To exempt Li Xiucheng from the punishment of Ling Chi, is it Cixi or Zeng Guofan s leniency?

Personally, I feel that it is Cixi's tolerance, because the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom has perished, Li Xiucheng has no use value, and at the same time, Li Xiucheng also confessed in his own statement, no matter what, Cixi's goal has been achieved, kill Li Xiucheng, Cixi also explained to the world that rebellion will die, but did not let him be punished by Ling Chi, and also said to the world that since Li Xiucheng confessed, I would open the net.

It was Cixi's leniency, because Zeng Guofan was Cixi's subordinate, and the decisions made needed to be reported to Cixi for approval, and only Cixi agreed to implement them.

It is the generosity of Zeng Guofan. If Li Xiucheng was sent to the capital, he would be executed by Ling Chi, and Zeng Guofan's killing of him would also make his death less painful.

It should be Zeng Guofan's leniency, because Zeng Guofan didn't want to see such a tragic scene, so he ordered to be spared Ling Chi.

It should be the meaning of Zeng Guofan, the county officials are not as good as the current management, and the emperor is lucky.

Once the generals of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom are captured, the general outcome is Ling Chi's execution, such as the Wing King Shi Dakai, and Hong Xiuquan's son Hong Tianguifu, so why was Li Xiucheng not executed by Ling Chi, but in a relatively gentle way of execution: beheading and execution, this has to be said from Li Xiucheng's experience.

In the first month of 1864, Tianjing, the capital of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, was besieged, and in April, the emperor Hong Xiuquan died, and the loyal king Li Xiucheng supported Hong Xiuquan's eldest son Hong Tianguifu to succeed him. In June, the city was breached by the Hunan army, and Li Xiucheng gave his horse to Hong Tianguifu, allowing Hong Tianguifu to escape (and later, he was also captured), and Li Xiucheng was eventually captured by the Hunan army.

Zeng Guofan talked with Li Xiucheng several times, and Li Xiucheng wrote a self-report of tens of thousands of words in prison, which told his experience in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, as well as some gains and losses of why the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom failed, that is, "Li Xiucheng's Self-Statement".

It is said that when Zeng Guofan handed over "Li Xiucheng's Self-Statement" to the Qing court, it was deleted, and some of its content was torn out. What is the complete "Li Xiucheng's Self-Statement"? What happened between Zeng Guofan and Li Xiucheng before, and what the two talked about, has always been a riddle.

However, Zeng Guofan did not execute Li Xiucheng Ling Chi, but beheaded him in August, so something must have happened. Or, Zeng Guofan had a feeling of sympathy for each other during his conversation with Li Xiucheng, and when Li Hongzhang watched "Li Xiucheng's Self-Statement", he also commented that Li Xiucheng was a heroic person.

Therefore, Zeng Guofan did not use it for Li Xiucheng, and for the execution of Ling Chi, which was generally used by the generals of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, perhaps Zeng Guofan did not have so much hatred for Li Xiucheng, but had a sense of sympathy.

Some people believe that Li Xiucheng actually wants to emulate Jiang Wei during the Three Kingdoms period, he wants to surrender by fraud, and then persuade Zeng Guofan to oppose the Qing Dynasty, and Zeng Guofan is this Zhonghui, when Zeng Guofan knew Li Xiuxun Zhicheng's intentions, he may have been shaken in his heart, and finally decided to kill Li Xiucheng quickly, so as not to cause trouble again and let himself be suspected by the Qing court.

There is also a theory that Zeng Guofan was unwilling to give Li Xiucheng to the Qing court in order to falsely report his military exploits and avoid being discovered by the Qing court, so he was in a hurry to kill Li Xiucheng, but no matter what, he did not use Ling Chi's method, which shows that Zeng Guofan's evaluation of Li Xingchang and Qing Xiucheng was relatively high.

Because Zeng Guofan felt that everyone had been caught and was going to be executed, there was no need to put him to death, which was also very damaging to Yin morality.

It's not easy to start, Li Xiucheng took the initiative to surrender himself, if he also gave him to Ling Chi in this way, no one would mix with him in the future.

Because at that time, Zeng Guofan didn't want to persecute the other party, and he didn't have any benefits for himself.

Because Li Xiucheng holds the secrets of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, plus Li Xiucheng writes the history of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Therefore, Zeng Guofan did not torture Li Xiucheng.

The main reason is that Li Xiucheng is also a very good person, and he was also appreciated by Zeng Guofan, and he surrendered on his own initiative, so he did not receive too heavy punishment.

Because Cixi wanted to know other military secrets of the Taiping Army through Li Xiucheng, she opened up to him and did not punish Ling Chi.

Cixi opened up to Li Xiucheng, that is, she wanted to use Li Xiucheng and make him confess all the secrets of the Taiping Army.

Because Li Xiucheng wrote a history about the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, which was the information that Zeng Guofan wanted very much, he did not impose Ling Chi on Li Xiucheng.

We all know that after the destruction of Tianjing City, Li Xiucheng, the chief general of the Taiping Army, was captured alive by Zeng Guofan, but compared with Shi Dakai, who was captured in the past, Chen Yucheng and others were executed by Ling Chi, and Li Xiucheng was rarely exempted from Ling Chi's punishment. Next, let's talk about this topic.

Li Xiucheng's crime is extremely heinous, why didn't Zeng Guofan let him be punished by Ling Chi after he was captured?

First, Li Xiucheng not only knew the secrets of the Taiping army, but also the secrets of Zeng Guofan and the Hunan army.

We all know that Li Xiucheng is the chief general at the end of the Taiping Army, he and Zeng Guofan and his Hunan army, struggled for many years, both sides know the roots, and this time Tianjing City was broken, the Hunan army looted Tianjing City, and looted the treasury of the Taiping Army, this matter, Li Xiucheng is well aware, and when Li Xiucheng and Zeng Guofan were talking, he once strongly persuaded Zeng Guofan to oppose the Qing Dynasty and be self-reliant, as Zeng Guofan, he knew that Li Xiucheng knew too much, if Li Xiucheng was sent to Beijing, let the court know what happened in Tianjing, Then it would make Zeng Guofan suffer a catastrophe, so he rushed to execute Li Xiucheng in advance when the imperial court came to escort Li Xiucheng, so as to avoid him being punished by Ling Chi.

Second, Zeng Guofan and Li Xiucheng cherish each other, they are both opponents and bosom friends, in order to leave dignity for this respected opponent, they chose to let Li Xiucheng leave with dignity.

We all know that Zeng Guofan had a younger brother who died at the hands of Li Xiucheng, but Zeng Guofan did not take cruel revenge on Li Xiucheng, but gave the greatest respect, so that Li Xiucheng left with dignity and did not suffer much, which may also be the embodiment of Zeng Guofan's personality charm, that is, what we call being a man and leaving a line! After all, Zeng Guofan and Li Xiucheng have been fighting for many years, not only the relationship between opponents, but also the relationship between bosom friends, so Zeng Guofan left the last dignity to Li Xiucheng and saved him from Ling Chi's punishment!

After a day of torture, Li Xiucheng communicated with Zeng Guofan the next day, saying that he wanted to surrender, and Zeng Guofan thought that he was still valuable, so he asked the emperor to exonerate him from his crimes.

Because Zeng Guofan didn't want to offend so many people, and he wanted to keep himself from being so passive.

Because he has a high talent in military affairs, he has led the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom to defeat the Qing army many times, Zeng Nianqi is a talent, and he wants to win him over to himself and serve himself, but then Li refused, so he could only kill him.

Because if you want to execute Ling Chi, you have to take him to see the emperor, but Li Xiucheng knows too many things, Zeng Guofan can only kill him, anyway, he is dead, and the emperor will not pursue it.

Li Xiucheng knew too much, because the military discipline of the Hunan army was very poor, and a lot of gold and silver of the Taiping Army were privately swallowed by the Hunan army, and then there was the problem of concealing military exploits. Zeng Guofan knew that the imperial court was already dissatisfied with him, and if the imperial court caught a small excuse, he would not hesitate to deal with himself, so he simply came to death without proof.

Because Zeng Guofan was also a Han Chinese, he could also understand Li Xiucheng's difficulties, so he only sentenced Li Xiucheng to be killed, but not Ling Chi.

At that time, Li Xiucheng and two soldiers fled to a barren mountain and a broken temple, because the gold and silver they were carrying were found by the people living in the temple, and these people saw that they were interested in making money, so they captured Li Xiucheng alive and escorted him to the Qing army camp to exchange for reward money (this matter is recorded in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom historical materials after the liberation, and the two people who escorted Li Xiucheng were separated from Wang Xiaoer and Tao Dalai!). As the saying goes, "The clay pot is difficult to break from the well, and the tiger falls on the plain and the dragon sinks into the beach" Li Xiucheng is such a character, he never thought that he would be taken down by a few croppers in the end. But then again, if it weren't for the Taiping Army, why would the people be here, it's just a cycle of retribution.

After being escorted to the Qing army camp, it was found that after the main body, the ninth marshal Zeng Guoquan wanted to interrogate him personally. Zeng Guoquan hated these long hairs, so he asked Li Xiucheng to be stripped naked and put in an iron cage, and during the interrogation, he let the durable iron awl pierce him while interrogating, and finally let people cut his arm with a sharp blade, and cut off a few pieces of flesh on his arm.

The Qing Dynasty data left a record that "Zeng Gong held a cone between the thief's strands to tie a few more, the thief gritted his teeth at first and strengthened the branch, and after counting the cone, he couldn't stop lamenting..."”

The meaning was very clear, Li Xiucheng began to grit his teeth and not speak, and finally couldn't help being tortured and began to beg for mercy. However, some people think that this historical material is untrue, and it fabricates the story of Li Xiucheng's righteousness and Ling Ran's unyielding power.

However, in the preserved cultural and historical archives, you can clearly see the confession written by Li Xiucheng himself (which can be searched on the Internet), and these words and sentences are full of spurning and wagging his tail and begging for mercy. These materials have been identified and recognized by historical experts, and if this is the case, then Li Xiucheng was certainly not mighty and unyielding at that time, and he should have been in a state of submission and begging for mercy.

Li Xiucheng was packed in a special cage, unable to stand, unable to lie down, and in order to humiliate him, Zeng Guoquan put Li Xiucheng naked in a cage and placed it in Daying Square, so that the soldiers **.

Zeng Guofan stopped these behaviors after he arrived, and gave him a new set of clothes, wine and meat, and kind words to appease, Li Xiucheng was grateful and had nothing to do (the big lion felt that this was a double reed sung by the Zeng brothers, one sang white face, and the other sang red face).

In the end, Li Xiucheng confessed his secret point of hiding gold and silver, and wrote a statement of more than 70,000 words. This "confession" contains many words that belittle the Taiping army and praise Zeng Guofan and the Qing army, and he also hopes to help Zeng Guofan "reap" the rest of the Taiping army. These things have made this so-called big hero criticized.

It was because of his wagging tail and begging for mercy that Zeng Guofan changed Ling Chi to beheading, according to Li Xiucheng's identity, normally it must be the result of Ling Chi, because several generals at the same level as him were Ling Chi's "treatment".

But on the day of the beheading, Li Xiucheng was not less guilty. When Li Xiucheng was escorted out of the prison car, the people along the street not only did not pity him, but spat on him, and some people threw filth or stones and tiles at him. Li Xiucheng was so frightened that he couldn't stop crying, and his mouth was babbling nonsense.

In the end, a knife killed him, and for him, he did not suffer the terrible Wu Panchun Lingchi, and Li Xiucheng was enough to be grateful to Zeng Guofan at this time.

It may be that Zeng Guofan thought that such a punishment was too cruel, so he did not let Li Xiucheng be punished by Ling Chi.

Because Zeng Guofan was a relatively magnanimous person, and he also admired Li Xiucheng, he did not let him be punished by Ling Chi.

Because Li Xiucheng wrote a memoir, it is very valuable for the study of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Therefore, Zeng Guofan did not let Li Xiucheng be punished.