "notorious" and said it was "notorious". "The vicious attack on the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's simple and egalitarian ideas concentratedly represented the will of the reactionary landlord class." Of course, this evaluation has a strong emotional color.

But if you put aside your stance, this evaluation is very accurate. "A Prosecution of the Cantonese Bandits" is a very successful political statement because it attacked the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom just right and at the same time was able to concentrate the landlord class. The power?! It can even be said that this article pointedly pointed out the fundamental reason for the failure of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom!

What is the main idea of ??"The Battle of the Cantonese Bandits"? To put it simply: attacking the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom is neither fish nor fowl!

Throughout Chinese history, once various civil uprisings have become a climate, if you want to survive, you need to give preferential treatment to Confucian intellectuals and respect the interests of the landlord class (typically Zhu Yuanzhang). Otherwise, he will always be a bandit and will eventually fail (typically like Zhang Xianzhong). This is determined by the feudal system of China in the old era: the emperor is the general spokesperson for the interests of the landlord class and Confucian intellectuals!

The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom movement is very different from the peasant uprisings at the end of previous dynasties: its guiding ideology is rooted in Christianity imported from foreigners. At the same time, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom can be said to be completely mud-legged. Even adults After the climate change, they still did not unite the gentry and landlords to form a new interest group.

This leads to a result: it is absolutely impossible for the Taiping Rebellion to integrate into mainstream Chinese society.

For those scholars who were looking around hastily without hope for the imperial examination, the landowners who had their lands confiscated and lost their entire family, the officials who had a grudge after their titles and salaries were taken away, and a considerable number of ordinary people who have been deeply influenced by Confucianism for a long time, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was undoubtedly the Heresy, Zeng Guofan seized this point to attack. The thousands of years of Chinese etiquette, righteousness, human ethics, poetry, books, and canons will all be wiped out once they are swept away. This is not the only change in the Qing Dynasty. It is also a strange change in the famous religion since the founding of the world. Confucius and Mencius cried bitterly in Jiuyuan's "Call to the Bandits of Guangdong"

Zeng Guofan directly pointed out that what the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom wanted to do was It is not a change of dynasties, because a change of dynasties only means that the emperor and, at most, the ministers change their teams, while the landlords still collect rent, the society still worships Confucianism, and the overall order of the entire society remains unchanged, but once things like the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom change the color of heaven and earth, There is only one effect of making a big fuss? All vested interest groups in the traditional order will lose nothing!

Things changed at this time. The Qing Dynasty was indeed in the sunset, its ability to rule had declined, and all classes of society were dissatisfied with it. If the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was suitable, then the city would be in ruins. Many gentry and landlords were not unable to accept the change of their heads to the King's Banner, but Zeng Guofan reminded these people in "An Enemy to the Cantonese Bandits": The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom could never become the "suitable" regime! When Li Zicheng went to Qufu, he did not violate the holy temple. When Zhang Xianzhong went to Zitong, he also offered sacrifices to Wenchang. The Guangdong bandits burned the academic officials in Chenzhou and destroyed the wooden masters who declared the saints. Ten sages and two verandas were littered all over the ground. Afterwards, in the counties and counties they passed through, they first destroyed the temples, even the loyal ministers and righteous men, such as Emperor Yue of Guan Dynasty, defiled their palaces and mutilated their bodies. Comparing it with Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong, it shows that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was not even a rebel, it was a heresy!

3. The Resentment of Heaven

This duel ultimately ended with Zeng Guofan’s victory. The fundamental reason is the same as pointed out in "A Confrontation with the Cantonese Bandits": the regime of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and cannot adapt to Chinese society.

There is one topic that Zeng Guofan never discussed in "An Enemy against the Bandits of Guangdong"? Ethnic conflicts, because he knew that this was his country's weakness; however, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom destroyed Confucian temples and burned temples everywhere in the area under their control, and regarded them as Confucian scholars were pigs and dogs, but this gave Zeng Guofan greater leverage.

Zeng Guofan’s propaganda at least had an important effect: uniting the middle and upper classes of society that were originally in a wait-and-see state. Because Zeng Guofan made them realize that the success of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom would be a disaster for those who had certain vested interests in the old system. Even if they were dissatisfied with the Qing government, they should never bet on the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

This transformed the contradiction between the Qing government and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom into a contradiction between "orthodoxy" and "heresy", "righteousness" and "evil".

Finally, vested interest groups began to unite against the Taiping Rebellion.

The nondescript nature of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom prevented them from gaining recognition from the gentry class. This made the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom always face great difficulties in obtaining resources. In October 1861, Bao, a gentry in Bao Village, Zhuji, Zhejiang, Standing up to lead the whole village to resist the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom occupying forces, this was the "Baocun Battle". This battle involved more than 100,000 Taiping troops and had a great impact on the war situation in Zhejiang.

This was a typical attitude of the gentry class towards the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom at that time. Obviously, compared to the fear of "the color of heaven and earth", the so-called "national conflicts" are no longer that important. If the Qing government fails to live up to its expectations, It's also more pleasing to the eye than the weird Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. What's worse is that the Taiping Rebellion's "god-worshipping religion" was also imported from foreigners. Using it to represent nationalism is even more nonsense.

In East Asia, which pays more attention to cultural identity, compared to the Qing Dynasty, the Taiping Rebellion was even more different.

The "soft power" of the Taiping Rebellion is getting weaker and weaker, because "worshiping God" is not a scientific idea at all, and Hong Xiuquan and others are not firm revolutionary leaders, and they have achieved a certain status. Later, it became the new ruling class, and its degree of corruption was even worse than that of the Manchu Qing government, which made the so-called "equality" an empty talk.

The outbreak of the "Tianjing Incident" shocked many people within the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom: the "Heavenly Father" and the "Heavenly King" were killing each other. The so-called "heaven" has become a complete joke. Over time, after witnessing all kinds of sins in the kingdom of heaven, more and more people can't bear the restrained life of asceticism, and are shocked by the rough treatment of traditional culture?

Finally, The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's faith collapsed, and the Hunan Army won the final victory.