Why did Yang only send Li and Li to lead the 20,000 Taiping Army to the Northern Expedition?

The Northern Expedition of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom can be said to be a major mistake in its early stage. Although the loss of troops is not much, about 20 thousand people, but these 20 thousand people are basically the elite main force of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. According to the statement at that time, these 20,000 people were all composed of veterans from Guangxi, which is what the Taiping Army often said. Losing such an elite new force is a heavy blow to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

The Northern Expedition probably took place at the beginning of the Northern Expedition. At that time, the top leaders of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom paid insufficient attention to the Northern Expedition. Not only did they send fewer troops, but their leaders were not the real supreme leaders of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. According to Li Xiucheng's ranking in Confessions, and Li ranked sixth and seventh in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom at that time (the second place was Yang, the third place was Xiao Chaogui, the fourth place was Feng Yunshan, the fifth place was Wei Changhui, the sixth place was Shi Dakai, and the seventh place was Qin Rigang, the prince of Yan, because Xiao Chaogui, the king of the west, and Feng Yunshan, the king of the south, were both killed, so the ranking rose by two places). If we really want to pay attention, then we should at least send it. For example, the Western Expedition of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was led by the Wing King Shi Dakai.

Just because the Northern Expeditionary Army can attack all the way near Beijing does not mean that it will attack the city all the way and then occupy and attack Beijing one by one. Instead, we will fight according to Yang's strategic policy of "crossing divisions and lines, driving Yan Dou to leap forward, and seizing the city without greed". According to this operational policy, it is actually mobile operations. This operational policy decided that the Northern Expeditionary Army was bound to fail from the beginning, because even with a team of 20,000 people, it was very lucky to fight all the way to Beijing. Even if Beijing was occupied, the Northern Expeditionary Army had to face the siege of a large number of Qing troops, but it did not occupy the city along the way.

Therefore, this kind of deepening can not be guaranteed by logistics supply alone, and reinforcements have to fight all the way from Nanjing to Beijing. The difficulty of reinforcements can be imagined. This is also the reason why Yang kept sending reinforcements and failed. The northern expeditionary army, which fought alone, could only be trapped in the end. Of course, on the way to the Northern Expedition, many people were recruited to join the team, and the whole Northern Expedition was once expanded to several hundred thousand people. However, without a fixed base area, so many troops will not have enough logistical support. In this case, a large number of people will be very cumbersome and will not play a role in combat effectiveness. In fact, the troops recruited along the northern expedition did not play any role.

However, all this was not obvious in the early days of the Northern Expedition. The Northern Expeditionary Army set out from Pukou, entered Henan via Anhui, then crossed the Yellow River and hit the Jinghai near Tianjin, which shocked the whole Qing court. At that time, hundreds of thousands of people moved out of Beijing, and the bustling Qianmen Street was once deserted. Another reason why the Northern Expeditionary Army was able to fight all the way to Beijing was that the fighting capacity of the Qing army was really poor at that time.

According to the records at that time, even the Heilongjiang cavalry, known as the elite of the Qing army, abandoned their helmets and armour when fighting the Northern Expeditionary Army, begging all the way back to Beijing. At that time, there were beggars everywhere in Beijing, and these beggars were actually the Eight Banners elites who came back in droves. Under such a crisis, Xianfeng appointed the only one who could fight in the Eight Banners as the commander-in-chief and was solely responsible for fighting the Northern Expeditionary Army. However, Monk Qin changed his strategy. In the past, he always sent troops to fight the Northern Expeditionary Army. Instead of doing this, he adopted the method of siege, which proved to be very effective for the Northern Expeditionary Army.

At that time, the Northern Expeditionary Army in Lin Fengxiang fell into the siege of Sengqin when it hit the Sea of tranquility, and drifted alone. Just at this time, the Northern Expeditionary Army was unlucky and suffered heavy snow. The Northern Expeditionary Army froze to death and suffered from frostbite due to lack of clothes (in fact, this is also a shortcoming of mobile operations, and the troops lack supplies). After the siege of the Northern Expeditionary Army, Sang Linqin did not fight against it, but besieged it and waited until all the ammunition and food were exhausted before launching an attack. Facing the siege of Sang Linqin, Lin Fengxiang finally chose to break through, but Sang Linqin just chased the Northern Expeditionary Army all the way and besieged it constantly. When Lin Fengxiang retreated to the port city, it was besieged by Sang Linqin, followed by a wheel war, and the Northern Expeditionary Army was exhausted.

By the end of the Northern Expedition, the tactics of the Qing army were on the right track and the situation was directly reversed. Even though Xianfeng had been ordering the monks to attack underground, the monks fought according to his existing tactics and eventually dragged down the Northern Expedition. Facing the crisis situation of the Northern Expeditionary Army, Wang Yang of the Eastern Jin Dynasty actually suffered great pressure. After all, he sent more than 20,000 "Old Guangxi", which is the elite of Taiping Army. The trump card in the trump card is too big to lose. But the rescue time was also very late, and it was not until the Northern Expeditionary Army arrived in Tianjin that it began to send troops to rescue.

Yang immediately sent Zeng and others to the rescue, and Zeng also arrived in Linqing, Shandong Province, which was once only 200 kilometers away from the port city. As a result, he was defeated by the Qing army and died in the battle. The rescue after that was not as smooth as it used to be. Even the prince Qin Rigang went to the rescue and was beaten back. Finally, the Northern Expeditionary Army completely cut off the reinforcements. The reason why the Northern Expedition only sent 20,000 people was analyzed. Yang only sent more than twenty thousand people with Li to the Northern Expedition. The purpose is as follows: First, Yang weakened the remnants of Xiao Chaogui, the king of the West, and ensured that he was the only one in the DPRK. In fact, both He and Li are the forces of Xiao Chaogui, the Queen of the West.

Among the top leaders of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, we also know that only two people can possess themselves. One is the East King Yang who belongs to the Heavenly Father, and the other is the West King Xiao Chaogui who belongs to the Heavenly Brother. Although we don't believe in this possession trick today, after all, it belongs to the "jumping god" category, but people at that time believed it very much. It can be said that if Xiao Chaogui, the Queen Mother of the West, can live forever,

But it's kind of funny to think about it. What would it be like if Yang was possessed by a "heavenly father" and Xiao Chaogui was possessed by another "heavenly brother"? Although Xiao Chaogui died in Changsha, he still left considerable influence, including Li, who had considerable influence in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom at that time, and restricted Yang to some extent.

If you stay in North Korea with Li, it is actually a threat to monopolize power. Maybe at first, Yang just wanted to send these people to fight, and didn't want to kill them, as long as they were not near Nanjing. Maybe Yang didn't expect them to really hit Beijing at first, nor did he expect them to win Beijing. He just needed to contain the forces of the Qing army in the north and relieve the pressure on Nanjing. I don't want the Northern Expeditionary Army to really hit near Beijing.

Second, there were not many elite troops of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom at that time, and they made great efforts to mobilize the 20,000 elite soldiers of the Northern Expedition. At that time, there were about 50,000 elites in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, 20,000 engaged in the Western Expedition, 20,000 engaged in the Northern Expedition, and the remaining 6,543.8+0,000 people were stationed in Tianjing. In other words, sending 20,000 people to the Northern Expedition actually mobilized all the elites that could be mobilized. Although it seems that we are small in number, we have already taken out the money for the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom at that time.

Third, the focus of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom at that time was not the Northern Expedition, but the periphery of Tianjing and the Western Expedition. At that time, the Qing army established Jiangnan camp and Jiangbei camp near Tianjing, which directly threatened the security of Tianjing. On the other hand, in order to ensure the safety of Tianjing, it was necessary to capture the cities in the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River, so there was the Western Expedition.

At that time, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom paid most attention to the safety of Tianjing and the Western Expedition. I'm afraid the purpose of the Northern Expedition is not to capture Beijing, but to contain the Qing army in the north and prevent it from going south. To put it bluntly, the Northern Expedition was to ensure the safety of Tianjing and the Western Expedition. As an excellent strategist, Yang knows very well that it is impossible for 20,000 people to win Beijing. If Lin Fengxiang and others are allowed to fight in Beijing, they will only disrupt the deployment of the Qing court as much as possible. At first, they probably didn't expect to win at all.

So to sum up, I think the closest thing to the truth of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's Northern Expedition should be that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom formulated a strategy centered on Tianjing's security at the beginning, and determined the Northern Expedition and the Western Expedition. In fact, the Northern Expedition served the security of Tianjing, and its purpose was to contain the Qing army in the north.

As for asking them to attack Beijing, the purpose is to disrupt the strategic deployment of the Qing court in the north and achieve the maximum containment effect with the least troops. I just didn't expect to fight so hard with Li that I even hit near Gyeonggi. Just for this reason, it was too late to call them back, and what should be saved could not be saved, which eventually led to the annihilation of the Northern Expeditionary Army.