The peasant uprising in the early Jiaqing years of the Qing Dynasty. Most of the earliest participants were members of the White Lotus Sect. It first broke out in the Sichuan-Chu-Shaanxi border area and later spread to Sichuan, Chu, Shaanxi, Henan, Gansu and other provinces. It lasted for nine years and was the largest peasant war in the early Qing Dynasty.
The border area between Sichuan, Chu and Shaanxi provinces is a virgin forest area and has always been a gathering place for refugees who were forced to leave their land. In the thirty-seventh and thirty-eighth years of Qianlong's reign (1772 and 1773), hundreds of thousands of hungry people from Sichuan and Chu provinces came here to look for food. Including refugees from Henan, Anhui, Jiangxi and other provinces, the total number is no less than one million. The soil in the area is barren and the climate is harsh. In addition to building tents and cultivating the land, the refugees also need to be employed in wooden box factories, iron factories, and paper mills to earn meager wages in order to survive. Not only were they exploited by landlords and factory owners, but they were also extorted by police officers and litigants. Their lives were extremely difficult. The desperate refugees became the target of the spread of the White Lotus Sect.
The White Lotus Sect was the main secret religion in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. It believed in the "Infinite Old Mother" and "Maitreya Buddha" and used the "vacuum homeland, the Inanimate Old Mother" as the eight-character true secret to enable people to gain spiritual enlightenment. Certain sustenance is very attractive to the refugees who are in dire straits and trying to escape from this world, so there are more and more followers.
In the late Qianlong period, various social conflicts intensified. Bureaucrats, landlords, and wealthy businessmen annexed land on a massive scale. The population surge and lack of arable land have led to skyrocketing food prices and increasing numbers of hungry people. In addition, the feudal ruling class lived a luxurious life, corrupt officials were rampant, and people's dissatisfaction and resistance increased day by day. The propaganda of the White Lotus Sect also increased the content of resistance to reality. In the 39th year of Qianlong's reign, the leader Fan Mingde proposed to the believers in Henan that the "end of calamity" had arrived and that the world would be "changed." Later, when Liu Song, Liu Zhixie, Song Zhiqing and others were preaching in Hubei, Sichuan, Anhui and other places, they also proposed that "the reincarnation of Maitreya should assist Niu Ba" (Niu Ba is the Chinese character for Zhu, implying the descendants of the Ming Dynasty), claiming that "Huang The sky will die, the sky will live." If you follow his teachings, you can avoid all disasters of water, fire, swords, and soldiers. After joining the religion, "all the money gained in the teaching will be shared equally". Those who practice the religion "do not distinguish between themselves and others", "help each other in times of trouble, die in trouble, and can go around without holding a single coin." "World" and so on. This kind of propaganda not only meets the requirements of small producers for equality, equality and mutual assistance, but also satisfies their desire to resist and survive. Therefore, by the end of Qianlong's reign, the White Lotus Sect had developed into a powerful force and was preparing to hold an armed uprising.
In the 60th year of Qianlong's reign, the leaders of the Bailian cult in various places in Hubei and the secret merchants launched an uprising on "Chen Nian Chen Yue Chen Day" (the tenth day of March in the first year of Jiaqing) and asked the believers to prepare gunpowder for knives. . The rapid development of the White Lotus Sect and its anti-Qing content aroused serious uneasiness in the Qing government, which ordered a large-scale roundup of White Lotus sects. A large number of leaders and believers were arrested and killed, and local officials carried out extortion in the name of hunting down the cult. "It doesn't matter whether you practice teaching or not, but it doesn't matter whether you give money or not." "If you don't get what you want, you will be falsely accused of being a cult." Church leaders in various places used the slogan "officials force people to rebel" to call on believers to rise up and resist. On the seventh day of the first lunar month of the first year of Jiaqing (February 15, 1796), Zhang Zhengmo and Nie Jieren, the leaders of Yidu and Zhijiang areas in Hubei Province, were forced to carry out revolt in advance due to the urgent investigation by the government. Believers in Changyang, Laifeng, Dangyang, Zhushan and other counties started to appear one after another. On March 10th, the believers in Xiangyang area, led by Wang Conger, Yao Zhifu and others, revolted on the original date. The various rebel armies did not belong to each other and fought independently. Most of the mountain villages or county towns they occupied were defeated by the Qing army one by one. Only the Xiangyang Uprising Army adopted a mobile combat strategy and rapidly grew in strength, becoming the main force of the Hubei Uprising Army. Under the influence of the White Lotus Uprising in Hubei, White Lotus believers from all over Sichuan also responded one after another. In September, Xu Tiande, the leader of Dazhou, and Wang Sanhuai and Leng Tianlu, the leader of Dongxiang (now Xuanhan, Sichuan), led the uprising.
At the beginning of the second year, the Xiangyang uprising army began large-scale mobile operations again, fighting in Hubei, Sichuan, Henan, and Shaanxi, and then divided into three groups and entered Sichuan. The Qing army only followed behind, exhausted. In July, the Sichuan uprising army was besieged by the Qing army. The Xiangyang uprising army rushed to relieve the siege and joined forces with the Sichuan uprising army in Dongxiang. Each rebel army has established positions such as shopkeeper, marshal, vanguard, and general soldier according to green, yellow, blue, and white symbols. However, due to the inherent decentralization and conservatism of small producers, the insurrectionary army was not truly united as a whole, and each group still fought independently and acted dispersedly.
In March of the third year, the Xiangyang uprising army was surrounded by the Qing army in Yunxi, Hubei Province. Their leaders Wang Conger and Yao Zhifu jumped off a cliff and died, while the rest continued to fight. The Sichuan uprising army also suffered heavy losses. But before March of the fifth year of Jiaqing, the rebel army was in the stage of development and growth. Because the rebel army received support from people everywhere, wherever they went, "there were houses to shelter in, food, clothing, and gunpowder to provide relief, and mules and horses to gnaw grass to seize and replace their horses." Moreover, there were believers from various places who "guided and carried luck for them." ", which severely damaged the Qing army many times. After the Battle of Matigang in Jiangyou, Sichuan in April of the fifth year of Jiaqing, the uprising began to turn into a low ebb. The number of people was reduced from hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands, and many important generals died one after another. The Qing government's strategies of "strengthening walls and clearing fields" and "fortress group training" have gradually been promoted and come into play. By building forts and merging villages, people were moved there, filled with folk grain and fodder supplies, and trained young men for defense, thus cutting off the connection between the rebel army and the people, preventing them from being supplemented by grain, grass and soldiers, and increasing their strength. gradually drying up. In the second half of the sixth year of Jiaqing, the activities of the rebel army were basically limited to the border areas of Sichuan, Chu and Shaanxi. They moved to fight in the mountains and forests. Their number no longer exceeded 24,000, and the number of Qing troops encircled and suppressed was ten times that.
The rebel army persisted in fighting under extremely difficult conditions. By September 9, the uprising finally failed.
In the battle that lasted for more than nine years, the White Lotus Rebel Army occupied or conquered 204 prefectures and counties, resisted a large number of troops recruited by the Qing government from sixteen provinces, and annihilated a large number of The Qing army killed more than 400 generals below the rank of deputy general, and more than 20 first- and second-grade officials such as Zhenzhen. The Qing government spent 200 million taels of military expenditure, equivalent to four years of fiscal revenue. This uprising greatly weakened the Qing Dynasty, and its rule gradually declined.
On October 8, 1813 (Wuyin in September of the 18th year of Jiaqing of Emperor Renzong of the Qing Dynasty), Lin Qing, the leader of the Tianli Sect in Beijing, revolted and invaded the palace. The Tianli Sect, also known as the Bagua Sect, is a branch of the White Lotus Sect. It spreads throughout Hebei, Shandong, Shanxi, and Henan. It organizes believers into eight districts based on the Bagua. Li Wencheng from Huaxian County in Henan and Lin Qing from Beijing are the main leaders. Uprisings in all directions were scheduled to take place simultaneously on September 15, the 18th year of Jiaqing (lunar calendar). However, Li Wencheng's actions were exposed and he was arrested and imprisoned. The people in Huaxian County revolted in advance on September 7 (lunar calendar), rescued Li Wencheng, and occupied the town of Huaxian County. Li Wencheng calls himself "Great Tomorrow Shun Li Zhenzhen". Lin Qingze revolted as scheduled, organized armed forces in Huangcun, south of Beijing, and sneaked into the city with 200 people. Under the guidance of the religious eunuch Liu Jinheng, they attacked the Qing Palace from Donghua and Xihua gates. At that time, Emperor Jiaqing was hunting in Rehe, and the palace was in panic. The emperor's second son Ning (above and below) transferred soldiers from the firearms camp and Jianrui camp to the palace to fight against Longzong. The rebels were outnumbered and withdrew from the palace. On October 16, Lin Qing was arrested and sacrificed in Huangcun. After Li Wencheng's army captured Huaxian, it also occupied Daokou Town and other places. The Qing government dispatched Yang Yuchun and Yang Fang to lead their troops to suppress it. On December 17, Li Wencheng was defeated in Sizhai (now Hui County) and burned himself to death. On January 4, 1814, the Qing army captured Huaxian County. After killing dozens of people, Li Wencheng's wife Zhang closed the door and hanged herself. The uprising ultimately failed. This uprising was extremely shocking because Lin Qing invaded the Forbidden City.
Emperor Jiaqing admitted: This is "unprecedented in the Han, Tang, Song, and Ming Dynasties" and "never happened before in the Qing Dynasty!"