Early life and education
He was born in Fuyuanshui Village , Hua County , Guangdong to Hong Jingyang and Wang-shi . His grandfather was Hong Guoyou , who was, like his ancestors, a farmer. He later moved to Guānlùbù Village .
Hong started studying at a school called Book Chamber House at age seven. He was able to recite the 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 took the local preliminary examinations and came first, so at the age of 22 in 1836, he took the first-degree s in Guangzhou. Unsurprisingly, he failed, as imperial examinations had a pass rate of 1%. He retook the test four times, but never succeeded.
He later attained the position of instructor at Book Chamber Building and several schools in Lianhuatang and other villages.
Visions and iconoclasm
On his visit to Guangzhou to take the civil service examinations in 1836, Hong heard a Christian missionary preaching about the religion. While there he received translations and summaries of the Bible written by the Christian missionary Liang Fa. The following year Hong failed the examinations again and apparently suffered a nervous collapse. During his recovery in 1837 he had a number of mystical visions. One involved an old man who complained to Hong about men worshiping demons rather than him. In a second one he saw Confucius being punished for his faithlessness, after which he repented. In yet another he dreamed angels carried him to heaven where he met a man in a black dragon robe with a long golden beard who gave him a sword and a magic seal, and told him to purify China of the demons. Several years later he would interpret this to mean that God the Heavenly Father, whom he identified with Shangdi from the Chinese tradition, and his older brother, Jesus Christ, wanted him to rid the world of demon worship. His friends and family said that after this episode he became authoritative and solemn.
It was not until 7 years later that Hong took the time to carefully examine the religious tracts he had received. In his house Hong burned all and 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. He joined with them to destroy idols in small villages to the ire of local citizens and officials. Hong and his converts' acts were not surprisingly considered 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 the west to Guangxi, where the large Hakka population was much more willing to receive his teachings.
The God worshippers
Hong then preached to a large number of charcoal-burners on Zijin Mountain in Guiping District , who mostly belonged to the Hakka minority like Hong himself, and readily joined him. He preached a mix of communal utopianism, evangelism and his idiosyncratic quasi-Christianity. While proclaiming sexual equality, the sect segregated men from women and encouraged all its followers to pay their assets into a communal treasury. By the end of the 1840s, Hong had a sizeable following which he called the God Worshippers , but local officials were still attempting to suppress his religious movement after his move to Guangxi.
When Hong returned to Guangxi, he found that Feng had accumulated a following of around 2,000 converts. Guangxi was a dangerous area at this time 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 Hong's followers 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 Hong's movement. The rising tension between the sect and the authorities was probably the most important factor in Hong's eventual decision to rebel.
Rebellion and the Heavenly Kingdom
By 1850 Hong had between 10,000 and 30,000 followers. The authorities were alarmed at the growing size of the sect and ordered them to disperse. A local force was sent to attack them when they refused, but 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 where the sect was based. Hong's followers emerged victorious and the commander of the government troops.
Hong declared the foundation of the "Heavenly Kingdom of Transcendent Peace" on January 11, 1851.
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 , which fell to them on September 25, 1851.
Hong and his troops remained in Yongan for three months, sustained by local landowners who were hostile to the Manchu Qing Dynasty. The imperial army regrouped and launched another attack on the Taipings in Yongan. 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. 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 June 10, 1852 where the Taipings were forced into retreat, and 20% of their troops were killed. But in March 1853 Taiping forces managed to take Nanjing and turned it into the capital of their movement.
Hong Xiuquan ruled by making frequent proclamations from his Heavenly Palace, demanding strict compliance with various moral and religious rules. Most trade was suppressed and property socialized. Polygamy was forbidden and men and women were separated, although Hong and other leaders maintained groups of concubines.
Yang Xiuqing was a fellow Taiping leader who had directed successful military campaigns and who often claimed to speak with the voice of God. Hong became increasingly suspicious of Yang's ambitions and his network of spies; in 1856 he had Yang and his family murdered.
Following a failed attempt by the Taiping to take Shanghai in 1860, the Qing forces, aided by Western officers, slowly gained ground.
Death
Some sources say Hong committed suicide by taking poison on June 1, 1864 at the age of 52 after Qing authorities finally gained a decisive military advantage and all hope of maintaining his kingdom was lost. 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 that Hong had given to his people as they starved.
He was succeeded by his teenage son, Hong Tianguifu. The Taiping Rebellion was put down by Qing forces later in 1864.
Publications
*''The Imperial Decree of Taiping''《太平詔書》
*The ''Instructions on the Original Way'' Series : included in ''The Imperial Decree of Taiping'' later. The series is proclaimed by PRC's National Affairs Department to be Protected National Significant Documents in 1988.
**''The Instructions on the Original Way to Save the World''
**''The Instructions on the Original Way to Awake the World''
**''The Instructions on the Original Way to Make the World Realize''
*''The New Essay on Economics and Politics''
Quotes
The following poem, called "The Poem on Executing the Vicious and Preserving the Righteous" , written in 1837 by Hong, illustrates his religious thinking and goal that later lead to the establishment of 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 the evil, spare the righteous, and relieve the suffering of the people.
:My eyes see through beyond the west, the north, the rivers, and the mountains,
:My sounds 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 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
Legacy
Views and opinions on Hong differ greatly.
The Chinese communists under Mao Zedong generally admired Hong and his movement as a legitimate peasant uprising that anticipated their own. Sun Yat-sen came from the same area as Hong Xiuquan and is said to have identified with Hong since his childhood days.
In 1959 the PRC established a small museum, Hong Xiuquan's Former Residence Memorial Museum , in his birthplace where there is a longan tree planted by him. The museum's plate is written by the famous literary figure, Guo Moruo . The residence and Book Chamber Building were renovated in 1961.
Hong Xiuquan has been compared to Falun Gong founder 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.
References
*Gray, Jack . ''Rebellions and Revolutions: China from the 1800s to the 1980s'', Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-821576-2.
* . ''God's Chinese Son:The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan'', W.W. Norton. ISBN 0-393-03844-0
* Anderson, Flavia . "The Rebel Emperor", Doubleday & Company
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