Great Taiping General: Hakka Li Xiucheng

["Dixie" <Dixie@singnet.com.sg>]

Li Hsiu-ch'eng,

Pinyin LI XIUCHENG (d. Aug. 7, 1864, Nanking), Chinese general and leader
of the Taiping Rebellion, the giant religious-political uprising that
occupied most of South China between 1850 and 1864. After 1859, when the
Taipings were beset by internal dissension, poor leadership, and
corruption, Li's military and administrative genius kept the movement
going. Between 1860 and 1862, Li tried to expand the Taiping conquests by
taking the large North China trading city of Shanghai. As a result, Western
forces based in the city began to aid the Imperial government. Repeatedly
driven off by these Western mercenary armies, Li had to abandon his efforts
and go to aid in the defense of the Taiping capital at Nanking. Having
given his best horse to the young heir-apparent to the Taiping throne and
taken a poor mount for himself when the capital fell to the enemy in 1864,
he was captured by government troops, forced to confess, and then executed.