A Brief History of the Tujia: Anti-Imperialist and Anti-Feudal Struggles (Part 3)
III. Anti-Feudal Struggles During the Xianfeng and Tongzhi Reigns — (1) Tujia Uprisings in Yongshun and Sangzhi: The Tujia not only fought Western capitalist aggression but also repeatedly rose against feudal exploitation and oppression. Secret societies were active in southeastern Sichuan in the late Daoguang period.
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III. The Anti-Feudal Struggles of the Tujia People During the Xianfeng and Tongzhi Reigns of the Qing Dynasty
(1) The Tujia Uprisings in Yongshun and Sangzhi
The Tujia people not only actively participated in the struggle against Western capitalist aggression, but also continuously launched struggles against feudal exploitation and oppression. In the late Daoguang reign of the Qing Dynasty (1821-1850), secret society organizations active in the southeastern Sichuan region — the Red Money Society and the Black Money Society — frequently entered Laifeng County. With the support of the local Tujia people, they often gathered in groups of dozens or hundreds, moving through streets and markets, "entering the city with blades," attacking landlords, gentry, and corrupt officials. Whenever the government sent officers to arrest them, "they would bare their blades and fight," posing a threat to Qing rule in this region.
The victorious development of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom revolution rapidly propelled mass anti-feudal uprisings across the country. When the Taiping Western Expeditionary Army launched a series of attacks against Qing forces in Anhui, Jiangxi, Hubei, and Hunan, the revolutionary flames of peasant war spread across the vast middle reaches of the Yangtze River.
In July of the third year of the Xianfeng reign (1853), Li Zhizhong and others from Sangzhi County led Tujia and Han people in attacking the county town, seriously wounding the former county magistrate who had been removed from office. In May of the fourth year of Xianfeng, the Taiping Western Expeditionary Army sailed downstream from Yichang and advanced to the Lixian and Jinshi areas of Hunan. The Tujia people of Yongshun and Sangzhi counties, under the leadership of Tu Zhenglu and others, took advantage of the frequent troop movements and weak defenses of the Qing army to rise up first, "rallying the masses to resist the officials," echoing the Western Expeditionary Army. In November of the same year, Peng Gainan, a Tujia from Yongshun County, in coordination with Wu Heshang, Tu Zhenglu, and Qu Sanyuan at Tawo Fort, and Li Hui, Qin Xubin, and others from Sangzhi County, took advantage of the absence of the Yongshun County magistrate who was out on inspection and the unprepared state of the city, suddenly attacked and entered the county town, seizing the prefectural and county administrative offices. Aishen, the deputy general of the Yongshun garrison, upon hearing the news, led troops to capture them, but they immediately left the city and scattered, and the Qing troops found nothing.
After this attack on the city, the rebel army's momentum greatly increased. People from Tawo Fort, Neiwai Long Fort, and Kesha Fort in Yongshun County, and Lifuta in Sangzhi County, responded to the call and joined the uprising ranks one after another. They established official positions and unanimously elected Peng Gainan, a descendant of a tusi, as "King Zhenming." Although Tu Zhenglu was the first to raise the banner of righteousness, because he was an outsider who had migrated from a Han region, "he was not regarded as the natural leader by the people" and ranked second. Below them, positions such as military advisor, marshal, and vanguard were established. Subsequently, Peng Gainan and others led the uprising masses in attacking Yongshun Prefecture city twice, and prisoners being held took the opportunity to escape. Yongshun Prefect Huang Qibiao and Deputy General Aishen mobilized over a thousand soldiers from the Yongshun and Baojing garrisons to guard the city and carry out frenzied suppression; Zhai Gao, the military defense circuit official of Chen-Yuan-Yong-Jing, personally led more than 1,400 troops to Baojing to block them. As large numbers of Qing troops assembled, Peng Gainan, seeing that the situation was hopeless, took his own life. Leaders such as Tu Zhenglu and Qu Sanyuan were killed by landlord militia when they went to various villages to organize the masses to "join up." The Qing army brutally massacred the uprising masses, killing more than a hundred at one time and "confiscating all their property to the government."
Although this uprising failed due to being outnumbered, the remnants of Peng Gainan's forces, under the leadership of his adopted son Wu Tingyou, retreated to Duonan Mountain; several hundred people gathered at each of Huangtupo, Liujiazhai, Lengshui, Zexi, Dazhuang, Jiuguanping, Baishexi, and other places; and the uprising masses of Sangzhi County also took refuge in the deep mountains. They temporarily avoided the main force of the Qing army, preserved their strength, and waited for an opportunity to rise again.
Around the eleventh year of the Xianfeng reign (1861), the influence of the Gedi Society, a secret popular organization in the Longshan area, grew increasingly strong. Its leaders were not chosen based on age but on the ability to unite the majority and command the confidence of the members. Later, it failed because its leader was arrested.
(2) The Struggles of Shi Dakai's Taiping Army in the Tujia Region
Because the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom leadership group split severely over the struggle for power, Shi Dakai, disregarding the overall situation, pulled away a large contingent of elite Taiping troops and moved through Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Hunan, Guangxi, and other places, which also played a certain role in promoting the anti-Qing struggles in the Tujia region. In 1861, Shi Dakai sent Xu Guihe and others to lead the Taiping army from Guizhou into eastern Sichuan, where they established contact and coordinated with the peasant uprising armies of Li Yonghe and Lan Dashun active in eastern Sichuan. In August, the Taiping army under Xu Guihe captured Qianjiang County town, then divided forces to enter Youyang and Xiushan, and prepared to attack the counties under Shinan Prefecture of Hubei. Because the influence of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom revolution had long been deeply rooted in people's hearts, the Tujia, Han, Miao, and other ethnic peoples within Shinan Prefecture, upon hearing the news, gathered in crowds to "secretly plot internal support" to coordinate with the Taiping army's military operations. After the Taiping army defeated the interception by Huichun, deputy general of the Shinan garrison, at Xianba River and Changganling in Qianjiang, with the close cooperation of the Tujia people, they entered Shinan Prefecture in mid-September, advancing unchecked as if entering uninhabited territory, and rapidly captured the two county towns of Xianfeng and Laifeng. They killed the Laifeng County magistrate and sent troops to besiege Longshan County town, 15 li from Laifeng.
When the Taiping army besieged Longshan city, the Longshan County magistrate, who was "always greedy and cunning and did not trust his people," was terrified upon hearing the news and fled first with his family. Thus "officials and people scattered in panic," and "the city became empty, and orders could not restrain them." At this time, Huang Yuanling, a former subprefectural magistrate of a directly administered prefecture who had retired and was living at home, exhausted all his private wealth, recruited able-bodied men, and organized landlord militia to enter the city and defend it, attempting to prevent the Taiping army from entering Longshan County town. Soon, Zhang Xin, deputy general of the Yongshun garrison, led more than two hundred Qing troops into Longshan city. When the Taiping army prepared to besiege Longshan city, thirteen Tujia and Han peasants including Gao Liansheng of Laifeng County disguised themselves as local militia, entered Longshan County town with weapons as internal support, and planned to kill the Qing commander, burn the military camp, and coordinate with the Taiping army from within and without. Unexpectedly, the plot was leaked, and Gao Liansheng and the others were killed. The Taiping army besieged the city for three days without success. When Qing reinforcements arrived, they lifted the siege and shifted to developing in the countryside. The two counties of Laifeng and Longshan, stretching over a hundred li in all directions, were all occupied by the Taiping army.
The Taiping army's activities in the countryside caused extreme panic among the landlord class. Landlords and gentry in Laifeng, Xianfeng, Longshan, and other places donated money and provisions, and some even went so far as to use all their family property to organize landlord armed forces, guard passes, or set up linked camps to resist. In Laifeng County alone, the landlords and gentry of the four li of Zhile, Renyu, Yongjing, and Lizheng organized armed forces numbering as many as several thousand to coordinate with the Qing troops under Wang Linfei, the prefect of Youyang, in blocking the Taiping army. The Taiping army annihilated more than two thousand Qing troops at Jizixia in Laifeng County, killed Huichun, deputy general of the Shinan garrison, Xing Lu, the Yichang lieutenant colonel, and others. The Qing troops "filled the valleys with their dead and wounded, and those captured alive were countless."
In the winter of the same year, Shi Dakai personally led troops from Guangxi into Hunan, passing through Suining, Jingxian, and Qianyang, and arrived at Luxi in November. After defeating the Qing troops at Hexizhen and Zhenxizhen, he passed through Qianzhou (present-day Jishou), took a small road into Baojing and Yongshun, attacked Zhaotouzhai in Longshan, occupied Maoping and Shaping, and controlled the vital route to Longshan County town. After attacking the Qing military camps at Ciyantang and Hongyanxi, he arrived at Laifeng County in January 1862 and joined forces with Xu Guihe. At this time, Qing troops followed and gathered in the Longshan County town area, ordering every household to transport stored grain to the county town for the army's consumption, and the Tujia people suffered greatly from the Qing troops. In the Tujia regions through which Shi Dakai's forces passed, many poor Tujia peasants followed along and joined the Taiping army. After a brief stay in Laifeng, Shi Dakai led his troops through Longtan in Xianfeng County and Mazongling and Liziao in Lichuan County into Shizhu Hall in Sichuan, and then again divided his forces, crossing the river at Yangduxi and advancing to the Zhongxian, Fengdu, and Wanxian areas.
In the sixth month of the second year of Tongzhi (1863), the Taiping army led by Li Fuyou, a subordinate of Shi Dakai, entered Sichuan from Wuchuan County in Guizhou, once again occupied Qianjiang County town, moved about through Youyang and Xiushan, then reached Xianfeng again, and entered the territory of Laifeng and Longshan counties via Dingzhai. In Longshan County, a man surnamed Shu gathered several thousand poor Tujia and Han peasants from the border area of Sichuan and Hubei to operate within the county. They attacked the landlord and gentry forces, and no one 'dared to question them'; they also acted as internal supporters of the Taiping army, attacking the Qing forces from both inside and outside. Zhang Xiufu, the magistrate of Yongshun, upon hearing the news, went personally to Longshan, lured Shu's followers into watching a military review, and had him killed. When Li Fuyou learned that Shu and others had been killed, he immediately led his troops out of Longshan and Laifeng, passed through Youyang and Xiushan County, and moved to the Tongren area of Guizhou.
The Taiping army under Shi Dakai twice moved back and forth through the border region of Hunan, Hubei, Sichuan, and Guizhou, and both times received broad support and assistance from the Tujia people. They fought stubbornly against the Qing army, pinning down large numbers of Qing troops, and also provided powerful support for the anti-feudal struggles in the southwestern provinces.
(3) The uprising led by Tian Shijun
In the third year of Tongzhi (1864), the Tujia Tian Shijun again gathered a crowd and raised the standard of rebellion against Qing rule. Tian Shijun, also known as Tian Siqun, was a native of Quanshui Li in Changyang County. In the eighth month, Tian Shijun led poor Tujia peasants from Changyang and Changle counties into Changle County town, burning the civil and military offices of the county. In the eleventh month, they advanced to Huangbai Mountain, 'then made gunpowder and produced banners,' established official posts, and he called himself commander, with military advisers and vanguards below him, forming a five-battalion army. They openly raised the banner of anti-Qing rebellion and attacked Qing troops at Machi, Bashan, and other places. At Sifangtai and other locations, 'each day they sent out groups of several dozen or a dozen or so men to lie in ambush and scout for news of government troops,' waiting for the right moment to act.
The Qing rulers were greatly alarmed, fearing that this peasant rebel force would spread to Jing, Sha, and Hunan, and immediately dispatched Provincial Military Commander Tan Renfang and Yichang Prefect Tang Xiehe to lead the water and land forces to suppress them. The Qing army split into two routes from Changle and Changyang, advancing by both water and land, attacking from two sides in the hope of annihilating them in one blow. However, the rebel army relied on the natural barrier of sheer cliffs thousands of feet high and held firm. It happened that heavy snow fell for days on end, and the mountain roads were rugged, making it difficult for the Qing army's men and horses to move; they were helpless and did not dare to advance deep. Tang Xiehe then changed strategy, adopting a policy of pacification, and personally led two battalions of Qing troops, together with naval gunboats, to station at Jing'an near Malian. In the second month of the following year, Tian Shijun turned the plan against them, 'leading over four hundred followers, each carrying swords and spears and bundles on their backs, claiming they had come to the camp to accept pacification,' 'pretending to surrender,' while hiding his followers at Ziqiu, Malian, and other places, waiting for an opportunity to attack the Qing army. Tian Shijun, together with Tang Xiangyun, Qin Qilian, and four others, each wearing a waist saber, went straight into the Qing camp. Tian Shijun and the others, upright and unyielding, held the Qing officials in complete contempt, but unfortunately fell into an ambush and were killed. The Qing army launched a night raid to encircle and suppress them; the rebel army, fearing no death, resisted heroically and held out for half a month, until finally Tian Shijun's elder brother Tian Shichao, along with Tian Zhenghao, Tian Chulun, Tian Chutong, Tian Chushan, Qin Qijian, Qin Maoguan, and more than four hundred others all died heroically.