ESP8266 not working properly
You may well have killed the ESP by supplying it 5v, you have to have a logic level shifter, as Juraj says.

Assuming it's not dead then your next problem is there have been posts about that hardware setup and SoftwareSerial doesn't work at high speed. I can't tell you what it is that doesn't work because turning the speed of the link cures the problem, try 9600 maximum.

[Edited to be less accusational, which was not the original intent]

[Update]

Please see the datasheet here:
https://www.mikrocontroller.net/attachment/231858/0A-ESP8266_Specifications_v4.pdf

The table in section 8.4.4 says that the maximum input voltage is 3.6V
Just after that it says all digital pins are "protected from over-voltage with a snap-back circuit". This snap back voltage is typically 6V.  So does that mean the GPIO are safe up to 6V?

(It might be that this datasheet has been superseded, I am unable to access the EspressIF site at the moment).