Shi Dakai
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Shi Dakai (1820-1863) (石達開), also known as Wing King (Lord of Five Thousand Years}, was a commander in the Taiping Rebellion. He eventually became disgusted with the continuing in-fighting amongst Hong Xiuquan's followers. He was of half-Hakka and half-Zhuang parentage. Shi, along with the rest of his family, became followers of the teachings of Hong in 1849.[1]
Disillusioned, Shi led an army of 100,000 out of the Taiping capital in 1857. He fought six years throughout central China against the much larger armies of the Qing Dynasty. On the banks of the Dadu, a river in Sichuan, he stopped for three days to celebrate the birth of a son, as he was a prince of the Heavenly Kingdom. The Qing finally caught up with Shi Dakai and although pleading that he quickly be killed and that the 2,000 men who were the faithful remnants of his troops be spared, he was slowly dismembered and all his men were massacred.
[edit] Sources
- Hessler, Peter. River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze, 54, 56. ISBN 0060855029.
[edit] References
- ^ Spence, Jonathan. God's Chinese Son, 114. ISBN 0393315568.
