Hong Xiuquan
- This is a Chinese name; the family name is Hong.
Hóng Xiùquán (Chinese: 洪秀全; pinyin: Hóng Xiùquán; Wade-Giles: Hung Hsiu-ch'üan; January 1, 1814 – June 1, 1864), born Hong Renkun (洪仁坤), Courtesy name Huoxiu (火秀) was a Hakka Chinese who led the Taiping Rebellion, which established the short-lived "Heavenly Kingdom of Taiping" over varying portions of southern China, with himself as the "Heavenly King."
Early life and education
He was born in Fuyuanshui Village (福源水村), Hua County (Template:Zh-tcy, now Huadu (花都市)), Guangdong to Hong Jingyang (洪競揚) and Wang-shi (王氏). His grandfather was Hong Guoyou (洪國游), who was, like his ancestors, a farmer. He later moved to Guānlùbù Village (官祿[土布]¹村).
Hong started studying in Book Chamber Building (書房閣), a private school (私塾), at age seven. He was able to recite the Four Classics after five or six years. At around the age of fifteen his parents were no longer able to afford his schooling, so he became a tutor to other children in his village and continued to study privately. He sat in his local preliminary examinations and came first, so at the age of 22 in 1836, he sat the first-degree (秀才) civil service examinations in Guangzhou. He failed, although it should be remembered that most imperial examinations had a pass rate of 1%[1]. He tried again, ultimately four times, and never succeeded.
He later got the position as an instructor (塾師) at Book Chamber Building and several schools in Lianhuatang (蓮花塘) and other villages.
Visions and iconoclasm
Hóng claimed that one night in 1837, in a psychogenic experience, he dreamed of being carried to heaven by angels, where he met a man in black dragon cloak with a long golden beard who cut out his organs, replaced them, gave him a sword and a magic seal, and told him to purify the land of evil. The same year in Guangzhou, after his second attempt in the exam, he had received a copy of the booklet The Benevolent Words to Advise the World (《勸世良言》), written by the Christian Liang Fa. Several years later, in 1843, after Hong had failed to pass the examination for the third time he experienced a mental breakdown. At this time, after reading the Liang Fa's tract, he came to believe that the man in black in his vision was God, and that he was the second son of God, the adopted younger brother to Jesus, on earth with a mission to found a new kingdom - a new Messiah. However, it is possible that this was his post hoc rationalization to gain legitimacy for the "Heavenly Kingdom of Taiping." His friends and family said that after this episode he became authoritative and solemn.
In his house, Hong burned all Confucian and Buddhist statues and books, and began to preach to his community about his visions. His earliest converts were relatives of his who had also failed their examinations and belonged to the Hakka minority, Feng Yunshan and Hong Rengan. As a symbolic gesture to purge China of Confucianism, he asked for two giant swords, three-chi (about 1 metre) long and nine-jin (about 5.5 kg), called the "demon-slaying swords" (斬妖劍), to be forged.
The God worshippers
Hong and his converts' acts were considered sacrilegious and they were persecuted by Confucians, who forced them to leave their positions as village tutors. Hong Xiuquan and Feng Yunshan fled the district in 1844, walking some 300 miles to Guangxi where they founded an iconoclastic sect called the "God Worshippers" (拜上帝會).
Hong then preached to a large number of charcoal-burners on Zijin Mountain (紫金山) in Guiping District (桂平縣), who mostly belonged to the Hakka minority like Hong himself, and readily joined his sect. He preached a mix of communal utopianism, evangelism and his idiosyncratic quasi-Christianity. The sect segregated men from women and encouraged all its followers to pay their assets into a communal treasury.
In 1847, he formally studied the Old Testament for four months in Hong Kong under the tutelage of Issachar Jacox Roberts, a Baptist missionary from the United States. After Hong asked him for aid in maintaining his sect, Roberts (wary of people converting to Christianity for economic aid) refused to baptise him.
When Hong returned to Guangxi, he found that Feng had accumulated a following of around 2,000 converts, but it appears that at this point the sect was purely spiritual, without any political ambitions. At that point Guangxi was a dangerous area, with many bandit groups based in the mountains and pirates on the rivers. Perhaps due to these more pressing concerns, the authorities were largely tolerant of Hong and his followers. However, the instability of the region meant that the God Worshippers were inevitably drawn into conflict with other groups, not least because of their predominately Hakka ethnicity. There are records of numerous incidents when local villages and clans (as well as groups of pirates and bandits) came into conflict with the authorities, and responded by fleeing to join the God Worshippers. The rising tension between the sect and the authorities was probably the most important factor in Hong's eventual decision rebel.
By 1850, Hong had amassed at least 10,000 followers, possibly as many 30,000 in total. The authorities were alarmed at the growing size of the sect and ordered them to disperse. When they refused a local force was sent to attack them, but the imperial troops were routed and a deputy magistrate killed. A full-scale attack was launched by the government forces in the first month of 1851. In what came to be known as the Jintian Uprising (after the town of Jintian (now Guiping) where the sect was based) the God Worshippers emerged victorious and beheaded the Manchu commander of the government troops.
The Heavenly Kingdom
Hong declared the foundation of the "Heavenly Kingdom of Transcendant Peace" on January 11, 1851. While it is impossible to be certain, the speed with which the kingdom was founded and the rebellion spread suggests that Hong had decided on a definite plan of action some time in the past, and that the uprising was not a spontaneous response to the authorities' oppression.
Despite this evidence of forward planning, Hong and his followers faced immediate challenges. The local Green Standard Army outnumbered them ten to one, and had recruited the help of the river pirates to keep the rebellion contained to Jintian. After a month of preparation the Taipings managed to break through the blockade and fight their way to the town of Yongan (not to be confused with Yong'an), which fell to them on 25 September 1851.
Hong and his troops rested in Yongan for three months, sustained by local landowners who were hostile to the Manchu Qing Dynasty. In that time, the imperial army regrouped and launched another attack on the Taipings in Yungan. Having run out of gunpowder, Hong's followers fought their way out by sword, and made for the city of Guilin, which they laid siege to. However, the fortifications of Guilin proved too secure, and Hong and his followers eventually gave up and set out northwards, towards Hunan. Here, they encountered an elite militia created by a local member of the gentry specifically to put down peasant rebellions. The two forces fought at Soyi Ford on 10 June 1852, where the Taipings were forced into retreat, and an estimated 20% of their troops killed.
In the "Heavenly Kingdom of Taiping" he established in 1851, he dictated several reforms that were implemented harshly and ineffectively in the Taiping Rebellion. Beginning in 1853, Hong began to retreat from the political life as a king and became obsessed with his religious experiences and engaged in sensual activities. In 1856, his health deteriorated.
Some sources claim that he committed suicide by poison on June 1, 1864 at the age of 52 after the Chinese authorities finally gained a decisive military advantage and all hope of maintaining his "kingdom" was lost and his body was discovered later in a sewer. However, in other sources, he was said to have died of illness. Hong Rengan, Hong's cousin said his illness was caused by "eating manna." A command taken from the Bible which Hong had given to his people as they starved.
He was succeeded by his teenage son, Hong Tianguifu.
Publications
- The Imperial Decree of Taiping《太平詔書》(1852)
- The Instructions on the Original Way Series (《原道救世訓》系列) (1845 - 48): included in The Imperial Decree of Taiping later. The series is proclaimed by PRC's National Affairs Department (國務院) to be Protected National Significant Documents (全國重點文物) in 1988.
- The Instructions on the Original Way to Save the World (《原道救世訓》)
- The Instructions on the Original Way to Awake the World (《原道醒世訓》)
- The Instructions on the Original Way to Make the World Realize (《原道覺世訓》)
- The New Essay on Economics and Politics (《資政新篇》 ) (1859)
Quotes
The following poem, called "The Poem on Executing the Vicious and Preserving the Righteous" (《斬邪留正詩》), written in 1837 by Hong, illustrates his religious thinking and goal that later lead to the establishment the "Heavenly Kingdom of Taiping." Note that in the second last line, the name of the then yet-to-come kingdom is mentioned. This, and other poems of his, are considered by some scholars to be of low quality, because the lack of use of classical phrases.
- Holding the Universe in the hand,
- I slay evil, preserve justice, and improve the lives of my subjects.
- Eyes can see through beyond the west, the north, the rivers, and the mountains,
- Sounds can shake the east, the south, the Sun, and the Moon.
- The glorious sword of authority was given by Lord,
- Poems and books are evidences that praise Yahweh in front of Him.
- Taiping [perfect Peace] unifies the World of Light,
- The domineering air will be joyous for myriads of thousand years.
手握乾坤殺伐權，斬邪留正解民懸。眼通西北江山外，聲振東南日月邊。璽劍光榮存帝賜，詩章憑據誦爺前，太平一統光世界，威風快樂萬千年
The transliteration of Yahweh was Yehuohua (爺火華). It is now Yehehua (耶和華).
Legacy
Views and opinions on Hong differ greatly. Peasant revolutionaries, most notably Mao Zedong, have praised Hong and asserted the legitimacy of his Taiping Kingdom, in reflection to legitimize his own rise to power. He has also been equated to Li Hongzhi in that he rallies a large number of people behind a religious or spiritual cause to challenge the status quo, although Li's political intentions have been of intense debate.
In his birthplace, in 1959, the PRC established a small museum called Hong Xiuquan's Former Residence Memorial Museum (洪秀全故居紀念館), where there is a longan tree planted by him. The museum's plate is written by the famous literary figure, Guo Moruo (郭沫若) (1892–1978). The residence and Book Chamber Building were renovated in 1961.
External links
- 紀念館 (The Memorial Museum) (in Chinese) with a picture of Hong's huge longan tree.
Notes
1 Bù [土布], one obscure character used only in few placenames, is "㘵" (#13877) in Unicode, but the character currently does not appear on some browsers/operating systems.
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- Gray, Jack, Rebellions and Revolutions: China from the 1800s to the 1980s, Oxford University Press, 1990, ISBN: 0-19-821576-2.
| Preceded by: none |
Heavenly King of Taiping 1851-1864 |
Succeeded by: Hong Tianguifu |
hak:Fùng Siu-chhiòn
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- ↑ Gray, j: "Rebellions and Revolutions: China from the 1800s to the 1980s.," page 55. Oxford University Press, 1990.
