Chapter 03: Reassessing Hong Xiuquan — The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Cult of Arson, Killing, and Plunder; the Licentious Heavenly Court

Whether the Nationalist Party or the Communist Party, both, on the basis of being anti-Qing, have praised Hong Xiuquan and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Simply because Hong Xiuquan raised the banner of opposing the Qing, no matter how he killed, burned, and harmed the people, he was still spoken of as good. Hong Xiuquan brought disaster to half of China and caused the deaths of 20 million people. Across east, west, south, and north, there were no common people who did not hate him.

The young Hong Xiuquan (1814–1864) failed the xiucai examination three times and was already 25 years old. He then had a sudden idea and fabricated a mythical dream. He claimed himself to be the second son of God and the younger brother of Jesus. He cast aside Confucian books and replaced them with tablets for God, calling his group the “God Worshipping Society.” He demanded baptism from a chapel in Guangzhou but was refused.

I. Roaming everywhere committing arson, killing, and plunder

Unable to stir up support in his native Huaxian County in Guangdong, Hong Xiuquan had no choice but to move in 1851 to the remote mountain village of Jintian in Guiping County, Guangxi. There he concocted a fraudulent Heavenly Kingdom myth and incited ignorant poor people to rebel with him. From Guangxi onward, he burned, killed, and plundered all the way, coercing peasants to join his ranks. He roamed everywhere, and wherever he went there was arson, killing, and looting; the common people fled at the mere mention of his name. After conflicts with local yamen officials, he decided to launch an anti-Qing “uprising.”

In 1852 he led his rebel forces out of Guangxi, passing through Hunan, Jiangxi, and Hubei, burning and killing all the way. Wherever the Taiping army arrived, they looted first and then set fires. They drove people out of their homes, forced both men and women to follow them and rebel together. Those who followed him were left homeless—their houses burned—leaving only one road: to follow him to the end. In 1853 he fought his way to Nanjing, made himself emperor, called himself the Heavenly King, and indulged in his imperial life of debauchery.

In his youth, Sun Yat-sen greatly admired Hong Xiuquan and said he wanted to become a second Hong Xiuquan, simply because Hong opposed the Qing; for Sun Yat-sen, anything anti-Qing was good. The Nationalist Party and the Communist Party carried on Sun Yat-sen’s intent and continuously glorified Hong Xiuquan.

The Taiping rebellion led by Hong Xiuquan was the greatest catastrophe of the Qing dynasty, lasting 13 years. In 1864 it was finally defeated by the armies trained by Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang, bringing an end to the greatest disaster of the Qing.

II. Inventing a cult myth of the “Heavenly Kingdom”

Hong Xiuquan plagiarized the Bible and fabricated a deceptive “Heavenly Kingdom myth,” which belongs to the category of cults and has no scholarly value. For more than a hundred years no one studied it. The Chinese Communist Party favored his notion of the “independence of God,” different from the Western God, and even praised it. Sun Yat-sen rebelled against the Qing and styled himself “the second Hong Xiuquan,” affirming anything anti-Qing. The Communist Party further crowned Hong Xiuquan with the title of a “peasant uprising.” His so-called “uprising” consisted of arson, killing, and plunder, committing every kind of evil; peasants hated him to the bone.

III. Burning the classics and abolishing the family

The Confucian Four Books and Five Classics were declared by Hong Xiuquan to be “demonic and heretical books” and were all burned, with buying and selling forbidden. Anyone found privately possessing them was executed on the spot. Later, Yang Xiuqing recognized that opposing Confucius and Confucianism was inappropriate and had to change from burning the classics to deleting and altering them.

After proclaiming himself “Heavenly King” and “Heavenly Emperor” in Nanjing, Hong Xiuquan once abolished the family system, separating men and women: men lived in male halls, women in female halls; children were organized into youth corps, and the elderly into “elderly people’s halls.” Later, because this could not be enforced, the system of one household per family was restored. The common people lived in fear of joining the sect or entering the camps.

IV. Licentious Heavenly Court, anger of Heaven and resentment of the people

To build his Heavenly King’s Palace, Hong Xiuquan mobilized tens of thousands of laborers and demolished large numbers of civilian homes, arousing anger from Heaven and resentment among the people. When Hong traveled, he rode in a huge sedan chair carried by 100 men, imposing and ostentatious. The Heavenly King Hong had a total of 88 wives and concubines and indulged in extreme debauchery; all were called “royal consorts,” yet only five wives or concubines have recorded identities.

In 1854, before Zeng Guofan captured Nanjing, Hong Xiuquan took poison and committed suicide at the age of 50.

V. Evaluations by later figures

Sun Yat-sen: “I am the second Hong Xiuquan.”
Chiang Kai-shek: “The resistance against the Manchu Qing was vigorous and deserves a place in history.”
Mao Zedong: “Hong Xiuquan represents one group of people seeking truth.”