Taiping Army attacked Shanghai several times and related information of Taiping Army in Shanghai.

From the opening of the Opium War to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Shanghai has initially developed into a trading port with "thousands of foreign goods". For the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, whose capital is Nanjing (Tianjing), seizing the Yangtze River estuary can not only cut off the lifeline of water transportation between the north and the south of the Qing Dynasty, but also develop trade with western countries with the help of the convenience of trading ports, obtain a stable source of foreign weapons and military materials, and obtain huge economic benefits.

1853 Spring (Xianfeng III of the Qing Dynasty and Hao Gui III of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom) When the Taiping Army just occupied Tianjing, the defense on the Shanghai beach was quite empty. Wu of Songtai Road of the Qing army pieced together some soldiers and hired foreign ships, but there were many fierce soldiers in Guangdong, and there were many knives on them, so their fighting capacity was quite low. At that time, Britain, France and other countries had not been able to obtain concessions in Shanghai, which was in sharp contradiction with the Qing court. They were frightened by the victory of Taiping Army and generally took a wait-and-see attitude. The British envoy rejected Wu's request for "help suppression" several times. At this time, if the Taiping Army decides to take southern Jiangsu first and then attack Shanghai, there is a great chance of success. However, Hong Xiuquan and Yang overestimated the situation, and soon sent a large number of elite troops to "sweep the north" in their capital in an attempt to conquer Beijing and destroy the Qing court in one fell swoop. Then, in order to solve the food problem of the defenders in Tianjing, they sent troops to the west to take food from the upper reaches, and the troops left behind were limited, so they could only be trapped in Tianjing, Zhenjiang and Yangzhou, unable to advance further eastward, delaying the capture of the most favorable fighters in Shanghai.

On September 7th of that year, the Knife Society revolted and occupied the county seat of Shanghai. Once captured Jiading, Qingpu, Baoshan, Nanhui, Chuansha and other county halls. Less than a month after the uprising, the founder Liu Lichuan and others changed the name of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and sent people to send the memorial to Wang Hongxiuquan of Tianjing by land and water, expressing their willingness to obey the leadership of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, but neither letter was delivered. Before the uprising, Dao would send soldiers to Taiping Army to attack Suzhou and Changzhou. It was in April of 1853. At this time, Yang, the East King of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom who presided over the military and political affairs, heard about the Knife Uprising and wrote a letter of condemnation. On the one hand, he questioned why Dao Hui did not join the army as scheduled, on the other hand, he persuaded them to join the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. I wonder if this letter has been delivered. However, since then, the Taiping Army has never sent a single soldier to Shanghai until1February 855 17.

Both the Taiping Army and the Knife Association had the desire to unite, but in the end they failed to unite because of various reasons. As for the Knife Club, although they respected the title of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, used its flag, and even quoted the biblical language commonly used by Taiping Army in their notices, they still called themselves "Daming", worshipped idols and smoked opium, which was not allowed by the teachings of the Kingdom of Heaven. In terms of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, apart from subjective problems, there was an objective shortage of troops, and the two camps of the Qing army, Jiangnan and Jiangbei, lived together day and night, so it was really difficult to divide their forces and look back on them. The outline of Luo, the commander of Zhenjiang, is a meeting of heaven and earth, which has a deep relationship with Dao. He once prepared 600 canoes in Yizheng, intending to break through the blockade of Qingshui Division along the river and support Shanghai City. However, Luo was quickly transferred, and the matter was shelved. The Taiping Army wasted another good opportunity to win Shanghai City.

1856 When the Tianjing Incident broke out, a large number of Taiping Army leaders and key soldiers below Dongwangyang were either killed or left behind. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's power declined greatly and its territory shrank day by day, making it unable to take care of the East. It was not until May 1860 that the Taiping Army concentrated its forces, destroyed the camp in the south of the Yangtze River with the plan of "encircling Wei to save Zhao", and swept across southern Jiangsu in a short time, that the capture of Shanghai was put on the agenda again.

1June, 860 to1June, 862, the Taiping Army attacked Shanghai three times, and engaged in many fierce battles with the Huai Army, the Chinese and foreign mixed foreign gun teams and even the regular British and French navies and armies. These three battles in Shanghai are summarized as follows.

Li Xiucheng

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Pre-war preparation:

Taiping military:

On June 2nd, Li Xiucheng Department of Taiping Army conquered Suzhou and established Sufu Province, and Suzhou became the rear base for the subsequent attack on Shanghai. On 23rd, Li Xiucheng, Lu Shunde and Mai Dongliang entered Jiading County from Kunshan, which was the first county town captured by Taiping Army in Shanghai today. On 26th, he withdrew from Jiading. In July 1 year, he conquered Songjiang Fucheng and cleared the border of Lou County. On the 22nd, they captured Jiading again. At the same time, another Taiping Rebellion Lai Department (under the British King Chen Yucheng) also conquered Qingpu County and established a bridgehead to March into Shanghai. Previously, loyal generals Chen Kunshu and Chen Bingwen conquered Jiaxing and surrounded Shanghai from the south.

Liu Shunde's department is a partial division with few troops, while Lai's department is mostly recruits, and its combat effectiveness is even worse. Two units have no troops to attack Shanghai, while the main force of Zhongjun Li Xiucheng has been stranded in Suzhou for two months. The reasons for its inaction are: first, there are a large number of guns, ships, regiments and other local armed forces in the newly occupied areas that need to be suppressed; Second, the one-month deadline given by the heavenly king has expired, and Chen Yucheng, the king of England, insisted on assisting Xi 'an Celebration with Zhongjun as agreed. These two people are controversial, so it is necessary for Wang Gan to come to the Soviet Union for coordination in late June. Thirdly, in a short period of one month, Zhongjun recruited a large number of soldiers, and the scale of the troops expanded rapidly. It took a certain period of reorganization and training to go out.

In this case, Wang Zhongyi ordered Lu Shunde and others to intervene actively, and at the same time took political and diplomatic measures in an attempt to seize Shanghai strategically. On June 23rd, three American missionaries, including Lin, visited Suzhou from Shanghai, held friendly talks with Zhong Wang and immediately returned to Shanghai. In June and July, five British missionaries including Ai also arrived in Suzhou. Due to Zhongjun's ignorance of the international trend, European and American countries, who mistakenly thought that they believed in God as the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, regarded them as "foreign courtiers" and rushed to send someone to play the role of the heavenly king Hong Xiuquan, reporting that "foreigners came down to earth" and asked the dry king who had lived in Hong Kong for many years and had contacts with foreigners to come to Suzhou to "teach foreigners"; Tianjing is also very excited about "foreigners coming down". It not only wrote a letter to Zhongjun, but also specially praised foreigners. On August 2nd, the one who made a special trip to the Soviet Union met with Ai, who was visiting for the second time. As Wang Gan had lived in Hongkong and Shanghai, and was familiar with several missionaries, the atmosphere of the talks was relatively harmonious.

When several missionaries met Zhongjun, they handed in English business cards, which deepened the misunderstanding of Zhongjun, who didn't know foreign languages, and thought that they were government officials who had "come to vote for the aromatic version", and then they had the intention of using this "foreign official" who believed in God like them and had previously driven Emperor Xianfeng out of Beijing as an internal friend and stationed in Shanghai peacefully. From June to August, Zhong Wang and Wang Gan wrote to ambassadors of various countries many times, hoping that they would support or at least not interfere with the Taiping Army's presence in Shanghai. During this period, foreigners from Shanghai came to Suzhou and other places to do arms and other businesses in an endless stream, and some of them also freely expressed their appreciation for the Taiping Army, which made Zhong Wang and others feel that foreigners at least had no malice towards the Taiping Army.

While making diplomatic efforts, they also actively contacted other insiders. According to Zhong Wang's letter to Liu Shunde on July 6th, there were "more than 3,000 soldiers from Guangdong and Guangxi" in the Qing army in Shanghai, but in fact they were junior officers from the Qing side, from Guangxi, such as Yu Yizheng and Guo Gongde. , the total just exceeds 100.

In addition to the great victory, there are foreigners' support and soldiers' courage. These "favorable factors" combine together, which naturally makes Zhongjun and his men full of confidence in taking Shanghai lightly.