Background
Shi Dakai was the son of a wealthy Hakka family in Guangxi province that provided substantial financial help to the God Worshipping Society, a religious organization that precursore the outbreak of the Taiping Rebellion.
Shi Dakai was the son of a wealthy Hakka family in Guangxi province that provided substantial financial help to the God Worshipping Society, a religious organization that precursore the outbreak of the Taiping Rebellion.
Shi was educated and passionately devoted to the Taiping cause, which he joined at the age of nineteen. Granted the title of Assistant (or Wing) King in 1851, Shi soon proved himself to be one of the finest Taiping generals.
After the outbreak of the Taiping Rebellion, Shi led one of the vanguard land forces to charge toward the northeast. He was instrumental in uniting his Taiping troops with other local secret society armies in Jiangxi province, southeast of Nanjing, and in ensuring food supplies for his forces.
However, he also became embroiled in the internal strife that began to plague the Taiping leadership in 1856. Shi was recalled to Nanjing by Hong Xiuquan, the supreme leader of the Taiping movement, in September 1856 to eliminate Yang Xiuqing,the East King who attempted to usurp Hong’s power. Shi's reservation about the massacre of Yang's family, relatives, and followers almost cost his own life. Though he managed to escape, his entire family and relatives fell victims to the ruthless slaughter carried out by one of his fellow generals, the North King.
After the North King Wei Changhui was executed on Hong Xiuquan’s order, Shi Dakai was again called back to the capital. Now the only survivor of the original four kings, Shi helped with administering the Taiping affairs, but soon aroused the suspicion and resentment of Hong's two brothers. When Hong offered to raise his title from “Assistant King” to “Righteous King together with "Lightening of the Holy Spirit, Shi, to Hong surprise, declined the honor. With all his family massacred, Shi lived in seclusion and depression while trying to attend to administrative affairs.
After about half a year in Nanjing, a disheartened and disgruntled Shi Dakai left Nanjing in the summer of 1857 with a large loyal following. However, still determined to demonstrate his loyalty to Hong Xiuquan, Shi led another military operation to show his sincerity. After having conducted tireless campaigns in a number of provinces in the next six years, yet besieged by the imperial forces, Shi Dakai surrendered to the Qing authority in Sichuan in the hope that, in exchange for his own life, those of his 2,000 soldiers could be spared. His hopes were dashed, however, when he was executed, together with all his followers, in June 1863, a year before the ultimate failure of the Taiping movement.
While Shi Dakai was an accomplished poet, only three of his authentic works survive, along with two more probables. After his death, many romantic poems of the heroism style were written in his name, borrowing his prestige to encourage more and more Chinese people to overthrow the Qing dynasty, something that eventually led to the creation of the Republic of China in 1912.