All righty, last time we talked about a dude who got excommunicated four times, went to
war with the Pope and got officially declared the literal anti-christ, so today I figured
we’d do the exact opposite.
Meet Hong Xiuquan, a dropout mall ninja who officially declared himself the literal son
of God.
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Jeez, and I thought Jan van Leiden stirred up a fuss.
Hong Xiuquan was born in 1814, his origins aren’t quite as humble as his brother Big
J, but they weren’t anything too special.
His father was a farmer, but also, importantly, a very minor local official.
And when Xiuquan began to look like a promising student, his parents poured their resources
from that government job into giving Xiuquan the best education possible because if he
could pass the civil service exam, that was his ticket onwards and upwards.
For those not in the know, the civil service exam was a super old tradition in China that
said anyone who could pass the test could get a job in government, regardless of who
your parents were.
I mentioned it briefly in the Wu Zetian episode in between all the child murder, it wasn’t
perfect because obviously the upper class had better access to tutors and more time
to study, but compared to, y’know, feudalism, it was a hell of a step towards meritocracy
and did a lot to prevent rebellions, so props to you medieval China.
But uh, 19th-century China, well, they had some work to do when it came to that “prevent
rebellions” thing but we’ll get there
Xiuquan is educated in traditional Confucian values starting at age 5, and by the time
he’s 10 he can recite the four books of Confucianism, verbatim, by heart.
The kid’s a legend, easily places first in his local preliminary exams, and he gets
a small scholarship to study further and travel to the big city to face up against the real
deal.
But you’ll notice I said “top in his local preliminary” and that’s just the test
you take to take the test that might give you a job at the provincial level.
Basically what happens to Xiuquan is that thing in anime where our scrappy young hero
is the bestest in his village and then gets wiped out in the big leagues because these
tests were an ordeal.
You get locked into a fortified compound with no access to the outside world, searched for
cheat sheets, and assigned to a cell where you write essays for three days and two nights
using quotes from two thousand year old texts and if you mess up a single character you
automatically fail.
So yeah Xiuquan didn’t pass the exam, and returned home to work as a farmer.
But wait, is that training montage music I hear?
That’s right he travels far away with an old schoolmate and together they undergo a
year of intense training, and now that he knows firsthand what he’s up against, he
returns to the big city armed with even more knowledge and filled with determination.
And he fails again.
But while he’s walking through the big trading city of Guangzhou, he notices - times are
a changing.
On top of the increasing number of people getting high off their mind on opium, there’s
all these Christians on the streets giving sermons.
And as he’s passing by one of these sermons, the pastor’s assistant hands out a little
Jesus pamphlet.
And Xiuquan, y’know he doesn’t want to be rude so he does that thing where you “aheheheh,
thanks, yeah, okay, bye” and you know I’m sure nothing will come of it.
And so he does some more training, [half-hearted “da da da” of Rocky tune] and he fails
again.
And this time he has a complete nervo us breakdown.
Delirious for days.
And as he’s recovering he tells everyone he’s had… a vision.
He had a dream where a big old man with a golden beard was like “Hello, son, I am
your heavenly father, and this is your heavenly brother.
And this is your heavenly wife.
And this is your heavenly son.
And this is your heavenly sister-in-law I’m not making this up this was all there.
Anyway everyone on Earth is worshipping demons here’s an oversized sword and a new name,
go nuts”
[panicked gasping] But I’m sure nothing will come of it!
And for six years, nothing does!
Then he fails the civil service exam again.
And remembering what happened last time, his cousin comes over and says “Chin up, the
poor are rich in spirit!
Least that’s what this Jesus fella says.
Not sure about the whole heavenly father thing but you gotta admit...”.
And Xiuquan has the biggest epiphany of his life, his mind is totally blown, that’s
the dude from his dream!
His heavenly brother was Jesus!
And his heavenly wife, son, and sister-in-law weren’t important anymore just forget about
them they definitely fit in the scripture somehow!
So he gets up, places a hand on his cousin’s shoulder and says “Thanks, man.
But it’s time to slay some demons” Cousin: “... Alrighty then!”
And Xiuquan begins smashing all the relics in his house, burning the books, absolutely
destroying anything Buddhist or Confucian.
Seems kinda weird to have a vendetta against Confucianism considering not once does Confucius
say anything about deities, but it turns out to be a really popular idea cause a bunch
of his family members who also failed their exams are like “Hell yeah man let’s do
it!
Smash!”
So now there’s this little band of people wandering around the province going into small
towns and wrecking all their stuff.
Which seems a little rude but-! Xiuquan did it with a custom-made demon-slaying buster
sword.
Doesn’t make it less rude, but the picture it paints is very different.
After he’s done having his fun, Xiuquan goes back home.
You’d think it’d be super hard for him to get his old job as a teacher back considering
he’s an iconoclastic self-proclaimed Messiah on a mission to destroy China’s seminal
philosophy, but actually it’s super easy, barely an inconvenience.
His cousin Feng Yunshan, however, wasn’t done, he’d actually continued proselytizing.
Xiuquan goes to visit him one day, and unfortunately he got robbed on the way and couldn’t defend
himself with his super special bankai because he’d never fought a day in his life and
now we’ll never know what those swords looked like-!
But when he finally makes it to the Thistle Mountains to catch up with his cousin, he
walks into a secret society of 2,000 people who all believe he’s the messiah and start
proclaiming him their king.
Naturally, then, Xiuquan decides to stick around for a little bit.
Actually he can’t really risk leaving.
The only time he left after that was to go pick up Feng Yunshan after he got arrested,
and when he came back there were two new guys in charge claiming to communicate with the
Holy Trinity, which might seem like it’d be a problem for the guy whose claim to power
is his unique relationship with the Trinity, but Xiuquan decides yeah that seems legit!
Speaking of legit, if you wanna make a religion outta something you gotta get yourself a holy
book.
And since Xiuquan’s just kinda riffing off whatever’s in Christianity, he pretty much
went through the Bible with a red marker and changed anything he didn’t like.
So references to drinking wine were out, and so was that whole bit with Lot and his daughters
where [cut to censor tone and some text explaining there’s no way to put that story delicately]
Also, communism is a thing now!
I really wonder how Hong Xiuquan would’ve gotten along with Jan van Leiden and friends
because on the one hand, radical thinkers taking control of a religious sect to establish
a theocratic state, but on the other hand Xiuquan was way more conservative - no opium,
no gambling, no drunken Brahe parties, he didn’t even allow polygamy!
Unless you’re the son of God of course in which case you’re allowed to break the rules.
No more foot binding though, that wasn’t so bad, and women were officially declared
to be equal to men!
Separate, but equal to men.
And while all this is going on, the Chinese emperor steps out of his mahogany-lined palace
and suddenly notices there’s 30,000 people living in a theocratic state within his borders,
and considering the Qing dynasty was going through more turbulence than the Challenger,
they weren’t too patient with this kind of shenanigannery and they call in the army.
But another key difference between Hong Xiuquang’s Taiping Rebellion and the Anabaptists of Munster,
when Xiuquan got blockaded in a single city by an army ten times his size, he actually
managed to break out!
And then he invaded another city, conquered it, and got immediately besieged again.
He does this like four times, constantly taking huge numbers of casualties, but the number
of angry farmers with a bone to pick against the Qing government is even bigger and in
the end they’ve upgraded from two thousand converts in a little community in the mountains
to two million soldiers occupying one of the most important cities in China!
And wouldn’t you know it, perfect timing, Britain and France declare war on China because
China is going to trade with them whether they like it or not!
All in all, at its peak, the Taiping kingdom controlled all this territory here, about
the size of Great Britain believe it or not.
When the dust settles, though, Britain and France are dominating China economically,
and it’d be a real inconvenience for them if part of China wasn’t part of China anymore.
And so now it’s not just China attacking the Taiping, it’s the two global superpowers
who just got done curb stomping China.
Xiuquan, then, is in a tight spot, but being the son of God he knows ol’ daddy-o will
deliver.
Just like Moses and the Israelites, Xiuquan declares that God will provide manna for every
man woman and child in Nanjing and they will withstand the siege!
Just one problem - according to legend, manna, which is bread, got mistranslated as some
kind of herb, so Hong Xiuquan ate all the weeds in his front lawn, fell over dead, and
the Taiping Kingdom immediately collapsed.
[Happy peppy music]