Introduction to the Taiping Rebellion

Hong Xiuquan Believed Himself to be the Younger Brother of Jesus Christ

Most western audiences are familiar with the US civil war, which was a 4-year battle between southern and northern US states, that resulted in about 620,000 dead.

Less well known is the Taiping Rebellion or Revolution in China which occurred at a similar time and resulted in somewhere between 20 million and 70 million dead in battles between southern rebels with their own capital and the northern imperial government. It may be the most deadly civil war in human history. It deserves our attention.

Rebellions were not new in Chinese history. It was relatively common near the end of a dynasty, for tensions to build up. Corruption tended to increase, taxes too. Those high taxes or rents, banditry, local self-defence organizations and secret societies.

If such disorder could gain cohesion, then power could be consolidated in new hands and a new dynasty formed under new leadership, which could institute military and economic reforms.

But traditional dynastic changes had not been overly revolutionary. The traditions of a gentry led civil service based on the examination system and founded on Confucian values were steady, regardless of who the elite were at the very top. The change in dynastic leadership rarely altered the social order in China. The gentry remained important to whomever was in charge and supported the emperor through administration and local leadership. And Confucian teachings expected the Emperor to govern well and to earn the mandate of heaven. If the Emperor governed badly and lost the mandate, then he could be replaced.

The Taiping Rebellion followed a different model. They not only attacked the ruling dynasty, but also traditional social order.

That ultimately was its downfall. Had it limited itself to replacing the government, it might have succeeded at this time when the Qing Dynasty was clearly weakening. But because the rebellion aimed for an overthrow of societal norms and values, it aroused the opposition of the gentry. It was a regional warlord, acting mostly independently of Beijing and raising his own force, that defeated them militarily and ended this cult like revolution. But that took years and what happened first is very interesting.

The general conditions for the rebellion were varied. Corruption by officials was one cause. High taxes and rents were another. The population had also roughly tripled since the start of the Qing Dynasty, but without a corresponding tripling of the amount of arable land. Average farm sizes had decreased and for various reasons, there was more roving population and banditry. Also, as mentioned in the special episode on silver, the relative price of silver...important for taxation and state operations, had increased resulting in inflation in the cost of copper coins (used for daily purchases) and in the price of staples like rice.

The Taiping Rebellion was one of countless rebellions that took place in 19thcentury China.

It originated in the provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi: Eastern Guang and Western Guang.

Guangdong is the province along the southeastern coast of China that contains Guangzhou and Hong Kong before it became a British controlled territory. Guangxi is to its west and has a population of mixed ethnicities.

Guangdong province had felt economic disruptions from the Opium War, since it had been integral to the old trading system and now had to compete with other ports like Shanghai. Guangxi as its hinterland and oriented to the east by rivers, felt effects too.

There were tensions between two main Han groups. The Punti and the Hakka. The Punti had settled first and the Hakka later. They had different dialects and customs.

Hakka villages are quite striking to look at. I’ll post a photo of one in the show notes and on the website. Hakka people often lived in a sort of communal fortress, well adapted to defence.

Also, in the remote parts of Guangxi, ethnic groups like the Miao, Yao and Lolo formed important minorities. There were also groups based on occupations, like the boat people and charcoal burners.

Hong Xiuquan was the leader of the Taiping movement. He was of Hakka background and born in a village in Guangdong province. His father was a small farmer. He was intelligent and his family had him schooled and he was able to pass the first two sets of examinations. But he failed the third level and was not able to advance to the level of gentry and official. He tried multiple and, in the meanwhile, supported himself as a village schoolteacher. In 1837, he became very ill. For days, he was delirious, and his family feared for his life and thought he had gone mad.

When he exited his delirium, his personality had changed. He was now confident and domineering. He took over leadership activities in his village. He brandished a whip and called himself an Inspector on the Ground. He punished wrongdoers and seems to have had a particular hatred towards opium and any government condonement of the trade.

Shortly after failing the examination for the last time in 1843, he became aware of a Christian pamphlet that gave him new direction. He had actually received it years earlier when in Guangzhou for an examination. But now his cousin read it and called it to Hong’s attention, which its teachings about Jesus Christ and the Ten Commandments.

Now rather than shameful, Hong’s previous illness struck him as a religious experience. He had been chosen by God for a special mission to defeat evil and to bring about God’s rule on earth.

As he now told it, during that time, he had been called to heaven and had met God and Jesus and called to a mission. He had then battled demons before returning to earth. Hong and his cousin then baptized each other as suggested in the pamphlet and Hong began preaching in his village.

Hong had a Christian conception influenced by Chinese thoughts. He imagined God as an Emperor in heaven, with a black dragon robe and high hat surrounded by his heavenly family, including a wife and his son Jesus. Hong understood himself to be the younger brother of Jesus and sent back for a purpose.

Hong imagined a great battle between good and evil, between angels and demons. Later, he determined, the Manchus were most certainly devils, so battling them was a righteous war.

Hong gained a couple of cousins as additional converts and began practicing their beliefs. When asked to compose poems in praise of the local gods for the lantern festival in 1844, they refused and wrote a verse instead to the new faith. This cost Hong his job as schoolteacher and then he and his friend Feng left their home villages and became travelling preachers.

While they had some small successes, they also had challenges and sometimes arose opposition. They separated and Feng had more organizational success. He organized a new secret society called the God Worshippers Society. It grew and sometimes whole communities joined. It was also primarily Hakka and while originally religious in nature, it took on a militancy when Hakka communities had conflict with Punti or other non-Hakka groups. This was in a mountainous, isolated area without much government presence. Conflicts soon became God Worshippers Society versus the devils.

Hong travelled to Guangzhou and studied for a few months with a protestant missionary there. He read translations by Karl Guetzlaff of the old and new testaments.

He then rejoined Feng in August 1847 by Thistle Mountain. At this point, Feng had gained about 2000 converts.

Now, Hong’s teachings took on more of a political tone. It was anti-Manchu and the converts also attacked statues of local deities, mostly from minority tribes. That was popular among the Chinese and Hong began calling himself the Chung Wang or Noble King.

The followers were all children of God and organized in a family manner, with a common treasury. They were to live in complete chastity until God’s purpose had been accomplished, when they could then marry and live happily ever after.

Before they could experience that better world, they had battles with rival groups. Generally, magistrates seemed to tolerate them...not seeing any threat at this point and considering them another local self defence group.

On one occasion, Feng was arrested and Hong went to Guangzhou to petition the governor for his release. While Hong was gone, Feng’s release was arranged in exchange for cash payments and a promise to return to his home village. When Hong returned after an unsuccessful trip to the big city, Feng was gone and Hong left again to find him.

The absence of these two leaders created a leadership vacuum and Yang Xiuqing filled the void. A son of farmers, he had been orphaned and had become a charcoal burner. He seems to have led a group of charcoal burners and miners among the society. Around this point, he claims to have been sick and deaf/mute for two months. Then he suddenly spoke up in meetings. He had trances and seizures and declared he had been possessed by the Holy Ghost and shared the instructions he received. Those were accepted by the society members and he was seen to have divine sanction.

Xiao Chaogui also had trances and cooperated closely with Yang. When Hong returned, he took note of these two leaders and declared their trances to be genuine and not devilish.

The society continued to grow, including expanding beyond the Hakka community and becoming multiethnic. At one point, it was separated in two. Hong and Feng at one location and Yang and others at another location. They were each attacked by government forces. One group defeated the official forces easily but Hong’s group was encircled. Yang emerged from a trance and claimed that he had been told to rescue that other group. They did so, breaking the encirclement. Yang thus was a hero, inspired directly by divine gift, as well as a strong military commander and saviour of the society’s founders. His status only grew.

The two forces combined with Yang as Commander of the central corps and chief of staff. He was now the military leader of the movement.

This united force won a decisive victory over government troops. And in January 1851, Hong on his thirty-eighth birthday declared the formation of a new dynasty, the Taiping Tian Guo – The Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace.