Finding Hong Xiuquan's Body
During the final days of the Taiping Rebellion, Li Chendian's main task was to destroy the city wall of Nanjing.
On July 19, at 13：00 in the afternoon, attackers detonated explosives in a tunnel under the Taiping (太平) Gate. This is the first recorded time that men felt a light earthquake from an underground explosion. A second blast occurred about one minute later and then a large section of the wall exploded with pieces flying from 2 to 10 km away.
Li then led 600 soldiers and stormed into the city shouting:. A fierce battle was fought at the broken wall,continuing into the city, and finally occupying Hong Xiuquan's palace.
Li was the second general to arrived at Hong‘s palace on the second day, the first general had not been able to locate Hong‘s body. Li was unable to locate the body either. On 30 July, Li noticed a section of the ground had been tampered with in the pavilion. He ordered his soldiers to dig there and was surprised to find Hong‘s naked body wrapped in white cloth. The body had long white hair, hands placed on the chest, and holding an iron cross. There was no coffin and the body had badly decomposed. Only the shoulders and right buttock were still covered with skin and flesh.
Read more about this topic: Li Chendian
Famous quotes containing the words finding and/or body:
“As a father I had some trouble finding the words to separate the person from the deed. Usually, when one of my sons broke the rules or a window, I was too angry to speak calmly and objectively. My own solution was to express my feelings, but in an exaggerated, humorous way: “You do that again and you will be grounded so long they will call you Rip Van Winkle II,” or “If I hear that word again, I’m going to braid your tongue.””
—David Elkind (20th century)
“There is nothing in the world I hold in greater horror than to see a body moving against its head: and I shall be very careful not to ally myself with such a monster.”
—Elizabeth I (1533–1603)