SHI DAKAI

'Shi Dakai', also known as Wing King (Lord of Five Thousand Years}, one of the most capable Taiping leaders became disgusted with the continuing in-fighting amongst Hong Xiuquan's followers. He is of half-Hakka and half-Zhuang parentage.
Disillusioned, he led an army of 100,000 out of the Taiping capital in 1857. He vainly fought six years throughout central China against the much larger armies of the Qing. On the banks of the Dadu, a river in Sichuan, he stopped 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.

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Sources

Sources

★ "River Town" by Peter Hessler pp 54 & 56