The Taiping

In 1837 a young Chinese man named, Hung Hsiu-ch'uan, failed for the second or third time to pass a government examination required to secure public employment. Because Hung had hinged all his dreams on obtaining a government job, his latest failure set off an emotional breakdown and then he slipped into deep depression. One day while floundering in bed he drifted into a dream state and began having mystical visions.

In one of the visions Hung saw himself battling demons that had infiltrated Heaven. After fierce fighting Hung defeated the demons and was then rewarded with "heavenly bliss" in a palace in which he settled with his celestial wife, the First Chief Moon. In another vision the Heavenly Father called upon Hung once again. This time it was to return to earth and rid the land of demons and debauchery. The Father gave Hung a new name, Hung Xiuquan.

Hung didn't at first know how to respond to his visions but later, in one of those bizarre twists of fate, Hung happened to read some Christian pamphlets he had received from a Chinese missionary some seven years earlier. In the tracts Hung believed he had found answers to his puzzling visions and his long search for a purposeful life. He believed himself to be the second son of God (in other words the brother of Jesus).

Hung referred to God as the "Heavenly Father" and to Jesus as the "Heavenly Elder Brother." He soon began formulating his own brand of Christianity which many western Christians who weren't aware of Hung's claim to divinity, believed was authentic enough. Hung knew that to realize what he believed his God-given destiny, to extinguish idolatry from China; he would have to take up a crusade. To do that, he had to enlist followers.

His first converts were two of his cousins, Jen-kan and Yun-shan. Together the three men traveled the countryside and preached their "Christian" message. Hung traveled to Canton where he met Issachar Roberts, a Baptist preacher and missionary. Roberts believed Hung was sincere about Christianity and for several months gave him doctrinal instruction.

After leaving Canton, Hung rendezvoused with his cousin Yun-shan who had amassed two thousand followers who called themselves "God Worshippers." Not long after, Hung and his cousins destroyed an ancient Chinese idol in one of their family villages. Almost immediately his prestige increased among his followers and his movement gained momentum. Hung's next move was to organize an army.

Because many Protestant missionaries in the Victorian Era believed the key to the world's salvation lay in the conversion of China they saw Hung's movement as the beginning of a Christian awakening. Western powers occupying China therefore made little to no effort to interfere with Hung. That would soon change.

In 1848 Hung traveled to Canton to negotiate the release of his cousin Yun-Shun who had been arrested in December of 1847. Meanwhile one of Hung's followers, a man named Yang, announced to the God Worshippers that he himself had instructions from God to assume leadership of the movement. A few months later one of Yang's companions, Hsiao, claimed that Jesus had commanded him to teach the God Worshippers.

Now Yang and Hsiao assumed co-leadership of the God Worshippers. They amassed their own followers and then set about destroying more idols. Their destruction of sacred property precipitated skirmishes with local Imperial troops. The conflicts drew the attention of the emperor and his government. When Hung returned from Canton he reasserted his rule over the God Worshippers but he retained Yang and Hsiao as two of his leaders.

During the years 1849-1850, Southern China reeled under a widespread famine. Economic conditions degraded to such a degree that people were desperate for a savior. Hundreds of thousands of war-weary and subsistence-deprived peasants flocked to Hung who offered them new social order with promises of equally distributed wealth for both men and women.

With himself as emperor, Hung created a new kingdom known as T'ai-p'ings (Taiping) or the "Heavenly Kingdom of Peace." In an outward sign of their resistance to the Manchu rule the Taiping grew their hair long and were soon known as the "long-haired rebels" or merely "the rebels." Tens of thousands of rebel soldiers set out to conquer China.

The Taiping army marched north and with phenomenal success captured city after city. With the Taiping threat growing more ominous, the Chinese Emperor brought out of exile his former State administrator, Lin Tse-hsu, the man who had been blamed for bungling the first opium war with England. Under a new commission Lin traveled to the Taiping stronghold of Kwangsi where he had been ordered by the emperor to deal with the rebel "bandits."

However, before Lin reached Kwangsi he was struck down by illness and died. There would be no negotiations with the Taiping. The emperor ordered his troops to attack. In November 1850 Imperial troops surrounded the Taiping army but were handily defeated by the rebels. It seemed there'd be no stopping the Taiping. The rebels continued their conquest.

By early 1853 Hung controlled most of the Chang Jiang Valley of the Yangtze River. In January, the Taiping army occupied the provincial capital city and ordered the execution of all government officials. Hung set up rule over the local peasantry and ordered everyone to worship the Heavenly Father. He had even sent a "mandate" to the Americans in China that they should "bring tribute, and annually pay court, so that you may become ministers and people of the celestial kingdom."

Not long afterwards American officials in Shanghai learned that the Taiping planned to attack Nanking, the ancient Chinese capital. The Western powers debated what to do. They were still trying to determine the good guys from the bad. At best they received faulty and spotty information. The British refused to commit any troops except to protect English lives and property.

By 1853 the Taiping numbered half a million people and had amassed weapons which included firearms, cannon, and ten thousand boats. On March 8 Taiping troops besieged Nanking. The city fell in just twelve days. In the aftermath, according to some sources, the Taiping slaughtered 20,000 men, women, and children. Other sources reported the loss of life in Nanking at more than 50,000 people. It would not be the last time Nanking would see slaughter of its people. Less than 90 years later the invading Japanese army killed hundreds of thousands of Nanking's population.

With the capture of Nanking, Hung made it his capital city. The Taiping set about spreading their brand of Christianity, building schools, and writing their own literature. They even created their own examinations for men who wished to become Taiping officials. That seems ironic given the fact Hung himself failed so many state examinations.

In 1856 the second opium war broke out between the Imperial government and Western powers just at a time when the Manchu government had recovered from its earlier losses and was planning a strategy plan to destroy Hung and the Taiping. But now the Emperor had to fight a two-front war; one against the Taiping and one against the West. Chinese poverty was exacerbated, thousands who could, fled the country.

In 1857 Imperial troops closed in on the Taiping. Rebel cities were blockaded. The Manchu government had a new strategy- win by attrition; starve out the enemy. It worked for a while but the rebels were able to break out and for a short time they went on the offensive. After a failed attack on Peking (Beijing) the Taiping retreated to Nanking. By 1860 the Taiping were again surrounded.

In 1860 the Baptist missionary Issachar Roberts, who had years earlier met with Hung, visited Nanking for another meeting with Hung. In a bizarre episode of the Taiping affair both men attempted to convert the other to his particular view of Christianity; each failed. To the lament of many Westerners and Chinese alike, the American and European governments had still not taken action against the Taiping. After other missionaries visited Hung in Nanking and reported what they heard and saw Western Christians realized the truth of Hung's so-called Christian Kingdom. It wasn't Christian at all.

When internal fighting among Taiping factions fractured the rebel forces tens of thousands of Hung's followers were killed in the ensuing conflicts. Hung himself had grown detached from the movement he had created. As is common with despots and cult leaders, Hung became the center of his own universe. He had filled his palace with nearly two thousand women whose duties ranged from political ministers to maids to Hung's personal attendants and "cohorts." Hung also succumbed to hygienic paranoia equal to that of Howard Hughes in the 20^th century. It seems his delusions had entered their final stages as his kingdom collapsed around him.

During the winter of 1862 the Taiping broke out but were routed when they attempted to take Shanghai. It had been a foolish assault for many reasons. For one, Western powers defended the city. The Taiping were not match for their superior weaponry. For another the attack occurred in winter. As so often occurs in history, the attacking army is defeated by weather. The Taiping army retreated in heavy snow leaving behind dead and wounded.

In 1863 Nanking fell when the Imperial Army "stormed the walls and slaughtered the rebels by tens of thousands." The exact cause of Hung's death is uncertain but it's believed to have been by suicide. In the days after, the Imperial government executed Hung's son who had been crowned successor to his father's "phony" throne. Over the next five years the remaining Taiping were hunted down and annihilated.

The thirteen-year Chinese civil war had snuffed out the lives of 20 to 30 million people, destroyed 600 cities, and devastated thousands of square miles of countryside. It help to precipitate what is now called the Chinese Diaspora in which millions of Chinese fled China and settled in other parts of the world.

Sources:

Waley, George The Opium War Through Chinese Eyes
Beeching, Jack The Chinese Opium Wars
Spence, Jonathan D. God's Chinese Son
Franz, Michael. The Taiping Rebellion: History and Documents
New York Times, November 9, 1854
New York Times, July 12, 1853
New York Times, June 5, 1852
New York Times, October 20, 1851