Shi Dakai

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Shi Dakai ( Chinese  石達開  /  石达开 , Pinyin Shí Dákāi ; born 1820 ; died 1863 ), also known as Yi-Wang (翼王, meaning wing king or assistant king) and "Lord of the 5,000 Years" was one of the leaders of the Taiping Uprising under Hong Xiuquan . He was half Hakka , half Zhuang .

Life

Shi Dakai came from a landowning Hakka family . He joined the Taiping in August 1850. On the occasion of his entry into the movement, he had several cannons made.

Shi Dakai was militarily qualified. He defeated the so-called "Hunan Army" of Zeng Guofan , a well-known imperial official and warlord, several times on land and at sea.

When Yang Xiuqing , the so-called "King of the East" challenged the "Heavenly King" Hong Xiuquan for the leadership position of the movement in August 1856, Shi Dakai was ordered back to Nanjing . In the subsequent power struggle between the Taiping leaders, he had to flee the capital because he had disapproved of the massacre of Yang Xiuqing's followers (allegedly 20,000 dead) and was accused of partisanship. His entire family was then killed and he returned with his army to avenge their death on his rival Wei Changhui . This was taken from him in November 1856 by Hong Xiuquan, who also made him a kind of prime minister. But Shi Dakai failed to stand up to the intrigues of Hong's brothers and other important figures and resigned that post six months later.

In the summer of 1857 he left the rebel capital with a large number of his supporters. Shi Dakai was still loyal to Hong Xiuquan and continued to carry out military operations for him. After a six-year series of campaigns in various provinces, Shi Dakai surrendered to the Qing in Sichuan Province in a hopeless military situation . Through his surrender, which would lead to his execution, he hoped for mercy for his remaining 2,000 soldiers. He was executed along with his supporters in June 1863.

swell

  • John King Fairbank (Ed.): The Cambridge History of China. Volume 10. Late Ch'ing, 1800-1911. Part 1. Cambridge 1978: Cambridge University Press.
  • River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze , Peter Hessler , Publisher: Harper Perennial 2001, Language: English, 416 pages, ISBN 0060953748 (pages relevant to Shi Dakai: 54ff)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hong Beom Rhee: Asian Millenarianism - An Interdiciplinary Study of the Taiping and Tonghak Rebellions in a Global Context. New York, 2007, p. 263
  2. ↑ Edwin Pak-Wah Leung: Political Leaders of Modern China - A Biographical Dictionary. Westport, 2002, p. 140
personal data
SURNAME Shi, Dakai
ALTERNATIVE NAMES 石達開 (Chinese)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Chinese leader of the Taiping Uprising
DATE OF BIRTH 1820
DATE OF DEATH 1863