Hong Xiuquan was a native of Huaxian County, Guangdong Province, and was born in the eighteenth year of Jiaqing, that is, in 1813 AD. Legend has it that his father was a peasant from a poor family, but he entered the village school from an early age and dropped out of school until he was sixteen years old to become a village teacher. It seems that he did not come from the lowest level of Chinese society, and he himself was not a laborer. He went to Guangdong twice to test Xiucai, but failed twice. So he held a grudge. This is a common thing in the old society, and it is not surprising that Hong Xiuyuan experienced especially when he took the exam in Guangzhou, and he received propaganda materials from Jesus missionaries. Later, after more than forty days of serious illness, he dreamed of various fantasies and said that he was in line with the teachings of Jesus, so he believed in God and founded the Society of God. The earliest comrade was Feng Yunshan, also a person with grievances due to failed examinations, who moved his activities to Guiping County, Guangxi, because his mission in Guangdong was not going well.
Hong Xiuquan's God Society absorbed many triad elements. This triad is a secret group full of people, probably from the beginning of the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. Hong Xiuquan may have already had the idea of racial revolution. In any case, after he received the members of the triad, his campaign aimed first at overthrowing the Qing government. He scolded the Manchus as demons, and the Manchus changed their Chinese clothes and fornicated Chinese women (three thousand pink daisy, all of which were polluted by the karmic dogs; a million red faces, even sleeping with the foxes) were Hong Xiuquan's propaganda materials, the best object of rebuke. In addition to carrying out religious revolutions and ethnic revolutions, did Hong Xiuquan have the idea of social revolution? He advocated equal rights for men and women, but his court was full of concubines, and the princes and generals of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom also had many wives and concubines. His edict contains the system of fields and acres, and its fundamental ideology is similar to primitive communism: "There is land to cultivate together, there is food to eat, there is clothing to wear, and money to make the same envoy." However, although his Juntian Doctrine was specified in detail, it was not implemented. Is he unwilling to practice it, or does he feel the difficulty of doing it and not want to try it? Judging from all our current historical data, we can say that Hong Xiuquan was very positive about the religious revolution and the racial revolution, but very negative about the social revolution. In addition to Feng Yunshan, his disciples still had Yang Xiuqing, who burned charcoal, and later feng dong wang; Xiao Chaogui, who cultivated the mountains, later feng xi wang; Wei Changhui, who had been a prisoner and a servant of Yamen Xu, was later made the King of the North, and the rich Shi Dakai, later known as the King of Yi. His movement was, of course, a folk movement, reflecting the folk misery and superstitions of the time, as well as the racial concepts that lurked in the folk.
In the summer of the thirtieth year of Daoguang (1850), Hong Xiuquan raised an army in Jintian Village, Guangxi. In September, Zhanmengshan County (formerly known as Yong'an), so the name of the country was taiping heavenly kingdom, and he called himself the Heavenly King. Qing soldiers besieged Yong'an. Hong Xiuquan broke through in the spring of the second year of Xianfeng (1852) and attacked Guilin, but did not succeed and besieged Hunan instead. He encountered strong resistance in Changsha and attacked the lower reaches of the Xiang River. He obtained the ordnance left by Wu Sangui in Yuezhou and snatched many sailing ships. After the strength was replenished, he went straight to Wuhan. Although he captured Hanyang and Wuchang, he did not leave troops to defend and set up an official to rule. He continued to attack the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, breaking through Jiujiang, Anqing, and Wuhu along the way. In the spring of the third year of Xianfeng (1853), he entered Nanjing, and the capital was set here, named Tianjing. Before the capital nanjing, Hong Xiuquan's actions were similar to those of liukou, and after the capital was set in Nanjing, he began his work of founding the country.
From the 30th year of Daoguang (1850) to the 3rd year of Xianfeng (1853), it can be said that it was a smooth period of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. During this period, how did society respond to Hong Xiuquan's movement? Generally speaking, the people who keep to themselves are rich or poor, and are neutral. When the Taiping Army arrived, they obeyed the Taiping Army and contributed money; when the officers and soldiers arrived, they obeyed the officers and soldiers and contributed money. They are submissive, but in fact they are in a dilemma. They had absolutely no sympathy for the Qing government and its officials, because they had suffered enough. Moreover, the discipline of the officers and soldiers was not good, and during this period, the discipline of the Taiping Army was still relatively good. At the same time, the common people felt that the Taiping Army was a troublemaker, so that they could not continue to live their peaceful life. The Taiping Army destroyed temples and idols everywhere, and the superstitious people did not look at it and did not think so. Bandits everywhere took advantage of the fire to loot, and the place where the Taiping Army passed was where they could easily move. They did their thing, and the Taiping Army was unbiased to the officers and soldiers. Organized secret societies echoed the Taiping Army, such as the Brotherhood of elders in Hunan and the Knife Society in Shanghai. Most of the scholar-doctor class actively opposed Hong Xiuquan's religious revolution. As for the full layer, the scholars are not unaware of the shame of the Han people, but they are one because although Hong Xiuquan is a Han chinese, although he advocates racial revolution, he has tried his best to destroy the Han culture for thousands of years, and although the Manchus are foreign, they have supported the Han culture from the beginning; second, they feel that the distinction between kings and subjects is established, it is not easy to make chaos, chaos is easy, and it is extremely difficult to eliminate chaos anyway, so the scholar class is not enthusiastic about racial revolution at this time. Why did the military of the Taiping Army go so smoothly during this period? The main reason was not the merits of the Taiping Army itself. In terms of organizational training, the Taiping Army is very common; on military weapons, the Taiping Army is not yet as good as the officers; and on generals, the Taiping Army has never produced a major general. The reason why the Taiping Army was able to win during this period was because it was a new force, full of vitality, able to fight hard, and able to sacrifice. The officers and soldiers are not only very depressed, but they are simply corrupt and cannot become an army;
At that time, there were two kinds of officers and soldiers, namely the Eight Banners and the Green Battalion. The combat effectiveness of the Eight Banners was lost with the Sinicization and weakening of the Manchus. Therefore, during the Qianlong and Jiaqing years, the Qing Dynasty gradually increased when using the Green Camp, and gradually decreased when using the Eight Banners. By the time of Daoguang and Xianfeng, the Green Camp had become the main force of the Qing court, and its degree of corruption was equal to that of ordinary political circles. Soldiers are paid very little and exploited by their officers, so they make a living for themselves and regard being a soldier as a side job. Without discipline, without discipline, there is more than enough harm to the people, and there is no talk of fighting a war. Moreover, the generals and officials were deeply suspicious of each other and would never cooperate with each other. But the Green Battalion also has an institutional advantage, this kind of army, although extremely corrupt, is the army of a unified state, not the private force of individuals. Before Dao and Xian, no local official dared to support the army and fight against the imperial court. Private force is an accidental by-product of the civil strife in the Taiping Heavens, and we must pay deep attention to its birth in the future.
After Hong Xiuquan won Nanjing, we can see even more that his true intention is not to build a new country or a new society, but to build a new dynasty. He lived among the officials, in order to enjoy the blessings of being an emperor, but did not pay attention to political affairs. The architecture of the official court, the conscription of officials and women, the accumulation of gold and silver, and the regulations of the official system were the things that the Taiping Emperor paid the most attention to. His religion later degenerated into a frenzied superstition. Yang Xiuqing reported to him the difficulties of state affairs, and he replied: Why should we be afraid of obeying god's holy will and the holy will of Heavenly Brother Jesus, and being the only Allah in all the nations under the heavens? No need to play Er, political affairs do not need to be rationalized, want to go out to live, want to live in Beijing, because of Er. Iron barrel Jiangshan, you do not help, someone to help. Er said that there are no soldiers, and there are more heavenly soldiers than water, so why be afraid of the Zeng Demon (Guo Fan)?
When it was about to perish, Nanjing ran out of grain, and Hong Xiuquan ordered the people to drink dew and fill their hunger, saying that dew was heavenly food. Such a leader can not only revive the nation, but also cannot serve as a center of unity among his subordinates. In the sixth year of Xianfeng (1856), there was a great infighting between Hong Xiuquan's left and right. Yang Xiuqing, the Eastern King, personally held the power alone, and the other kings were subject to the control of the Eastern King. According to the rituals of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the Heavenly King is called Long Live, the Eastern King is called Nine Thousand Years Old, and the West King is called Eight Thousand Years Old, and the yu is decreasing. All the other kings had to go to the Eastern King's Mansion to ask for a discussion, and they had to kneel and call out to Chitose. At the time of the heavenly king, the eastern king stands in his majesty, and the rest kneel on his majesty. Therefore, Yang Xiuqing was resented by his peers, and the Heavenly King was afraid that he would replace him. In September of the sixth year (1856), Wei Changhui, the King of the North, devised a booby trap to kill Yang Xiuqing and his relatives and henchmen. The Wing King Shi Da was happy and upset, and the Northern King killed the Wing King's family. The Heavenly King ordered the Northern King to be killed for the sake of contacting the Wing King, but the Wing King was still unique and disassociated from the Heavenly King. After this infighting, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's hope of overthrowing the Qing government was completely eliminated. Later, Hong Xiuquan was able to resist for eight years, one because there were large groups of twisters in the north as his support, and the other because he won two rising generals, Li Xiucheng the Prince of Zhong, and Chen Yucheng, the King of England.
In the Qing government, wait until everyone else has failed, and then reuse Zeng Guofan and make him the governor of Liangjiang, controlling the military of the four provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, and Gansu. Hubei Inspector Hu Linyi is like-minded with him and tries his best to cooperate with him. His brother Zeng Guoquan was a front-line commander who fought hard battles. Later, Zeng Guofan recommended his protégé Li Hongzhang to be the inspector of Jiangsu, and his friend Zuo Zongtang to be the inspector of Zhejiang. The middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River were his sphere of influence, so he had to plan it all. He adopted a strategy of great encirclement against Hong Xiuquan. At the same time, Britain, the United States, and France also gave Zeng, Zuo, and Li a lot of help. In the third year of Tongzhi (1864), the Xiang army under the leadership of Zeng Guoquan invaded Nanjing, Hong Xiuquan committed suicide, and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom died.
Hong Xiuquan wanted to overthrow the Qing government and restore the freedom of the Han people, which of course we should admire. His desire to equalize land rights, although not practiced, is enough to show that he has a considerable politician's vision. His movement undoubtedly originated from the people, and even his religion catered to the psychology of the people. But his personality and talent shortcomings are many, and they are great. If he becomes meritorious, he will not be able to create happiness for the Chinese nation. All in all, the failure of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom proves that China's old-style folk movement cannot save the country and the nation.