Tiandihui was one of the famous secret societies in the Qing Dynasty. It was widely active in Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Hunan, Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan and other places, and launched repeated attacks on feudal rulers.

Tiandi Hui was one of the famous secret societies in the Qing Dynasty. It was widely active in Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Hunan, Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan and other places, and launched repeated attacks on feudal rulers. Since the reign of Emperor Kangxi, the activities of the Tiandihui have become increasingly frequent, and they have organized members in various forms to carry out political and economic struggles, until they launched multiple armed uprisings against the feudal rule of the Qing Dynasty. After Daoguang , as China gradually became a semi-colonial semi-feudal society, the Tiandihui became an important link to unite the people of the southern provinces in the struggle against colonial aggression and feudal oppression. After it spread to Southeast Asia and Latin America, it became a self-defense organization for local overseas Chinese to resist the tyranny of Western colonialism. The revolutionary achievements established by the Tiandihui in the history of the Qing Dynasty are indelible, and the generous, tragic, and evocative poems they composed are always worthy of people's praise and praise.

The origin of the Tiandihui

There are at least six theories about the origin of the Tiandihui, such as "Ming Ji theory", "Early Qing Dynasty Zheng Chenggong founding theory", "Kangxi Jiayin theory", "Yongzheng Jiayin theory", "Qianlong theory" Ding Hai said, "Wait a minute."

The purpose of Tiandihui is closely related to its origin. In the existing documents about Tiandihui, whether it is images, stele pavilions, flags, waistbands, or initiation ceremonies, venue furnishings, oaths, blessings, spoken words, poems, tea ceremony, sign language, etc., they are all permeated with strong ideas. The political atmosphere and hatred of blood and tears of against the Qing Dynasty and the restoration of the Ming Dynasty . It can be seen that "anti-Qing and restoration of Ming" is the founding purpose and consistent slogan of Tiandihui.

The secret documents of Tiandihui record that during the Kangxi period, Xilu Fan "made rebellion" and invaded Tongguan . At that time, the Manchu Dynasty had no civil and military personnel capable of resisting the enemy. Emperor Kangxi had no choice but to hang up the list, claiming that those who could "conquer Xilu Fan would be granted the title of prince for all generations." Shaolin monks volunteered to defend the enemy and repelled the invaders in one fell swoop. After returning to the court in victory, they refused to receive rewards and still returned to the temple to chant sutras, preach sermons, and practice Taoism. Unexpectedly, they were framed by traitors, the temple was burned, most of the monks died tragically, and the remaining eighteen people fled. In the end, only five people escaped death. "When they came to the mouth of Baisha Bay (Guangdong), suddenly three pieces of old granite floated on the sea surface. There is a white incense burner on the stone surface with the words "Reverse the Qing Dynasty and Fu Ming Dynasty" on the bottom, and the words "Hong Ying" in the center. Five people raised it and swore an oath to the Heavenly Alliance, planting grass as incense, and sworn to the Heaven and Earth Society. The time is July 25, the Jiayin year of Kangxi. When they were sworn friends, another boy happened to come, his surname was Zhu and his name was Hongzhu, and he was the grandson of Li Shenfei, the empress of the West Palace of Emperor Chongzhen. When Li Zicheng led the peasant army to attack Beijing in the seventeenth year of Chongzhen (44), Li Shenfei escaped with pregnancy and hid in Fuhua Mountain. She gave birth to a son, Zhu Hongying. Later, Hongying gave birth to a son named Hongzhu. The five remaining monks from the Shaolin Temple jointly supported Zhu Hongzhu as the leader, "revolted against the Qing Dynasty and restored the Ming Dynasty" and "restored the Central Plains." This is the famous "Xilu Story" legend.

Judging from the "Xilu Story", it is obvious that the Tiandihui was founded in order to accumulate and organize strength and Xu Tu's resurrection after the failure of public resistance. It is true that the "Xilu Story" is a legend that may not be based on real people. However, any myth or legend does not appear and spread accidentally. In other words, it is a tortuous reflection of the social life and social reality of its era. Therefore, the "Xilu Story" can actually be regarded as a prominent reflection of the social reality struggle in the early Qing Dynasty.

According to the legend of "Xilu Story", the first alliance between Tiandihui was on July 25th of the Jiayin year of Kangxi. Jiayin reigned for the thirteenth year of Kangxi (74). This was an important era of great social turmoil in the history of the Qing Dynasty. In November of the twelfth year of Kangxi's reign, Prince Pingxi Wu Sangui claimed to be the "General of the Xingming Dynasty to fight against the captives" in Yunnan, and openly raised troops to rebel against the Qing Dynasty. In December, the White Lotus song Yang Qilong in the capital pretended to be the third prince of Emperor Chongzhen of the Ming Dynasty and organized the "Zhongxing officers and soldiers" to revolt in Beijing. In the thirteenth year, Jingnan King Geng Jingzhong and Sun Yanling raised their troops to respond. The governors and admirals of Guizhou, the governors of Sichuan, the admirals of Guangxi, Sichuan and Shaanxi, who had always been in league with Wu Sangui, and Zheng Jing who stayed alone in Taiwan, also joined the anti-Qing camp.In less than half a year, the anti-Qing war raged across most of China.

Wu Sangui raised troops to fight against the Qing Dynasty. Although it was essentially a separatist movement, this move catered to the anti-Manchu mentality of some people at the time. The Ming royal family (including the Zheng Jing Group), some Han landlords, officials, Soldiers and upper-class ethnic minorities, as well as farmers and slaves in some areas responded quickly. Among them, the anti-Qing people among the landlord class were particularly active. For example, Zhu Tongqi of Fujian "previously used the name of the Ming clan to gather party members and occupy the valley"; Zheng Jing, who had always used Nanming Yongli Zhengshuo, wrote to Wu Sangui, claiming that "now the world is looking up to you, His Highness is the only one, and he has no time to review military affairs. "Is there a lonely minister outside the world?" He publicly expressed his desire to cooperate with them to fight against the Qing Dynasty, and directed his troops towards the coastal areas of Fujian and Zhejiang.

However, they soon became aware of Wu Sangui's ambition to fight against the Qing Dynasty. Thinking of his various ugly performances in colluding with the Qing soldiers to brutally suppress the peasant army and the Southern Ming Dynasty, and personally hunting down Emperor Yongli before and after the Qing troops entered the Pass, they naturally no longer associated with him. , so they turned to combine it with the secret anti-Qing struggle of the people who had gone underground, taking advantage of the objectively favorable situation created by the fierce struggle within the ruling class at that time, and adopted the method of "sworn blood alliance and oath to burn the table to worship brothers" to Some anti-Qing and Ming forces in the Fujian and Guangdong regions secretly organized themselves, which led to the establishment of the Tiandihui, a secret folk association in the early Qing Dynasty. "The Story of Xilu" tells the story about the five remaining monks from the Shaolin Temple who formed a bloody alliance on July 25, the Jiayin year of Kangxi, and founded the Tiandihui. This is a reflection of the specific time of the origin of the Tiandihui.

Relevant records in Qing Dynasty archives and official documents also prove this point. In February of the fifty-third year of Qianlong's reign (1788), during the process of suppressing Lin Shuangwen's uprising, the Qing government captured Yan Yan, a key member of the Tiandihui who knew the details of the Tiandihui. Under severe torture by the Qing government, Yan Yan was forced to give a more detailed explanation of the issues related to the Tiandihui. Among them, he described the origin of the Tiandihui like this: "It is said that the Tiandihui was originated from the surnames Zhu and Li. It was spread from Sichuan Province for a long time. Arima Jiulong gathered forty-eight monks to perform the magic of driving away Yin soldiers. Later, forty-eight people died, and only thirteen people started meetings in Guangdong. The person who started the meeting in Guangdong was named Zhu Dingyuan, and the person who started the meeting was actually Li. I don’t know the name. The two families passed down a secret code named Hong, so they called it Hong Erfang.” After Yan Yan was deported to the capital, he confessed again: “I heard Chen Biao say that this sect has a long history, and there used to be people named Zhu and Li. They were named Zhu Dingyuan and Li. Later, there was a man called Ma Jiulong who gathered many monks to practice the art of dispelling the Yin soldiers. In recent years, there was a monk Wan, whose common name was Tu Xi. He is a preacher. Chen Biao once taught me two sayings: "Three surnames are connected with Li Taohong, and Jiulong is born with Li Zhuhong." This is the origin of the Tiandi Hui, which is said to be based on monk Wan in Sichuan. I heard that he was preaching in Guangdong. Even at the time when Chen Biao told me, he could not remember the year or the specific place. I also had no way of knowing that the monk Hong Erfang was not the real person, but the surname of Zhu and Li. The general title of Monk Wan. "Yan Yan's confession is consistent with the main plot of "The Story of Xilu". That is to say, when the Tiandihui was founded, Zhu Hongzhu, the grandson of his father's family named Zhu and his mother's family named Li, was supported as the leader. Therefore, Zhu and Li were the ancestors of the Tiandihui. The surnames Zhu and Li represent the Zhu Ming Dynasty. And because the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang, had the reign name of Hongwu, Zhu and Li performed the surname Hong. The so-called "Zhu Hongzhu" means "Zhu Hongzu", and "Zhu Dingyuan" is actually a metaphor for the Dingge era of the Zhu Ming Dynasty.

"Three surnames are married to Wan Li Taohong, and Kowloon is born to Li Zhuhong." The meaning of the poem "The Heaven and Earth Club" is obviously a metaphor for the time when all the brothers of the Wan family joined the surname Hong and gathered all over the world to support the Zhu Ming Dynasty, that was the fall of the Qing Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty. The day when he ascended the dragon throne again and the Ding era began. This fully shows that the Heaven and Earth Society has a long history and has gone through a long development process from Kangxi to Qianlong. Therefore, we have every reason to believe that Yan Yan's confession proves from one aspect that the Tiandi Society was founded in Jiayin, the 13th year of Kangxi's reign.

Not long after the founding of the Tiandihui, the political situation across the country underwent major changes. The Qing government finally put down the "San Francisco Rebellion" in the 20th year of Kangxi (81). After unifying Taiwan in the 22nd year (83), it firmly established its rule over the whole country. This forced the Heaven and Earth Society to develop in a more secretive direction, thus entering a period of dispersing the society and secretly developing the organization. In the first month of the first year of Daoguang (1821), Guangxi Governor Zhao Shenzhen reported that the "meeting book, waist certificate" and "taught slogans of the Western Guangdong Tiandi Society are all from the old editions of more than a hundred years ago", which is enough to illustrate this problem.

During the Qianlong period, the "prosperity" of the Qing Dynasty was coming to an end. As the ruling class intensifies its exploitation, oppression, and plunder of the working people, social class contradictions gradually intensify. The activities of Tiandihui are becoming increasingly active. Due to the limitations of class and history, the majority of the oppressed people at that time did not have a clear understanding of the class essence of the ethnic discrimination and oppression policies that the Qing rulers had always implemented, and regarded the ethnic oppression of the Qing Dynasty as the main source of their own suffering. It was under this situation that through the secret preaching of Wan Tixi and his disciples in Guangdong, Fujian and other places, the organization of the Tiandi Society and its strong anti-Qing and Fuming traditions were restored and developed.

Wan Tixi, also known as Monk Hong Er, was born in Guanyin Pavilion, Gaoxi Township, Zhangpu County, Fujian Province. The layman's surname was Zheng, with Wan and Hong as his surnames. He obviously intended to join the Tiandihui and "use the word Hong as a codeword", that is, he borrowed the name Hongwu to encourage people to fight against the Qing rulers under the banner of the Zhu Ming Dynasty. According to Yan Yan's confession, Wan Tixi first taught Tiandihui in Guangdong during the Qianlong period. After that, he returned to his hometown Guanyinting to continue to develop the congregation.

In the process of passing on the meeting, he created the secrets of eating cigarettes, tea with three fingers, and "the secret code of Jimuli Doushi". It should be emphasized here that Wan Tixi's "Mu Li Fights the World" code not only implies that the Qing Dynasty will perish in the 32nd year of Qianlong's reign, but actually calls on the oppressed to take up arms and overthrow it in the 32nd year of Qianlong's reign. The rule of the Qing Dynasty prepared public opinion for the future Tiandihui uprising led by Lin Shuangwen and others; the members of the Tiandihui he taught personally became an important backbone of the spread of the Tiandihui in Guangdong and Fujian during the Qianlong period, setting the stage for future Lin Shuangwen and others. The Tiandihui uprising under his leadership was organized and prepared. Because of this, Wan Tixi became a mysterious figure respected by everyone in heaven and earth, and was also hated by the Qing rulers. Qianlong said, "The scriptures of Tiandi Huijie have been found to originate from monk Hong Er. Now that I have confessed according to my righteousness, my father Tixi is the monk Hong Er. There is no doubt that Tixi is the main culprit in this case." This is exactly the situation. outstanding reflection. It effectively illustrates that Wantixi has indeed played an extremely important role in the development history of Tiandihui. However, we must not draw arbitrary conclusions such as "Wantixi is the founder that has always been recognized by the congregation of heaven and earth."

From the above, the statement that Tiandihui was officially founded in Jiayin, the 13th year of Kangxi, is consistent with historical reality.