Mavericks › Uprising Leaders
Li Kaifang
Taiping general who led the Northern Expedition with Lin Fengxiang and held out at Fengguantun in Shandong until Senggerinchen flooded it in 1855
A mountain camp at night, with a beacon fire burning on a wooden platform at the upper left, several white tents on the slope and a red cloth tied to a rope; a wooden palisade with a gate stands at the right beyond a timber bridge over a rough river, under a clouded moon.
- Roles
- Uprising Leaders
Li Kaifang, a Taiping commander said to come from Yulin or from Wuyuan in Guangxi, was with the rebels from the Jintian rising. In May 1853 he and Lin Fengxiang led the Northern Expedition out from the Yangzhou area through Anhui and Henan; by September they were nearing Baoding, where he was made Marquis Dinghu, and they then turned east towards Tianjin. Halted outside Tianjin, the army split in 1854 and Li went south to meet a relief force, holding first Gaotang in Shandong and then the village of Fengguantun in Chiping. In 1855 Senggerinchen diverted the Grand Canal to flood the village; with no way out, Li was captured at the end of May and executed by slicing in Beijing on 11 June. The Taiping court posthumously named him King Qing in 1863.
Life and times
Dates Birth unknown–1855 CE